Why was a change needed?
Back in 2018, as evidenced through global people surveys, KPMG was experiencing an issue in relation to employee engagement and, ultimately, trust internally. Together with two fellow partners who were members of the same Forward Institute cohort, I engaged with a wide group of staff to create a series of experiments that small teams could run with a target of improving employee engagement and ultimately rebuilding internal trust. One such experiment involved an idea around harnessing the talent of emerging leaders from younger generations in different ways.
Building on this initial experiment, together with learnings I had taken from the Forward Institute programme, I took inspiration from an international partners’ conference in Singapore. This event was hosted by a younger generation of colleagues pulled from emerging leaders who had been identified by their countries to participate. I remember one emerging leader standing up and asking the Chief Technology Officer of Alibaba a question relating to the impact of his organisation on the environment, which completely floored him. It made me realise how talented the next generation of leaders are in our organisation and how much they could bring to my team that works with BP if supported in the right way. It was a wake-up call for me because it was an area of diversity that I hadn’t considered enough. I had thought about lots of other aspects of cognitive diversity but was guilty of forgetting how capable the younger generation are.
What did you do?
Globally we have 100+ people working on the BP account at any one time but the governance structure of setting our strategy is made up of 10 people who constitute the Account Leadership Team (ALT). I realised that we weren’t being challenged sufficiently with fresh thinking and ideas, so I decided to set up an Emerging Leaders Team (ELT) to exist alongside the ALT. Each of the areas of KPMG’s business came forward with someone who was considered talented and deserved an opportunity to get involved. A team of 12 emerging leaders was assembled.
This group’s remit was to 1) challenge the strategy that the ALT was setting by injecting some fresh thinking, and 2) engage in relationships with peers from BP (which generally they were not actively encouraged to do). Some time ago I realised that I had never been encouraged to network early on enough in my career and start developing a network of relationships that would prove invaluable as I progressed through my career.
The ELT has achieved some really great things. At the global account leaders’ meeting that we hold annually, they gave us feedback on our emerging strategy, in particular on our approach to supporting BP around climate change and wider ESG. They’ve jointly put a thought leadership paper together with their counterparts at BP, which was published by BP at the capital markets day.
One specific example where they helped was in the digital technology space. Specifically, they were asked to come up with a plan as to how could KPMG take its initial success around digital on BP across other major client accounts where KPMG is less developed in the area of digital. They ran a design-thinking session to try and flesh out thoughts from some completely left-field ideas to something that we could take forward. They then further refined the idea which was known as ‘The CFO Crunch’. Essentially it was some clever branding and demonstrations to showcase KPMG in the digital space that could be taken to the reception areas of some of our major accounts – almost a pop-up digital tent. Six of the team presented the idea to the partners of our 12 biggest accounts and they were bloody brilliant. It also happened that five of them were black men and women (which hadn’t been planned), which has also made me think more about how we can increase racial diversity in our workforce.
They've also organised some networking events with their counterparts of BP including sponsoring a table at an NSPCC charity ball. At our annual Global Account Team meeting in October, they featured on a next generation panel with their counterparts from BP and discussed issues such as future of work, racial discrimination and mental wellbeing.
What did you learn from this experience?
I’ve been impressed by how none of the ELT are shy to come forward to give their opinion. Having a different generation in the room has broken down a historically hierarchical structure by bringing in different opinions. The emerging leaders have contributed, not just listened, to the conversation.
The other impact has been that other teams in KPMG have seen what is happening and taken up the idea which is great to see. This initiative has certainly helped to build internal trust of our people, which was the ultimate goal in mind at the outset.
What’s your advice on how to go about change?
One of the important things I did was build confidence amongst stakeholders by discussing the idea before I put it in motion. I spent time with each of the service line leaders at KPMG who are responsible for the people in their particular area, talking to them about what I was trying to achieve, so that when my email came in it wasn’t put to one side. I also shared with other lead partners who are responsible for big accounts like myself so that it slowly became a corporate thing that people wanted to get involved in. It is important to make sure that everyone around you that has a point of view is bought into what you're trying to achieve – think quite carefully how you're going to do that.
It also came as a bit of a surprise that the younger colleagues were confident to come forward. Again, a misconception on my part. It might also have helped that working on BP, which is a ‘marquee’ brand/client, attracted them to get involved. So, my advice is to challenge your assumptions when you want to make change. You might be thinking of when you were at that point in your career, and possibly thought of every reason on earth that you ‘weren’t the right person to do this’ but I find that the generation I am working with are bolder and very competent.
The other piece of advice is to try not to do something at a big scale. Start small and manageable and let it grow as a movement.
One of the challenges though, has been making sure that they have enough time to get involved, when as an organisation we put pressure on them to have high ‘utilisation rates’ (generating income). It needed me to convince the emerging leaders that I had their backs and that this was going to benefit them in the long term. So strong leadership is always critical to drive change.