Dimitri Boylan
Welcome to another episode of the Talent Transformation podcast. We’re joined here today by Keith Golden. Keith is the Chief Information Officer of RGP. Keith, welcome.
Keith Golden
Delighted to be here to meet you.
Dimitri Boylan
It’s great to have you here. Keith, can you please fill in a little bit about RGP for me? Give me an idea.
Keith Golden
Certainly, RGP is a global professional services firm. We are focused, these days, in two key areas. We help companies with their operational needs day to day and also, we’re focused a lot on transformation efforts and providing support to transformation efforts.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. And what’s the scope there? Is it US-based?
Keith Golden
It’s global.
Dimitri Boylan
It’s global. So, you’re running technology for a global organization. Obviously, you’re providing the technology to run the operations of the organization, but how much are you getting involved in the changes in the way your customers approach technology?
Keith Golden
Oh yeah. Great question. We are very much focused on our internal transformation effort right now, which we call Project Phoenix. It’s very much a program, not so much a project, but multi-year, multi-function, multi-platform. And to that end, we are getting our own house in order, so to speak with the technology that will allow us then to become better responsive to our, to our, to our clients.
Dimitri Boylan
So, you’re providing operational services for your clients? So, since you’re a part of their organization in some way.
Keith Golden
Very much so.
Dimitri Boylan
And so, your digital transformation is something that doesn’t just have to transform your organization but has to transform the services that affect them. So, where do you feel you are in your own transformation? Are you in stage one or stage six?
Keith Golden
We’re midway through. I would say we are just about the tipping point. We went live with our go-to-market applications in February in North America, of which Avature was a part. In December will go live with our financials. So that’s the system of record. That’s pretty darn important. Subsequent to that, we’ll move to our international operation and our subsidiaries. So, there’s still a lot of work to go, but it’s more of a matter of lather, rinse, repeat at this stage, as opposed to breaking new ground.
Dimitri Boylan
Yes. All right. So, you midway through it.
Keith Golden
Midway.
Dimitri Boylan
And it’s going well.
Keith Golden
It’s going well.
Dimitri Boylan
Okay, that’s good to hear. How much impact do you think that’s going to have on the business?
Keith Golden
Oh, it’s going to have an enormous impact. And it’s truly transformational. Not just transformation in name but in reality, as well.
Dimitri Boylan
How difficult was it to do it? And I want to take that point from… You’re a CIO. Mostly we talk to CHROs or HR leaders, and less so with the tech leadership. Tech leadership, in my opinion, has more license to do digital transformation. Right? Because you do own tech in the company. Do you have to sell that to the company, or did you just snap your fingers and say, “Hey guys, it’s digital transformation now”?
Keith Golden
Yeah. You know, I think there was just widespread understanding, starting with our CEO, saying that we need we…
Dimitri Boylan
Needed to go there.
Keith Golden
Yeah. We just needed to go there. We had that executive alignment, the buy-in from the CHRO and the other key leaders. But, you know, that said, even with the buy-in, it’s difficult work doing transformation, even at work, even at its best, with the best outcomes. It’s hard work.
Dimitri Boylan
It’s hard. Yeah, it’s extra work.
Keith Golden
Oh, for sure, for sure.
Dimitri Boylan
For everybody.
Keith Golden
For everybody. And to your point about CIOs and their role in this, I’ve been doing transformation work for 10-15 years now. And that started with the IT organization turnarounds, where the IT organization is underperforming. But we can be very insular with that, very isolated, just focus on ourselves. The last 7 to 10 years of my transformation work has been enterprise-wide and radically different, where IT is just a small part right, and is an enabler. But these efforts won’t succeed without the efforts of the entire executive team.
Dimitri Boylan
Now, now you’re bringing these operating businesses into this new technical experience, right? And you’re carrying more weight. So, the non-technical people in your organization, how did you describe what was going to be the experience or did you?
Keith Golden
We actually did a lot of work going out. Cross-functionally to find out what people were looking for.
Dimitri Boylan
Okay.
Keith Golden
You know, in solutioning or before solutioning and just getting a sense of “What do you feel is missing? What do you see competitors using? What do you hear about that we don’t have?” And that’s one of the inputs that led us to where we are now with more of a best-of-breed.
Dimitri Boylan
Do you think that feedback was surprising to you or very revealing or…?
Keith Golden
At the highest level, everybody understood that we were behind and needed to make changes, but here’s where it’s always surprising to me: No matter how long I do this, no matter how much you try to put yourself in the shoes of the CFO or CHRO or CEO to get that feedback real time, “This is what we’re missing. This is what we need.” It’s always somewhat bracing to get that as you might be proud of what you have and then you hear where it’s coming up short.
Dimitri Boylan
Right? Because you are almost asking for what’s wrong. How can we do it better? And people can get a little defensive and the stakes are pretty high. So, in your business now, you said you have some catching up to do, right? Do you think that the way companies are dealing with talent today is changing a lot? And how are you guys seeking out that competitive advantage with technology?
Keith Golden
Yeah. Great question. I think at the smarter companies it’s changed or is changing a lot. And then with everyone else, they’re behind in their approach to talent. Often probably other of your guests have said, “The war on talent is over and talent won” right?
So, despite a little bit of turbulence right now in the macroeconomic environment, that is how it’s going to be going forward. And so, from where I sit, CHROs, other folks who are responsible organizationally for delivering talent, that role is increasingly critical. My job and the job of other CIOs is to make sure that the systems are there to enable that and unlock that because to some extent, we’re all going after the same few people. And the faster that we can go to them and the more customized that experience can be, the more personalized it can be, the more likely we are to attract and retain that talent.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. Well, the attention span of the talent is drawn to so many other things. Yeah. Really a fight for attention. And, you have very little time to get your message out.
Keith Golden
That’s right.
Dimitri Boylan
In the talent space right now. And I don’t think that aperture is going to widen to any degree. I mean, it’s what it is, I agree. So, it’s kind of like, how agile can you be to sort of take advantage of occasional opportunity to sort of get some competitive advantage and move a little further forward in the market? For most of our customers, nothing gets done that’s not digital, nothing at scale gets done that’s not digital now. So, that’s how quickly you can get that digital expression of what you need is really becoming the definer.
Keith Golden
For sure. What I’ve seen, I’d be interested in your reflection on this because you’ve got some dynamite experience from the early days.
Dimitri Boylan
The early days. Okay. That’s a nice way of saying it!
Keith Golden
In this space, I see now those initial digitalization efforts really being around things, right? I mean, whether it’s photographs or music, just being able to digital that and do that transformation. Those were the early obvious wins. But, you know, those battles have largely been won now.
So now the focus from what I see is how do you bring that same digital momentum to the talent space, which isn’t, you know, we’re not talking about things, right? Yeah. These are.
Dimitri Boylan
It’s harder.
Keith Golden
For real people.
Dimitri Boylan
It’s a harder problem. Yeah.
Keith Golden
But you need folks on your side internally and as partners who are clued into that. Right, right. And the need for keeping the personalization in the experience, but also speed, speed, speed. You just have to be able to move so quickly, which means getting through candidates quickly, figuring out who you want to talk to, and keeping those discussions going.
Dimitri Boylan
You know, that’s a very good point, though, that it actually gets a little more difficult now to really move the technology into some of these areas. And I guess you have a good perspective on that because while you are CIO, you are in a company that is primarily focused on talent. So obviously you guys are always talking about talent, it’s your business. And so how do you keep everybody focused on their day job? And still focused on leveraging technology, getting the maximum value out of technology. Do you segment inside the company like, “You’re Ops, you’re thinking of the future?” Or is it a more organic process?
Keith Golden
For us it’s more organic. I have a strong bias there toward that’s where leadership comes, comes into play. Right? Whether it’s in my chair, the COO’s chair, the CEO, everyone, in senior leadership has to be aligned and has to be carrying that message every day that yes, we have to keep doing what we’re doing. We have to keep the train running, but we’ve got to embrace and push forward the work that’s going to lead to a good future for us. And, as I mentioned, it’s very difficult sometimes to do that.
Dimitri Boylan
But how do you fail at those things?
Keith Golden
You know, traditionally, I would say two or three things. A couple that I think are particularly relevant here. We’ve talked about executive alignment. Right? Strange as it seems in 2024, there are still companies where the CEO will stand up and make a speech at the beginning of a transformation effort and then hand it over to a CIO or somewhere else if they call me if you need me.
That just doesn’t work. Those are the efforts that fail where you don’t have the full buy-in of the executive team day in, and day out. So that’s one.
Another common mistake that I see is undervaluing change management and the change management function.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah.
Keith Golden
We are blessed with a fantastic internal change management team—I have never seen anything like it—which has been crucial to our success. But as much as I value this, I’ve been in so many conversations in earlier roles where the CEO and CFO just don’t get it. They don’t pay. “And what is change management training? Can we do that ourselves?”
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. Well, we get on to the tough side of that sometimes because companies go out, they buy a technology that’s different. But if they don’t do the change management, it comes in and it just clashes with what people are doing. And you’re right. If you frame it just in terms of training on the system instead of changing the way you’re doing the business, people go through the training and they just go back to doing what they’re doing, or they don’t go through the training because they say, “My business really isn’t changing anyway. So why do I have to do the training here?” And change management is something that, it’s easy to leave it out, but it’s hard to get by when you’ve done that.
Keith Golden
Yeah. I mean, in a way it’s a question that asks itself if you say, “Well we’re transforming our business. We’re doing we’re doing a transformation.” But then we’re just going to train against that. I mean, if it’s that big, if you truly are transforming your business, shouldn’t you have part of your program driving that change management aspect as well? You can’t just put a little caboose on the end of training, right? Or change another.
The last one that I would touch on in terms of where folks come up short these days is just having the right talent on your team. It’s obvious, but I would encourage anyone who’s considering embracing or beginning one of these journeys or who started this to make sure- we talked about backfilling- make sure you have the support, but make sure that you get the very best talent that you can to do this work because so much of it… There’s a real difference between someone in the 80th or 90th percentile of their capabilities with whatever the technology is that’s underway and an average person.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, absolutely.
Keith Golden
It’s enormous. And I don’t feel that it’s always been quite that way. But it’s very profound. That difference is very profound.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. I also think that two people, even being given equal capability, if one has been in an experience in an environment where a lot of changes occurred, they’re just more fit. And fitness is really important because things happen in a short period of time. The 12 months, 18 months for a business transformation is a short amount of time, right?
So, people that have just done those things before, move faster. They do, you always like to think there’s a special athlete that is just naturally superior. But sometimes it’s because they’ve been training, and the other person hasn’t.
Keith Golden
That’s right.
Dimitri Boylan
That’s the argument for being able to continuously change, to actually adopt change as part of the operating model of the company. We’re always going to be changing, so let’s all get good at it because market conditions change and tech changes. So, you have new opportunities, and that of course leads us to the topic we cannot ignore here, which is artificial intelligence. So, let’s get your take on it.
Keith Golden
Yeah. Great question. So, a couple of thoughts on that. I’m in the school, the camp, that is, at least initially… I think what we’re going to see is good AI making effective people better at what they do as opposed to replacing them. Perhaps that’s coming, but I think first up, AI is just a force multiplier.
And for us as organizations, we need to find ways to get those tools into the hands of our performers to make sure that they are getting that multiplier effect. But for us as a mid-sized company, and I think for a lot of firms now, can’t afford to make the enormous investments in AI that some people are making. So, we have to be very shrewd about picking partners who have that experience, have been investing in it for a while, are not just doing it because it’s the latest thing and leverage their experience, their investment. That’s critically important.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah.
Keith Golden
For us and I think for a lot of people like us.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, I think so. First of all, it’s expensive to cut through the hype cycle. It takes a lot of work research, analysis, and evaluation. And when you get into deploying AI, it’s expensive to just throw it at the wall, because I know people sort of have this feeling that AI is free because they’ve experienced that in ChatGPT and ChatGPT is kind of free and you’re like, “Wow, this is great.” But the computational power you need to do AI is three, four, five, six, or ten times what you need to run an application with a database in the UI and save a value to a field. We’re talking about something completely different.
And so, it’s not going to be free. So, it’s super powerful, but you’re going to have to put it in places where you know what kind of value you’re getting out of it, or a good sense of it, anyway, because you haven’t done it yet. It’s hard to know, right? Do you feel adventurous in that sense, or are you cautious moving to adventurous?
Keith Golden
We’re cautious moving to adventurous, though. I’m 100% focused on delivering the digital transformation that we have underway and then we’ll be able to open our eyes a little bit more again.
Dimitri Boylan
So that’s interesting because when you start these kinds of projects, you have to be careful not to get too distracted, like my days in the internet business. I used to say to people, “Well, you know, part of my success was I didn’t get distracted by everything that was going on.”
People used to say, “Oh, you’re in the internet. So, you know about this and this and this.” And I would say, “Actually, I don’t know about those things. I know what I need to know to get to my next step in the game.” And I was surrounded by people who were studying everything that was happening, and you couldn’t use that.
Keith Golden
Yeah. I mean, fantastic point. We’ve just got to be focused, and we’ll fast follow as needed. We’ll let others make some mistakes there.
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah, that seems reasonable. Let’s talk about the relationship between the CIO and the CHRO.
Keith Golden
A great question. That relationship is becoming more and more important over time. Earlier in my career, we were much more siloed – each of us, the CHRO and the CIO. Increasingly we see in these transformation efforts in particular that the CEO is no longer looking exclusively to the CIO to drive those efforts.
He or she may be looking more to a group of people, including the CHRO, CFO. So, all of a sudden, that relationship is much more important than it used to be.
One of the things that I would encourage my CHRO colleagues to do is to be proactive with their CIOs. Through happenstance and maybe in some cases, temperament, CIOs aren’t always the best at opening those relationships, particularly when there’s a non-obvious nexus. But they love, CIOs just generally love to know how things work. They love to be more effective. And if a CHRO can build that relationship or make the first move in building that relationship, it can pay off just wonderfully for the organization and for those two folks.
Dimitri Boylan
That’s an interesting point. You know, I didn’t really think of it that way. But yes, maybe the CHRO has to go out and build that relationship.
Keith Golden
Really be the one to make the first step. Of course, I encourage my technology colleagues and the folks in my organization to do that. And that’s what you get with me. But a lot of CIOs, including good value drivers, can often get just caught up in the technology when you delivering the tech?
Dimitri Boylan
Yeah. You get caught up. I mean, we have cyber security issues that seem certainly paramount, and you might focus on them more than anything. And you have AI, and you have to understand it and figure out where in the organization it’s going to go first, how are you going to evaluate it. Building a relationship with the CHRO could easily be down at item number ten on the list. I think you’re right. It’s the CHRO who should say, “Hey, I think I’m down on his or her list. So, let’s work myself up there and interject.”
Keith Golden
I got to tell you, in my career, my experience, those connections, that’s often where the magic happens, right? Where you build that relationship, information is shared, things that you didn’t know about the journey that your colleague is working through the challenges that they face and how that’s really relevant to technology and what we’re doing in the technology chair. So yeah, I could go on quite a bit about…
Dimitri Boylan
Good point though. Yeah. Good point.
Keith Golden
Yeah. You know another thing that comes to mind, not entirely related to this, but top of mind for me is recent survey data that our RGP has around talent and the talent that’s required to deliver these transformational efforts that we’ve been talking about. So RGP went out in late 2023 and surveyed a thousand leaders, senior leaders at companies with a billion or more in revenue and came back with some interesting findings about talent and their digital transformation efforts.
So, at these companies, a thousand companies, the average number of transformations underway that had a program or project cost of $1 million, there were 20 projects underway with a cost of $1 million or more. So, people clearly have the appetite for the work. And the need is there. But when it comes to delivery, only 15% of those companies in each of the last four years said, “Were delivering everything we set out to deliver.”
So, the 85% are saying, “We’re doing this, but we’re not getting what we want to get.” And then the reason that they identify more for that coming up short, the number one reason is the lack of talent. So, 40%, which was the largest, category said that they just don’t have the talent necessary to do everything that they did.
Dimitri Boylan
Absolutely. I can see that. Digital transformation requires people who have a vision about digital experiences with digital products and how they work, and how people use them. And there’s a reason it’s new and you don’t have people that say, “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I’ve done it 15 times.”
A lot of a lot of companies started a digital transformation three or four years ago. Or maybe two years ago. And I look at the place where I see some of that talent. I was in the internet business. In the internet business, it was kind of like shaping products that people would interact with and having commercial success with that was a very different kind of experience. It’s very similar to what digital transformation is.
A lot of companies are trying to get to what they saw happen when they saw these disruptors arrive in the market like the Amazons and other companies that really lived the technology, it was ingrained into everything that they did. But that wasn’t really a lot of companies. If you took all the people that were involved in that type of business, you couldn’t power too many digital transformations in the marketplace. I mean, I think of people that worked for me at Hot Jobs and, several of them went off to Amazon and worked on product there.
There were early product people in 1996 to 2002, and they went out and did other things. But we’re talking about small numbers of people. So, I think people are having to really rethink the way they use their experience to get a digital transformation to come off.
Keith Golden
Yeah. And if you’ll allow me a shameless plug for my firm: This is a space that we’re very comfortable in, right? Whether it’s providing talent or whether it’s backfilling for your leaders who are conducting a, you know, transformation or providing those that that critical talent or driving the project itself. So, that’s one reason why I’m personally very bullish on RGP and our future, particularly as we work through our own transformation. These needs are ongoing. Agile requires yeah constantly working on these platforms and updating them. It’s not a one. And we’ll come back to this.
Dimitri Boylan
No. It’s a new way of doing business. And that’s exciting. I’d love to hear more about your journey. I’d love to have you back here at some point to tell us how this transformation is coming out and what kind of impact on the business.
Keith Golden
I’d love to do that.
Dimitri Boylan
Thank you so much for coming.
Keith Golden
Thank you, Dimitri, my pleasure.
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