Episode Overview
What if your company’s culture isn’t something you transform once, but something you continuously evolve and accelerate? In this episode, Workplace Innovator Tom Kegode joins Luke to reflect on his three-year journey driving culture change at Lloyd’s Banking Group and the lessons he’s taking into his new chapter. From reimagining hybrid work during the pandemic to growing a grassroots movement of 7,000 internal ‘catalysts,’ Tom’s approach is grounded in pace, practicality, and human connection.
Together, they unpack Tom’s Work Lab concept – a 30-day sprint methodology, and explore how to optimise modern work through simple changes, like the “three A’s” of meetings and dedicated “Stop Parties.” Tom shares how he successfully coached senior leaders on short-form video storytelling, bridging generational divides and injecting humanity into comms. If you’ve ever wondered how to inject urgency, accelerate change, or ensure you are “staying human in a high-tech world,” this one’s for you.
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Luke: Hello and welcome back to Culture In Action. I’m Luke Fisher, CEO of Mo. My guest today is Tom Kegode, a Workplace Innovator Transformation Leader, and until very recently, the driving force behind culture change at Lloyd’s Banking Group. Tom and I first met when he was stepping into a brand new role, reimagining how HR leaders connected across the Lloyd’s Banking Group. Fast forward three years, and we’ve caught up again at a big moment as Tom wraps up his time at Lloyd’s and steps into a new chapter. In this conversation, Tom reflects on the culture shifts he’s led, and we unpack the power of storytelling, the rise of short-form leadership comms, and what it takes to build momentum from the top and from the grassroots level.
Luke: So, Tom, we first met when you were just stepping into this new role, which is not so new anymore, at Lloyd’s Banking Group, and you asked me to come along and present at Sharon’s event as you were trying to reimagine the HR leaders across Lloyd’s Banking Group. Now we’re fast-forwarding nearly three years. It terrifies me because I’ve probably got quite a few more grey hairs, and I’m sure a lot has happened for you and for me. So, do you want to just tell us a little bit about your journey into people and the passion that you have for culture and maybe a little bit about your time in the last three years?
Tom: I’d started as a cashier many years ago. Moved into a number of frontline roles and leadership roles, regional roles within the branch network for Lloyd’s in the Southwest and then the Wales and West region. That grounding of on the frontline customer service, leading large teams, was always the backbone of what I took into the roles that I went on to do from there. And I think that’s been really important because I’ve been able to go into teams where we’ve been driving change and say, “Look, how does it impact the customer? How do we make sure that we’re keeping the customer and people that serve customers at the front of our thinking?”
So from my branch network days, I then moved into some central roles, which really helped me get the understanding of how you operate a large retail bank. We’ve got 65,000 employees, right? And multiple different areas of focus. So that was really interesting, and we were designing some of the reward mechanisms that we had. So I spent some time doing that before I kind of found my niche and the place that I liked to play the most, which was in innovation.
So, during the COVID pandemic, there was an opportunity, and I was asked if I would come across from what was the digital part of the organisation to the People and Places team specifically to look at how do we reimagine the concept of work at that time. So, if you cast your mind back, we had a number of buildings where we were looking at how do we make them safer for colleagues to start to return? What’s the work that they’re going to do in those buildings start to look like? What does hybrid look like? So I designed the first wave of hybrid, and that’s kind of where my mindset of bringing colleagues and leaders together to really drive some of that change came to life. And then Sharon asked me if I would come and work with her directly on how we change the way that we communicate and build connections across the HR function as a whole.
So that’s where I’ve been for the last three years now, with a sharp focus on transformation and the transformation journey that the organisation’s on. It effectively aimed to do three things, really. So from an HR and People and Places perspective, one is how do we help the organisation to transform? That looks like the buildings, that looks like the systems, the processes that sit behind the whole experiences that our people have. How do we transform the people experience in the light of ongoing technological advancements? What does the people experience in a more personalised experience need to look like? And then the third part of that transformation is looking at how do we transform the ways of working as a People and Places function. So, the idea being that HR teams can be so often seen as blockers to people being able to do things at pace. Whereas actually the approach that we took within Lloyds was slightly different. And that was kind of looking at how do you use the People and Places team as a function that is almost a bit of a hot house where we will test before they go to other parts of the group. I hate the expression “eating our own dog food.” I like to call it “drinking our own champagne,” but it’s almost that kind of, we should never be a blocker. We should always be helping the business to accelerate at pace.
Luke: Yeah, lead by example, right?
Tom: Absolutely. And that’s kind of where I’ve been up to now. So we’ve done a load of really exciting things, but primarily for me, that kind of obsession around the evolution of work. And I’ve talked for many years about disruption. And after 16 years at Lloyd’s, I decided it was probably about time I disrupted myself. So I sort of decided at the beginning of 2025 that actually, I feel like I am. With the stuff that I’ve been doing and the kind of culture change that I’ve been driving, I really want to help more teams and more leaders to move and create great places to work. So I’m sort of embarking on a new freelance career at the end of… as we’re…
Luke: Exciting.
Tom: …of this week.
Luke: I know. What a moment.
Tom: I know. So it’s really quite a reflective time. But one of the things I would say is that I’ve had such great opportunities at Lloyd’s Banking Group. I will be leaving as a massive advocate of the organisation and a friend of the organisation. And I’ve got no doubt that I will be continuing conversations with people as they’re driving that change. Just from perhaps a slightly different perspective.
Luke: Yeah. Very cool. And it is very exciting for me to be in this moment when I was there at the start of your transition to a role, and now I’m at the end as well.
Tom: It is.
Luke: …which is cool.
Tom: It’s all stories, Luke, isn’t it? And it’s the kind of, this is like, this is what the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. And I think when we were together on that day back in Stansted, we were talking at the beginning about stories. And it’s really, really interesting to see how it’s kind of that full circle of that kind of story arc for me has changed and is moving on to something else. And that’s why I think storytelling’s so critical in any kind of transformation and culture change journey that you’re on.
Luke: Yeah, I agree. People tend to remember stats or stories, right? And the better the story, the more it sticks with people. On that note, I’m going to ask you for a couple because I’m catching you at such a unique time. I wondered if I could ask you, you know, what are those stories that you would go on to tell, which are the ones that you’re really proud of in the context of change and culture that you’ve been able to drive across your last three years or so?
Building Momentum from the Grassroots
Tom: Yeah, sure. And I think, you know, that leadership community that we started talking about where we first met is a real key one for me because I set that up, bringing together the top 350 HR leaders for the first time since COVID, and that was back in 2022. It was really an opportunity. I’ve been on quite a journey to develop that community. So, we’ve got 350 people across the UK, plus some global representation as well now. It was all about that journey that we’ve been on to bring them together. That first event was about bringing them and connecting them, and we actually called it Connecting our Leaders. It was the first time we brought them together for two days to really become a community. And then thinking about how they could be part of that kind of ongoing transformation that we had to deliver. And then it was almost starting to continually refine that. That was the first event. I’ve run three now. I took them up to Liverpool and we did a two-day away day there where there was a mixture of how can we bring to life some of the products that our teams are bringing together, but also make time for team cohesion and social connection. I think that’s so important when you bring people together. And then last year, again, a similar spirit. So this kind of community of changemakers, I’ve developed that from a point of a disparate leadership team that weren’t really having that much time and opportunity to come together and connect, to having a real regular cadence where at the end of every year we’ll come together and bring them together to look at the products that they’re about to launch to the organisation in the following year, reflect on the successes, spend that time connecting and being really aligned on the strategy and the mission. So that kind of activation journey.
And then the other thing that I’ve also introduced over that time is this concept of hub events for them as well. So in the middle of the year, we will get them together for a very different purpose. This is much more of an opportunity for them to get together and work with people outside of their direct teams and actually tackle some of the real challenges, ideate around those and come up with solutions for taking that forward. So definitely that kind of activation of the leadership community.
But I also think just as important is this kind of, when you’re looking at a community of leaders, there’s leaders, but then there’s also that kind of groundswell movement that you can also create in terms of the colleagues that are really the catalyst for the change that you want to see. Now back in the early times in COVID when we were trying to figure out what does the future of work need to look like? I developed this kind of organic community of what I called work heroes at the time. It was a small group, a couple of hundred people that we were up for being part of driving the change, removing some of the blockers. Now, over the last three years, we’ve grown that to 7,000, what we call catalysts across the organisation, who are kind of, we’ve given them a bit of training, some storytelling skills. We’ve briefed them in and sort of let them in the concept of radical candour. And actually, we said, “Look, we want you to be part of helping us to find the things that are getting in the way of us moving at pace.” So that kind of, I think when you combine that combination of leaders and then a groundswell movement of grassroots catalysts for change, and empower them and say, “Look, we want 10% of the organisation to be this catalyst population, and we want to be spending 10% of your time looking at how you can create better experiences and unblock things that are getting in the way of us looking to move forward with our strategy.”
So I think those two things are really key, Luke. There’s so much other stuff that I’ve done, particularly around some of the storytelling and skills as well. We’ve been on a journey with some of our all-hands calls to make them much more TV production style, looking at how we connect our teams internationally. And then this other concept, which is called Deal Day, which is another one I’m really proud of, which is where we’re trying to level up the skills across a function of 1,500 people. So every quarter we encourage everyone to Drop Everything And Learn. So we give them a Deal Day once a quarter, and then Deal Time, drop everything and learn, once a week. They get an hour, which we put into the diary and say, “Look, it’s your time to learn.” The quarterly ones we give a bit more of a kind of experience around the curriculum, which we set based on the kind of skills that we feel need to level up across the whole team. And actually, it’s the opportunity for people to come together in their regional hubs, spend time together, but actually upskill and learn at the same time. So there’s just a few of the things that’s been going on which I’m particularly proud of.
The Work Lab: A 30-Day Accelerator
Luke: Very, very cool. And you talked to me a little bit about this concept called a Work Lab. And I likened it a little bit to like a Google Sprint for anyone that works in tech and has perhaps watched or listened or completed one of those before. But I’d love to hear a little bit, like, did any of these ideas come from a Work Lab or what is that approach and how could somebody listening either try it or think about this as a way to operate?
Tom: Yeah, sure. So Work Lab is the kind of concept that I have developed over the years of delivering change and working in innovation teams using sprint thinking. So it’s kind of the method that I use when I’m looking at driving key change. And I guess that comes with five years leading innovation teams. When I came across to People and Places, I was like, “How can I bring some of this methodology in a way that enables people to move at pace?” And so I designed the kind of the concept during the pandemic when we were looking to get people in this mindset of like, “We need to make change happen and we need to make it happen fast.” The way I often like to think about it is there’s a bit as an accelerator, so there’s so much that you can do, which we realised back then, that if you have that right level of focus.
So in terms of how the Work Lab concept operates, the two key communities that are part of that are your kind of leaders, and you need to make sure you’ve got that leadership sponsor for a particular challenge that you’re looking to solve. And then you have these core people that you sort of bring from across your kind of change catalyst population, who are people that said, “I’m up for learning some new skills. I’m up for some change, and I’m up for being on a little bit of a project for a short period of time.” And then you bring those two populations together, so you’d have a core squad, which is made up of a few leaders, the people that can really help unlock and unblock things, as well as these catalysts that can really bring their ideas and lived experience into that mix. And then it’s a case of like, “Okay, we define what it is that we’re looking to go after, and then let’s set ourselves up a 30-day time period where we can look at how do we go through some of the design thinking style processes to go through that.” So really giving you the framework to go through that process.
So I think of it in three phases. So three 10-day sprints almost, right? So the first part: identify what’s the challenge that you’re looking to solve, what’s the real problem, and that’s the “fall in love with a problem” section. So you really understand what that problem is that you’re looking to solve. What would success look like? So really important in that phase to also design those core success measures and critical success factors and metrics that you want to track through doing your customer research and colleague research. So speaking to people and getting as much input as you can in that phase is really critical. So then it’s that kind of data gathering that’s over that first 10 days, setting out what you’re looking to do.
Next 10-day phase is all around the co-creation. So that’s when you really start to get into some of that design, start to workshop, co-create like a product that could be a solution to the challenge that you are looking to drive. So, that’s really about that kind of co-working, co-creating environment, that ideation and actually doing quick tests that you can kind of use as a way to nudge. And this works particularly well when it comes to ways of working and culture, just because of the fact that these are things that have behaviours or changes that you can kind of work. But it works for many things. I’ve used it for strategy and alignment on strategy as well. And so that’s that co-create phase, which is the second phase of that 30-day sprint.
And then it’s about activation. So you’ve got your concept and you’ve started to develop what the product is. Now, what’s your pathway to activation? So in terms of like what that looks like on activation day, how do you announce that? Is it some kind of social moment where everyone’s talking about the thing that you’re doing? So it is that kind of defining what the activation pathway is, and then that ends on activation day. So it’s almost that kind of accelerator at the very beginning of any change process. And I guess the great thing about this and why it’s great for me working with teams and squads is that at the same time what it’s doing is building capability within the team and within that squad that you are working with for a defined period of time. Now that lasts, right? Those behaviours last. The ways of working that we will go through and that kind of structure of sprint and delivering change at pace lasts. So I can go and work with a team for that period of time, but the impact is long lasting after that in the way that they work and the way that they build that kind of culture of pace and delivery when it comes to implementing change. So I think, and it’s also a great opportunity to have fun along the way too.
Luke: Yeah, I suppose because 30 days feels like there’s enough effort, but also fast enough to yield some form of results or learnings, at least right, to know whether you are on the right path or not. What’s been your favourite one of those? Is there one you can talk about in terms of the group and the outcome?
Tom: I mean, you know, one of the ones is kind of some of the things that I’ve used this method for in particular. There’s a concept that I’ve brought for some of the work that we’ve been doing around, with leaders and leadership teams, you know, you can quite often go into leadership teams and there’s lots of talking and not very many decisions can be made. And I wanted to sort of disprove that. So there’s the concept of at the very beginning of the phase is this concept of what I call a rapid ideate and decide. So you would go through this kind of set out the stall that within an hour you’re going to go from ideation to a decision. And you’ve got to kind of structure that session in a way that enables people to have their views. Also, some quiet reflection, which is often quite tricky in leadership teams when everyone wants to have a conversation. You’ve got to be quite strict. So it’s almost like what’s the alignment that we are looking to solve here? Now let’s go into some quiet ideation. Five minutes, bring your ideas together and then take that through into conversation around it, and then collective prioritisation, and then ultimately decision. So it’s like you can get to that point within an hour. So I think that’s quite an interesting one.
You know, there’s been a number of ones where, you know, I’ve done it for things over where we were thinking about the office redesign and the way that we designed some of that. What’s really interesting is you’re bringing people together from multiple areas of an organisation. Also, people are, it’s quite, you’ve got to try and push the thinking within it because often people will be thinking about how they solve for now rather than solving for tomorrow. So you’ve got to really kind of stretch that thinking, and the role of the kind of the facilitator to do that. But yeah, there’s been a number of things when it comes to sort of. Where they work best is when we are looking at large-scale evolution, which is kind of what I would describe as I’ve stopped talking so much about transformation recently. I’ve started talking much more about evolution because I think transformation signals that at some point it will be done, whatever it is that we are looking at. But actually, in a world of constant change, today’s the slowest it’s ever going to be in our lifetime. We need to continue that iterative approach to change and build change fluency within our teams because it’s only going to keep coming. It’s only going to be ongoing. So, I think that’s a great opportunity for this kind of activity, that kind of large-scale evolution, for that kind of Work Lab concept, but also sort of reset moments when there’s something really tricky that you need to figure out.
The Short-Form Storytelling Shift
Luke: It’s an interesting point because if you think of in your new world, the times in which people are going to be getting in touch with you, it’s often that rhythm of work that is established around annual planning windows, change of leadership, all of those kind of situations. Often you try to go about it yourself and think about like, what’s the best way in which you can do this? Whereas actually some external facilitation just levels the playing field very, very quickly, and everybody can become the contributor, which allows you to take a role too, if you are the person buying the services, which is super helpful.
Okay, now that, that, that’s very, very, very interesting, and I’m excited to give one of these sessions a try, to be honest. So, one of the things you said really struck a chord with me, which is the quiet reflection time. You and I are quite extroverted personalities, but I work with some of my team, you know, on the product side or engineering side, are much more introverted and really value the opportunity to not have the conversation frankly, in a position in which they can collect thoughts, process and so on. So what other kind of tips, tricks, what else is in the kit bag in terms of making sure that you do bring all of the voices from across the organisation, not just have the leaders trump all and be in a position in which everybody’s a part of this to get that kind of collective buy-in?
Tom: Yeah, absolutely. And look, there’s some really smart ways to do that these days, I think, which would’ve been a lot harder during my time in innovation. You know, I left the innovation team in 2019. We were all sort of, you know, in the office every day. You do an ideation workshop, you do it in person, but actually with the kind of technological setups that we’ve got and hybrid working, I think that’s been a huge unlock in terms of the level of inclusion that we can provide during these kind of experiences. And I feel like it’s democratised innovation, so I can bring together people on short, sharp calls that might be a cashier on the counter in Cornwall with an investment director in Edinburgh for 30 minutes of ideation. The unlock that has had is only just, I think, being realised.
What becomes even more powerful is when we look at the concept of hybrid, rather than it being of where you are in the office, the office or hybrid meeting. We need to think about the hybridity of the end-to-end experience. What works best in a virtual environment, what works best in a face-to-face environment and how you can build true hybrid across the life cycle of the thing that it is you’re trying to do. So an example of that, right? If you are thinking about developing a new solution and you want to do some ideation around that solution as a squad, you might set up a Miro or a whiteboard where actually you can start that process in a virtual space. Give people the time to reflect on the challenge question that you have. Submit their ideas and give them a time window to do that. That might be done completely virtually. You might then say, “We’re going to have a session where we’re going to actually look at these ideas and really start to unpick them and understand them.” You might come together in person to do that. Then you spend that time where you’ve already got the ideas that are in there, giving people that time to reflect. And actually you can come to have and have a richer conversation when you’re together in person. Then you may go and follow up in a virtual way. So actually then you do the kind of insight gathering and then you actually identify some of those key trends and then you go back into your virtual space.
So rather than thinking as like, “This is a hybrid experience,” we need to think about the end-to-end process that we go through, and what’s the opportunity for us to use technology to create a more inclusive experience for you, whatever your kind of personality type, whatever your way of working type, gives you that opportunity to reflect. So you can create that same thing in in-person experiences as well, just by the way that you structure an hour session. But I think there’s so much that’s been unlocked by this kind of thinking about that end-to-end journey now when it comes to bringing people in and giving them the opportunity to contribute in a way that works best for them.
Luke: Yeah, so really interesting point. And one of the observations that I have leading teams is the nature of meetings sometimes get overdone. And it’s because people try to do too much in one meeting rather than being in a position where they divvy that up into the discrete tasks or the progressive step in the process that people want to make. We try and do the whole process in a meeting, or we don’t get even started anywhere near enough on the first progressive step of the process that we’re trying to go through. So I think specifically designing them also means you don’t need to end up in four-hour meetings all of the time to workshop these things through. You can do it bit by bit by bit, which means the first part might only be 20 minutes as an absolute download of ideas that you’ve got. And the next bit might be enrichment and the next bit prioritisation. And they can just come at different times in different chunks and it means that overall you’ll make a lot more progress than trying to find, you know, half a day when everybody can get together.
Tom: Absolutely. And meetings is a really interesting one. So as an example, one of the things recently I’ve been looking at with some teams is how do we make meetings matter, the concept of meetings. So many times we spend time in meetings and actually how are we making sure that we’ve got the right people on there? You know, this kind of concept of like a 30-minute meeting is the default setting for a meeting. When can you do that thing in 10 minutes? It doesn’t need to be that. It’s almost, we default to that. And then if you’ve got it in the diary, you’ll fill the time. So how can you think about, you know, I call them the three A’s of meetings, right? What’s the agenda? What’s the attendees? What’s the action that needs to be taken as a result of that? And that’s something which we’ve sought to look at how can we nudge those behaviours? If the meeting doesn’t have an agenda, you know, absolutely fine to decline that. Like how do you create that where it’s not like, “Oh, the meeting’s drops in, I need to be there.” Do you need to be there? Are you the right person to be there? And what’s the actual action that we’re going to be taking off the back of it? So it’s definitely something that there’s so much opportunity because I think meetings became, you know, when everyone’s working in a much more virtual way, meetings became the only way to get things done or to have conversations. And that’s where I think there’s a real value in the office in this whole scenario because, you know, if I’m going into the office, I try and have as few meetings in my diary as possible, and make the time to connect with people because that’s where you can get the casual, “Oh, what do you think about this? Where are you on this?” It fills you up with the things that you then need to do on a more of a focus day. So it is kind of, yeah, there’s, I think there’s a number of things in the way that we work that is so open and it’s so right for people to start to explore and optimise. And every little moment that you have with your team when you are starting a new project, you’ve got an opportunity to recontract. You can really talk about like, “How are we going to work together? What’s the best way to get, you know, for us to work and get the best out of each other,” both from a personal perspective and the team perspective. Because you can start to think, “Right, let’s agree. This is our ways of working.” At your next retro, you can review that. How has that gone? And then you can really start to have that ongoing dialogue around the way that you work and optimise rather than just accept the behaviours around work that have just always been there.
Luke: Yeah, completely. And some of these things feel so small, right? Like getting a meeting or a workshop to really, really work. But they’re so powerful when they do work. Have you got any examples where you’ve been able to really catalyse change or you’ve seen like a big mindset shift happen there and then in the room, either at Lloyd’s or any other organisation that you’ve worked with?
Tom: Yeah, so look, there’s one which is quite active at the moment. I’m going to be delivering a session with some leaders tomorrow, and I’ve been doing a series of these. And this is really all around this concept of how storytelling has evolved. And actually our leaders need to evolve with the times. And there’s a real opportunity, I think when it comes to how our leaders can show up and what that means for the organisation as well. So, bringing together 350 top leadership team, and actually over a period of time that they go through a condensed two-day offsite experience where they’re getting lots of external stimulus around what’s going on in the world and what’s next for the strategy. So I come in at the end of that and do a storytelling session. Now this storytelling session is all around the concept of short-form video and storytelling. So, you can imagine I go in there at the end of these two days at the last session of the two days and start talking about storytelling, and then I start talking about TikTok, and you can imagine the looks that I’m getting.
Luke: People’s faces. Yeah.
Tom: And they’re like, “What are you talking about?” “TikTok’s for my kids.” But it’s the concept. You know, it’s not that we’re saying that everyone needs to be a TikToker, but what it is is that actually the impact that TikTok has had on the way that people consume content and the way that people like to kind of be communicated to. So you’ve effectively got three seconds now to stop the scroll and to capture people’s attention. So, the journey that we’ve been on from a storytelling perspective started off around campfires. Then it went into print, and then it was moving imagery and cinema. And then it was like the Mad Men era where we had like 30-second ads. And now it’s down to the length of time of a sneeze.
So, there’s a huge opportunity, I think for leaders to really start to understand how they might build short-form video storytelling into their toolkit. Now that can look really different. It can be something that, you know, they just share their end-of-week wrap. Rather than doing an email, they might do a short video and send it to the teams channel. It might be that they’re using LinkedIn to share the reflections of an event that they’ve been at. So this journey, and it’s great to see the faces sort of drop when I talk about TikTok, and I say, “Look, we’re not going to try and make you a TikTok influencer.” The thing is what we want to do is give you the space and creativity to explore what it might look like. And that’s the point where we’ll bring in some of the kind of Gen Z next-generation stars of some TikTok channels that’s relevant to that organisation. And so that they’ve already seen the organisation. We show them a few of the ones that have been done right. And then we say, “Look, who better than to help you than some people that are part of this TikTok squad that’s in existence?” And then they will work with senior leaders.
So you’ve got kind of this next-gen talent coming in who will work with senior leaders to help them think about reflecting on the last two days that they’ve had. So, what’s five things that you can take away from this experience and how can you make that into a short-form video? What we found by doing that is that the senior leaders are in a position where they’re feeling quite uncomfortable. Then they work with this next-gen coach who is somebody that is native to that platform, and helps them think about, “Well, how do you crisp up your story? What’s the key message? How do you make it a bit more succinct?” And actually gets them to think that, “I don’t have to do a polished landscape video version to cut through and get the message across.” So they have a block of time where they go off and they record. They do a bit of ideation quite quickly around the story they’re going to tell. Then they think like, “What’s a creative concept that we can do?” All supported by these coaches. And then they record, and then whilst the coaches start editing, so they’ve got 10 minutes to edit, we do a bit of a reflection time together. Big room discussion, big room chat, I like to call them. So we’ll talk about, “Well, how was that for you? What was the experience? What did you learn?” And actually people are coming out with things like, “I’ve realised that actually, it’s an opportunity both for me to have some fun. I can actually, I can give the, I don’t have to be as polished as I think.” And actually that kind of humanity that comes across and almost being a little bit vulnerable as leaders is something that really appeals to people.
And then, actually the biggest thing, which is something that is huge in my mind at the moment, is this concept of multi-generational working. The best thing that they say is the impact of working with a coach who is at the very early stage of their career and the opportunity that they’ve got for that knowledge exchange and to learn across generation was the most powerful thing for them. So I really think there’s something in that. Now we’ve got five generations in the workforce. There’s a huge opportunity for this shift from a generational divide to a generational exchange because everything I’ve seen from these exchanges is so powerful. And it’s all that kind of multi-generational crossover and mutual benefit of wisdom exchange. So I think there’s a huge opportunity, but that’s my favourite example. That’s quite live at the moment. I’m going to go and run another one of those sessions tomorrow.
Luke: Yeah, I think it is fascinating how the power of some of these sessions is in helping people know and understand what they need rather than what they think they necessarily want. You might often go to a seminar because you want an expert speaker on a topic because it’s intellectually stimulating for you versus your need as a leader is how do you engage an audience of people that are your kid’s age, potentially. And it is fascinating. Does that happen all the time?
Tom: So it’s not always, but you know, I think one of the things that’s come out of this particular sort of short-form video concept is that it’s a channel that cuts across generations as well. I had a leader that left the session that he’d done and been part of it. And actually what he was, he then changed his way of communicating with his team, a couple of thousand people, contact centre workers. And he changed his way that he communicated his weekly roundup, and the feedback was unreal. So, he posted his weekly update. They were like, “This is so refreshing. Thank you so much for being open and sharing, you know, you are the vlogger now.” And it’s like the bar’s been raised, and it’s all a result of that look, “Maybe I can do things differently. Maybe I can change the way that I operate,” and just being brave to try it and bold enough to give it a go. And that’s when you see that kind of impact that has, which is really powerful.
Adaptability and the Human Differentiator
Luke: Very, very cool. It seems like there’s a lot, like you say, these are small, subtle changes in the ways that people work. Like how often do you think about, you know, mixing up your approach to wrap up, which is quite a common bookend to the week? What other ways of working transformation evolutions have you seen come out of these types of sessions?
Tom: Yeah, so I think there’s definitely the concept of what you are able to do if you kind of put your mind to it and give yourself that rigour around it. So, leadership teams is quite an example I mentioned earlier around this ability to get to idea to decision within an hour at pace. To do sessions within 30 minutes, and people say, “You’ve never got enough time to do that,” and then you prove them that you can. So when people tell me that, I’m kind of like, “Well, let me show you.” So there’s always ways of doing things, we just haven’t figured out the new way yet.
The other thing I think is, I like to run, whenever I’m doing these kind of sessions, when we’re looking at like, “What is it that we’re trying to do?” “What is it that we need to stop?” in order to do that because you can just keep adding things and then you’ve just got more noise. So this kind of concept, I like to call them stop parties. We’ll be like, “What are the things that we are going to stop? Let’s have a party, put some music on, and be like, ‘What do you want to stop?'” What are the things that we do that just don’t work or that we question why they are? So that kind of mindset of almost you need to stop things to start rebuilding, and sometimes you need to completely break things and destroy them to start to rebuild processes and systems, I think is a bit of a shift, because so often you can just keep adding and then it’s just creating noise. I think that kind of, definitely the ways of working that change in creating an environment and that kind of external someone external to the situation coming in and creating that, can create that space to ask the questions that people are too scared to ask. So it’s almost like I can ask the questions where people just accept things. You know, I can go in there and be like, “Well, why?” And they’ll be like, “Oh, because that’s what we do.” “But why do you do it like that?” “Well, we’ve done it for that for a number of years.” “Why though?” And then you can just, I keep asking why five times and I’ll end up getting to a point where people are like, “Actually, I’m not quite sure and it doesn’t really make sense. Maybe we should stop that.” It is creating that environment and almost again, I think a lot of it comes back to contracting. You can do this in teams, but if you really clearly set out the way that you’re going to work as a core squad or as a group, then you’ve got the opportunity to really sort of lay down the way that you’re going to operate as a team together.
Luke: Yeah. So what in our prep session, you said to me we had a conversation about what are the most important leadership skills, and you said adaptability. I’m kind of starting to understand why that is so true. Especially in the observations that you’ve made, so like in practice, what does adaptability mean for leaders and teams in your mind?
Tom: I think, you know, when it comes to adaptability, so this was something that I read a little while ago from a McKinsey study that said that when people were looking at recruiting and hiring for leaders, that 70% of people said that adaptability was the skill that they were looking for the most. The reason for that is because, you know, we’re in an evolving world of change. The change is only going to get faster. We had a global pandemic and then we thought things might start to go back to normal. The changes coming from multiple different angles, whether that’s geopolitical, whether that’s climate, rights, and global conflict. There’s so much going on. The ability to adapt and keep the best parts that we learned when we had to, and there was that sense of urgency, we need to make sure that we are enabling our teams to do that. Now, that also comes with this kind of, we know we can move at pace, but we also need to make sure that we are giving ourselves the space and time because you could really easily default to this kind of always-on way of thinking and way of working. Which as humans, we’re just not optimised to do. Our brains are not machines, so we need to give ourselves the time, and that’s why I think the sprint models are really helpful because you can set a defined period of time where you’re going to operate pace. And then you are going to spend some time taking the reflection, taking some time to reflect, and then you start again. So I think that’s why that is a great way of doing that.
Again, coming from that adaptability point of view as well. The other thing is human skills and actually being able to connect on a human level. When you are seeing the kind of level of tech impact that’s going on globally, one of those most sought-after skills is going to be those human skills of empathy and judgement. And culture is the differentiator in this environment. So it’s the real opportunity for people that are looking at how to drive and create great cultures because we’re facing into things that we don’t know, that exponential growth of the use of AI. And what that’s going to impact on the way that teams operate and work. There’s a huge opportunity, what does the culture need to look like when we’ve got agents working within teams? How do we not create this kind of, them and us culture? Like what are all of those things? And it’s almost like the prime opportunity for people that are looking at workplace culture to create that great culture that’s based on the impacts that we have as humans. And creating that human, using the technology to enhance our human virtues is something I’ve always said. So it’s like, how can we be human in the face of a highly tech-enabled world? Because that will be the differentiator and that’s what will create that kind of team experience and that kind of feeling of, “I want to be part of this team.”
Luke: In my mind, technology is always the enabler, right? To some form of change that you’re trying to drive. And AI is probably just another example of an accelerant rather than it is anything else of the opportunity to change and adjust the culture, whether it’s to a more efficient one, whether it’s to a more innovative one, whatever it might be.
Tom: And it’s that kind of, the way that the teams work with tech teams is going to be critical to this. So it’s like how do you create that opportunity for you to work across the organisation, to reimagine and reinvent those experiences that people have every day, enables them to be freed up to do things that are even more meaningful with their human skills.
Luke: Yeah, completely.
Tom: And this concept of like human experiences has never been more important. I keep talking, but it’s almost like it’s a really interesting case study of like when we were like, “What do I miss?” “I really miss seeing people.” “I really miss human interaction. Human connection.” So it’s almost like we need to continue to remember that, how important that is when we don’t have it. Because there’s, I don’t think there’s ever been a more important time for that kind of human in-person experience. They need to feel like, “Wow, that really topped me up of my kind of social energy.” “That’s really been something that has helped me to feel part of something and connected.” And that’s kind of the bit where you’re like.
I remember that one of the greatest things I’ve been at over the last couple of years has been a moment where we brought together 70 customer heroes that had been doing amazing work for customers right across Banking Group. And they were looking at, some of them were going into prisons and opening accounts and helping with financial literacy. People that were out redesigning processes to optimise them for the customer experience. Brought 70 of them together in the new HQ building, which we’d opened. And they had two days together, full of experience that was all about celebrating them and the great work that they’d done, supported by the whole executive team there. We broadcasted it out to the whole organisation, 65,000 people of them receiving their awards, celebrating the people that serve customers or people that serve those that do. And they were just like, the feeling was like, “You know, I had people that were coming from up in Halifax where we’ve got quite a significant population saying, ‘I don’t really come down to London very often. I feel so special.'” Like even to the point of like they got to their room and they checked in at the hotel room that we put them into and they had a little sort of Lloyd’s Banking Group branded biscuit saying “Thank you for everything you do for customers.” It’s those small touches of those interactions that make people feel really special and actually feel part of the. The value that they’re adding is really appreciated.
Luke: I couldn’t agree with you more. I think this is where the perception associated to things like AI always carries quite a lot of negative connotation. Whenever I hear it in the context of work, it’s like it’s taking people’s jobs, it’s going to do this. But if you think about the opportunities for enhancement to the experiences through things like personalisation. And you start to look for the good in AI or the opportunities in AI, it feels like from a people experience perspective, it could be transformational in the way that it impacts people’s lives. So hopefully it’ll be good.
Tom: And it’s that kind of, the way that the teams work with tech teams is going to be critical to this. So it’s like how do you create that opportunity for you to work across the organisation, to reimagine and reinvent those experiences that people have every day, enables them to be freed up to do things that are even more meaningful with their human skills.
Quickfire Round
Luke: We’re into the quickfire zone now, so next couple of minutes buckle up and ready to go. The first one is from a past guest actually, which is thinking about your own behaviours, what’s the one thing that you had to change and why?
Tom: So I think for me it’s having a, there’s a level of patience that I’ve had to. My mind can operate quite significantly in the future. So it is almost having a bit of patience with people on the journey that they’re going on to almost help them get to a point where they can kind of see what that future looks like for them. So, patience.
Luke: One tech tool that you can’t live without.
Tom: So I’m a huge dual screen user. When I used to work in the office at one point I had like a 50-inch TV that was used and people always used to take the mickey out of me. But at home I’ve got three, sometimes up to four when you count the iPad on the phone, sometimes five. So dual screen, massive or dual screen.
Luke: Good work. Love that. The moment that you look at that you carry the most amount of joy in your career.
Tom: Yeah, I called out the customer heroes event when we were celebrating people that were serving customers. The joy that was in that room and that was felt right across the organisation and walking into offices where they’ve got their pictures up on the wall is something that will stay with me for a long time.
Luke: Yeah, the raw emotion when people are celebrated is often just overwhelming, right? It’s hard to comprehend.
Tom: Recognition.
Luke: Absolutely. A thinker, author or book that’s influenced your approach to organisational culture.
Tom: Okay, so I’m actually going to pick two because I’m greedy here.
Luke: Okay. You can have two.
Tom: So Bruce Daisley, The Joy of Work is what started my entire journey on how to create better places to work. And I worked with Bruce a number of times with the book launch with him when he first launched The Joy of Work, tested the new work manifesto. It’s just really shaped my thinking and the work that I do now to create great places to work. The second one is Terence Mauri, The Upside of Disruption. And it really looks at the opportunity that disruption has. I quote him all the time. So it’s this kind of opportunity to dance with disruption rather than fear it, I think is something that’s a great opportunity.
Luke: Yeah, I’ve read The Joy of Work. I haven’t read that actually. So I’ll add that to my list. A culture trend that you’re most excited about right now.
Tom: So what my favourite thing at the moment is, is the impact of like the great outdoors. The value from working outside, something I’ve tested over a number of years, but I think there is definitely huge opportunity in terms of creativity and what that looks like. Working outdoors. So when I see teams and offices that are designed with outdoor space, I think that’s really exciting because the concept that you’ve got for outside, outdoor offsite, working in nature or walk and talk meetings, there’s something about the amount of oxygen that goes to your brain when you’re moving and when you’re outside that is, you know, enables more stimulation and creativity. So working outdoors for me, I think is something I’m really excited to see where that progresses.
Luke: I would 100% second that. I was delighted. You said that one of my best experiences with work ever is on a leadership transformation course, and it was mostly outside. It was the best.
Tom: I did a workshop earlier this year, and I ran it from a horsebox, which was a great experience. So it was all again, using short-form video telling and getting people to use the grounds of the space that we were in for their kind of offsite, their two-day offsite. So it’s the first time I’d run a storytelling workshop from a horsebox. But yeah, the creativity was definitely there.
Luke: I love that. Two last questions. What’s the one question that you would love to ask the next guest on the podcast about driving culture change?
Tom: So I think the question that I’d like to put to your next guest is “How are you staying human in an increasingly high-tech world?” That question around how are we checking ourselves to make sure that we’re focusing on the elements of us, the human parts of us.
Luke: It’s too easy to forget that the other side of that machine is also a human as you are demanding via Slack or Teams or whatever it is. Perfect. Thank you ever so much. And then maybe the last one is given your new endeavours, where can people find you?
Tom: Yeah, so look, LinkedIn is always the best place for me. I’m sharing quite a lot on LinkedIn. So LinkedIn, I would say the first place to go. Also check out my website. I’m sure we could put it in the show notes. Yeah, so check out that. It’s called Spark Shift. SparkShift.pro is the website. You’ll be able to see some of the stuff that I’ve been getting up to there as well, but LinkedIn and the website are the best places to catch me.
Luke: Well, Tom, it’s been an absolute delight to share a part of your last week as you go through a major transition. It’s been wonderful talking to you again, so thank you ever so much.
Tom: Great. Thanks. Good to see you, Luke.
Luke: Thanks for listening to Culture in Action. As we wrap up the series, Mo has recently been acquired by UKG. I’m excited to share that they are launching a new podcast, When Work Works, launches this January, bringing fresh stories and insights about what makes great workplaces thrive. To learn more, visit ukg.com/podcast.
