The Consulting Growth Podcast
Joe O'Mahoney is Professor of Consulting at Cardiff University and a growth & exit advisor to boutique consultancies. Joe researches, teaches, publishes and consults about the consulting industry.
In the CONSULTING GROWTH PODCAST he interviews founders that have successfully grown or sold their firms, acquirers who have bought firms, and a host of growth experts to help you avoid the mistakes, and learn the insights of others who have been there and done that.
Find out more at www.joeomahoney.com
The Consulting Growth Podcast
Unlocking Consultancy Success: Richard Brackstone on Growth, Strategy, and Leadership
Richard Brackstone, the managing partner of Moorhouse Consulting, and I talk about growing consultancies. We talk about his time at Andersen Consulting and spearheading projects in the Blair-Brown government era to leading major projects at Lloyds.
We'll explore the interesting evolution of Moorhouse Consulting, tracing its rise from Dom Moorhouse's vision to the fast-paced expansion that followed their management buyout. We explore how leadership changes, a commitment to diversity, and service line transformations fueled the firm's expansion to a powerhouse of nearly 300 dedicated professionals.
Richard also offers an insider's perspective on the nuances of ownership transitions in the consultancy sector, illuminating the management buyout process when BT sold Morehouse. He discusses the strategic decisions that shaped the firm's future, from choosing between private equity and independent ownership to the cultural shifts that ensued. We delve into the importance of a robust operational structure, highlighting the role of a strong leadership team and strategic systems to support sustained growth.
Prof. Joe O'Mahoney helps boutique consultancies scale and exit. Joe's research, writing, speaking and insights can be found at www.joeomahoney.com
Welcome to the Consulting Growth Podcast. I'm Professor Joe O'Mahony, a Professor of Consulting at Cardiff University and an Advisor to Consultancies that Want to Grow. If you'd like to find more out about me and access some free resources to help your consultancy grow, do please visit joeomahonycom. That's J-O-E-O-M-A-H-O-N-E-Ycom. Welcome back to the Consultancy Growth Podcast. I have the genuine pleasure of being joined by Richard Brackstone today, who has a very interesting career history when it comes to management consultancy. He's currently the managing partner of Morehouse Consulting, but also a member of the board of directors at the Management Consultancies Association.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, joe, delighted to be here with you.
Speaker 1:Could you give us a bit of background about your journey to Morehouse and how you ended up there?
Speaker 2:Sure. So potted history, you know universities, I went to three. I traveled for three straight four years I taught. So I taught in a state school, bishop's Stortford, and rose through the ranks pretty quickly in terms of responsibilities that came my way and then thought, well, if I don't jump from this I will end up forever in education and no doubt down the headmasterly route. So I stepped out and did an MBA and I did an MBA at Cranfield School of Management.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anything about management consultancy when I when I went into that course there were 170 people on it and I from a lowly quote, unquote teaching background, you know, at a very rapid learning curve quote teaching background, um, you know, at a very rapid learning curve, um. But I started to understand projects and programs and and mixed teams and and getting involved with various industries. I joined anderson consulting um who were also sponsoring our rugby club, uh in, uh in cranford school of management and then I lived within and's that then morphed into Accenture. So it was that late, very late 90s into the start of this millennium. So I was there for nearly four years and then essentially got headhunted out by one of my clients in government.
Speaker 2:So I went and worked in government for nearly 10 years in total across two big departments and worked in transformation director roles and COO roles and broader before I got into those titles program delivery, campaign management and everything that comes with working in central government.
Speaker 2:Those were the days of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown huge transformation programs and I was right in the middle of those. And then as the coalition government came in and, as ever, consultancy stroke, interim cuts, I came out of government and went back into financial services, which is where I started in Accenture and went and worked at Lloyds and ran the PPI program there I think I was the operations commander of 18 billion I think was our budget and eventually came down and one of the people I had worked with in the MBA was at Morehouse Consulting and he said don't go to a big one, try a little one. And so I did and 12 years later I'm still at Morehouse, from BT ownership to MBO to XBO ownership and everything in between in terms of the transition of leadership teams and a very rapid growth journey.
Speaker 1:But I'm just interested in those different environments. What helped you do well? Because different environments often reward different behavi behaviors and different appetites to risk and communication and all the rest of it. So what allowed you to succeed in those very different worlds?
Speaker 2:I work with people and I'm drawn to people that I find inspiring or respect you know, or I can respect who they are and what they've done and I genuinely think I can learn from and so, coming through the route I described and coming into teaching that you know, there was a at the time headmaster who I just thought was absolutely brilliant and I thought if I stick in his space then I will learn a lot. And I did learn a lot about leadership, about stakeholder management, about change and leading change and about setting direction and, at times, holding firm to that direction. But obviously, you know, taking in the environment that you're working in and how that's changing as well, but still getting things done. And I think that skill set, um, you build up quite a lot of resilience, I would say, um, coming through the career path and some of the things that I've described, you build up a lot of experience about people and how people behave and what motivates people and drives people. And you learn a lot about how to build teams and how to look to get the best from those teams.
Speaker 2:And I've always enjoyed problem solving. I like looking at something like all consultants and trying to work it out, something, uh, I think, like all consultants and trying to work it out, uh, but knowing that, um, you know it's the the hardest part is is knowing the answer, um, and then translating the answer. You know you can actually get to what you think needs to be done very quickly. But actually translating that as as to what is done is incredibly hard, and I think the routes that I have taken have given me a lot of experience in stakeholder management and in navigating some pretty complex environments.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's quite a good general skill set to, I guess you know, quite suitable for what you're doing now, which requires a fair number of different skills. Good, okay, so listen, I'm primarily interested in the Morehouse journey and Morehouse is an interesting case because from a I mean, dom Morehouse's journey is quite famous now in boutique consulting circles, going from starting to selling in less than five years I believe it was which is very rare, not always recommended, but if anyone's met Don Morehouse, they know the drive and passion that would enable that to happen. Sold to BT From that, from when, and there was a new leadership team. You said in 2011, you said in 2011. You joined in 2012. Yeah, could you give us a little bit of information about just sort of, I guess, the high level view of when you joined to becoming sort of managing partner and I guess how the company has grown over that period?
Speaker 2:I will do my best, joe, I'll do my best. So, yeah, so I joined a business very much in transition so you're absolutely right, and the fabled stories of Don Morehouse so obviously sold into BT and then, as ever, you sit in a sort of buyout framework and and you maintain a leadership team, but essentially that team is transitioning and so I joined really as that that the new team had come in, the new exec directors had come in, of which there were three, and they were sort of starting to lead the business. And you know, I think those points and I've seen it twice now, certainly in Morehouse, you know, but more broadly, in consulting, you know, I see this transition period a lot. It's a very difficult period to navigate. You've got old, quote, unquote ways of doing things and thinking and loyalties and the way a business has been set up and it transitions to new leadership who inevitably want to put their mark on it and and have different leadership styles and personalities and drive it differently.
Speaker 2:And so I think that that transition period is is naturally turbulent and was, you know, and was in Morehouse, and so I joined, as I say, towards a year, of the team that had been brought in by BT, you know, had been in place a bit less there or thereabouts. So I was experiencing that. That was my first real experience. I mean, firstly, we had some great work and it was a great culture. That's what really attracted me to it and, as I said, I really um, when I met the leaders, I felt it was a different end, a very different entity in terms of sme, to, you know, to some of the other um consultancies I've been talking to, so, um. So that period was was a period of consolidation, I would, in terms of a new leadership team coming in and putting their mark on the business and, of course, the ownership of BT and a large corporate entity which had bought a business, sort of fundamentally to drive some internal programs, because it was, I think, the biggest contract at the time in the sale.
Speaker 2:But then how does a consultancy fit within, you know, a corporate that isn't a consultant, you know which is essentially, you know, a telecast or media business, and so, again, I think there's always there's a natural sort of point of inflection there as to what? What is the owner going to do? Are they going to try and and look for the synergies, and and and bring the business, basically it in um and entirely morph it? There are so many stories of where that's, you know, tried to try to happen and failed, um, and I think will continue to fail, you know, where it's not thought through very, very carefully. So we set out to build a business, the Morehouse business, which obviously didn't have a dependency solely on the owner and had a far wider spread into private and public sector clients. And so that's what that period was about. It was about trying to put a real identity down and different revenues, different revenue streams, building more resilience, I think, ultimately to set up an MBO. That's what we were doing. And so that period, which was 2012, I joined in 2012,. So I joined as part of that into 2015, which was the MBO, and I think the leadership team which I joined were pretty set on that outcome and therefore, you know their thinking and planning was around it and, to be honest, when you've got an entity like Morehouse sat with corporate and really you know the leadership team are pushing in that direction. That, inevitably, is what's going to happen, because you know that's how the business is being set up and that's how the leadership in the culture is shaped. So that is what happened and we lived.
Speaker 2:So we bought and then lived completely independently as Morehouse Consulting for a period of three stroke, four years. A period of three stroke, four years. And what happens in that period is it's very liberating. You know you feel unshackled, you feel that you have complete control of the business. You can take it where you want to, you can make the investment decisions you want to make, you can recruit as you want to recruit, you can structure how you want to structure. And that's exactly what happened in that period. You know it was a period of change. It was a period where we introduced client directors, junior consultants. It's a period where our client base shifted and the fundamental offer that sat and was set up with Dom, which was program delivery, again started to shift into what you'd identify as wider business transformation. Because that world is, you know, becomes increasingly commoditized. It's interesting what ai will do with it. Um, but you would imagine even more commoditization, plus the offshoring aspects and so on and so forth, so that that world, you know, is getting tighter and tighter to to be profitable. Um, and so you know part of that, that period was about how you built out from a pm, a fundamental pm offering, into a wider transformation offering. And of course in that period we also set up service lines. So we moved away from just a pure sector perspective and selling work in directly through client relationships and industry experience and broad programmatics that push change into a wider business transformation capability. And that was that period. And we grew well and then looked to sell and sold eventually into a German testing business called SQS that were looking for a footprint in the UK. And SQS were bought by Asystem, which was a French business. We had a German culture then plus a French culture. The French Asystem was bigger so essentially took over and formed Xplio and we now sit within Xplio.
Speaker 2:And again, if I reflect in that period, what happened next? So when you go through an MBO, then clearly again the leadership team is tied in for a period. Again, my reflection on that is it's a period where, because the buyout is fixed, if you like, the price is fixed, at that point. Generally, something's paid up front and then, generally, you're paid towards the end of the buyout period. Not a lot happens in my experience and again just talking to others because you're so fixed on the price that you're sold for you don't want to take risk. That's interesting, ok, and so we were, I think.
Speaker 2:Looking at it, we were in a bit of a holding pattern and so when the MBO happened and we moved into complete private ownership, it was, as I said, very liberating and energizing.
Speaker 2:Then, after then, we got to the sale and I think it stalled a bit actually, and we held on to the model that had been built to that point, probably very wise and very sensible in terms of protecting your revenue.
Speaker 2:But it was a period, if you like, of keeping that structure stable to the other side of the MBO, which was in two straight three years.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, what happened was, as we got to the end of that and we got towards I'm trying to think where that must take me through to a timeline, but 2021, 2022, then again, we were in a period of transitioning the leadership team, because the very senior leaders with the most equity had gone and were going and we were transitioning. So I came into the managing partner role in that time and I've been in the role I'm into my fourth year in the a very different and a far bigger partnership team and senior leadership team and we went through very rapid growth. So we, coming into and out of the COVID years, we doubled, stroked, tripled, touching, tripled in size and went from a sub-100 business in terms of people to approaching a 300-person business and so that very rapid growth was generated through that period, from 2021 through to last year, I would say, and last year was a very flat year in consultancy, you know, and we experienced that as well.
Speaker 2:But I think you know the three years that preceded that were absolutely incredible in terms of how we changed the leadership team, in terms of the number of partners that came in and the different energy and perspective, how the sector and service line model has come together and matured, how the leadership has matured, how it's widened. You know we've pushed on the diversity sort of cards um as well to you know, to create more energy, insight, different personalities, different perspectives. So all of that has gone on as well. Uh, in the last three or four years, of course that's gone on under xbo ownership and and and. I can keep talking for a little bit, but I can sort of stop there as well Fascinating.
Speaker 1:Well, listen, there's a whole load of stuff to dive in there. I'd like to talk briefly about the MBO. Okay, um, what? So? For I know a few firms that are considering an mbo at the moment, um, and I'd like to, if you wouldn't mind, just explain what an mbo is and, I guess, how it, how it worked for you guys in practice. So I'm not particularly, you know, I don't want to know about the economic side of it, in terms of the structure and the culture, how that changes. It'd be good to dive into that a little bit.
Speaker 2:Of course, so an mbo is a is a management buyout, um, and so when a business is put up for sale so in our case, um, let's say something into 2014-15, there can be a number of outcomes. So clearly at that point, bt owned Morehouse and they have an asset Morehouse and they want to sell the assets. So it's their decision. If you're the leadership team of a business, you can look to trigger that decision through various ways, but it's quite a dangerous route because ultimately, you know you're owned by a huge corporate and you want to stay on the right side of the leadership of that corporate and the board. So it was actually the BT decision to sell, I think you know, partly because we as a consultancy did not fit and we weren't part of their core entity that they were strategizing about and thinking forward. So we became an asset to sell.
Speaker 2:So two or three things can happen at that point. A PE house can support the leadership team in buying the asset, the business. There's a trade sale. A different entity comes along which could be a consultancy or it could be any business in industry similar to what BT did and buy the asset and buy Morehouse. Now the strongest position in theory is the management team because they know the business, they've built the business during that period and they are key to the continuing leadership and stability of that business.
Speaker 2:So the management team have a strong hand at that point and it then comes to okay, how does it play out and how strong is the hand? And so you know, without diving into all of the detail, what happened was the management team broadly four people plus two, if you like, four with the majority of the shares and two with lesser bought the business and were able to do so without PE at that point, and so it was. There was still loan and debt, but it was set up differently, which again you know, and again there's conversations you can get into between PE ownership and what that does. Yes, we are owned by PE and I can see how that shapes, how that shapes the game. But the great thing about that MBO was was it it ended up with with pretty much entire independence of ownership of the asset?
Speaker 2:more has consulted yeah um, which is a brilliant business, and so that's what that's how that came about, and again, you know it's I'm simplifying a lot of complex stress and probably slee sleepless nights.
Speaker 1:Yes, but that's what happened, and so I, I guess, from your perspective, or the whole management team, obviously you're betting on yourselves. Yes, um, when you do this, and then you know, p like to see that, of course, but um and the sales price is important, isn't it?
Speaker 2:you know, if it's too big and you've taken on too much debt to fund it, whether that's through banks or through PE more directly, then you know that plays a part again as to how attractive that is and whether the management team ultimately want to get involved in it or not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I also guess, in your specific situation, the, the strategy, the structure you had actually lent itself to expansion because you'd, you'd, kind of you were doing this very well in bt, yeah, and all you were really saying was, well, let let's do this elsewhere. You know, and and use the ip and people we've got to do good work, but, you know, actually bring in external revenue exactly, and use the IP and people. We've got to do good work, but you know, actually bring in external revenue.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and I think the management team really know that, really know where you are as a business and therefore the opportunity that exists. And we felt, you know, there was great opportunity in the market for Morehouse Consulting as, as Morehouse was being shaped, you know, and and with some of the thinking that was going on, okay, okay.
Speaker 1:So let's thank you, so let's skip forward. So you, you develop new service lines, you, you. You were sold four years later to SDS, and again, without avoiding the financial details, how did the so? I think everyone is comfortable with what a sale of a sale of a company looks like, but how did that differ from what you? The last inflection point around the mbo? How, how did you set up for that? How did you um, what were things different? How are things different by then?
Speaker 2:if people were in different positions. So you know you had three, if you like that, had the majority of the equity, had done a great job in setting up the business, you know, for the sale. And so my point being, people were in different places and so you know, for me personally, coming through that timing, timing there was clearly a group that were going to stay yeah, that we're going to go. And then there's there's a that sort of awkward reality of of of the of the two to three year buyout period, where people are going and setting up their plans and starting to sort of live, you know, a bit of bit of a different life. You know they've mentally moved on and so I think that period is difficult in that respect.
Speaker 1:Sorry to interrupt. I presume you had, or I presume the shareholders at least had, earn out targets associated. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly that, which is three years, and so you know. So, during that period, you you are, you know you are literally working out the transition of the leadership of the business and, as I say, I think the interesting reflection point is how quickly you can do that in terms of identifying the people coming through and the readiness of those people coming through. And because, as I say, once the sale, once you've gone through the transaction, you know, very naturally you're focused off. You're like, generally the payments are split, you're focused on the second. You know the second payment and so your mind's in two places. Your mind is in the business that you sold, in terms of keeping it. You know, at the same sale point that you sold it for. But your mind is also OK, what am I going to do next? You know I've got the money and that gives you a lot of liberty. You know what am I, what are the things I'm planning to do.
Speaker 2:In this example, you know beyond Morehouse. So you live in that, uh, in that period and I think again, it's um, it's a really interesting period. You know, for a consultancy sme, um to go through um and I think, overall, looking back on it, you know, and where the business is now overall. You know it, it was done in the right way and not without tensions at the time, as it's bound to be in terms of the environment I've just described. But I think, overall, if you look, you know, look to where the business is now, there was a transition, the leadership changed and then we got into another period of growth. You know very rapid growth, yeah, to another period of growth, you know very rapid growth, which felt very similar to, you know, to that very initial MBO period when we came out of BT. It felt very similar and so I do think, you know, when you're there is a way and clearly I would point to us in terms of our experience, of transitioning successfully and the continuing and the business not only continuing to be stable but actually thriving in some of some of what follows because, again, you know, people want to put their own identity on it, people have different personalities, um, and that there's another sort of phase of liberty, almost, you know, beyond that period of stability, waiting for the buyout, um, and I think that's what happened to us.
Speaker 2:Again, you know, with with good timing around the markets as well, you know, coming into the covid period, out of the period. Yeah and yeah, we we grew very quickly and and then, with so much recruitment, if you like, and so many people coming through through promotion and into leadership positions, you know the business changed very quickly, but I do. You know the business changed very quickly but I do you know, I believe, held on to the values that were core to the setup that Don Morehouse, you know, helped put in place all the way back 21 years ago, and those are still the values that we work to and aspire to, role model and, I think, set the very culture of the business that I think you would recognise and even Don Morehouse would recognise.
Speaker 1:Isn't that interesting Anyone later walking of the business that I think you would recognize, and even Don Morehouse would recognize, you know, isn't?
Speaker 2:that interesting. Later, walking into the business and it's interesting I speak to some people who you know have left and then come back, for either come back and rejoin or come back to visit and they still, you know, can put their hand on and recognize the heartbeat and pulse of the business that that were in, you know, up to two decades ago.
Speaker 1:It is interesting because it's clearly, I mean, the whole cultural bit and values is often seen as a bit airy-fairy, but it's actually an asset. The way you talk about it, you know it distinguishes the firm, it keeps people longer. I mean, you've been there a long time now.
Speaker 2:It keeps people longer. I mean, you've been there a long couple of the senior leaders. I felt it immediately and maybe that was part of just being a small business. But I think again it comes back to the leadership and the qualities you look for in those people and can relate to, and I felt it then. You know, and I still feel it now in terms of the leadership team that's in place currently and again, as I say, how we aspire to role model and behave and lead the business.
Speaker 1:That's great. I want to jump onto a keyword that has come up probably more often than anything else in our conversation, and that's leadership. A lot of the listeners to this podcast have been firms that are around the sort of 30 to 70, 30 to 90 employee mark, and they're on a growth trajectory that perhaps is going to take them to 100 plus. And, knowing some of these firms in detail, I know that some of them are looking at their leadership team and thinking. I know that some of them are looking at their leadership team and thinking well, listen, you know, you guys have been focused on delivery and we promoted you because you're great at delivery and now you're struggling, perhaps a bit with sales. Perhaps you're not used to working in a larger, more professional service firm and perhaps there's a lack of confidence there as well. So I'm very interested in that.
Speaker 1:I don't know whether it is an inflection point, but there is certainly a period in a firm's growth even ignoring the MBOs and the change of ownership, where the leadership team becomes more professional, more confident, perhaps more capable, and I'm interested in your reflections on that. So I guess how does it happen? Um, where do you find these people? Do they come internally, do you recruit them externally? Um, and how? I mean? Clearly, morehouse has done this successfully, so I guess, what are the secrets of success, of evolving your leadership team during growth?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, there's a couple of things in there as well, you know, again, it's it's reflection and maybe maybe some learning and and of course I talk to, you know senior leaders within the sme community. You know businesses going from 50 through the 300 point up towards 500, um, and then of course, you know I, I talk to and work with, you know the, the big four plus, you know and and the very senior leadership of those outfits and organizations. So you know, I think, for smaller businesses, one thing and it's related to this, it's not directly on your point, but I think it's important to sort of, you know, to get your head around this when you're coming through this journey is actually how you operationalize the business. So when you're a relatively small business, you do everything and the leadership team do everything, and if you're setting yourself up for a sale, you don't necessarily invest in actually how you operationalize the business and what a COO might do, the systems, the structures, the policies. And I think, as you get bigger, you as market-facing leaders, which is where you want to spend the majority of your time you haven't got time for it, and so those things either get done badly or they pull you back into the business and away from the market in terms of the internal running of the business. And so I do think I remember talking to a senior leader.
Speaker 2:You know who's taken, you know who's the managing partner of a business that's moved, you know into the 1000 mark now from, I don't know, from 300 or so, and he was telling me how it was a crucial and key decision to actually bring a CEO into the role and how he had to take it to the board and how the board was split because it's a non-market and therefore non-fee paying role, so essentially you're paying money out and you're not getting money in. And he said it was critical to actually the evolution and growth of the business and he was the managing partner and had the deciding vote. And he said it was critical to the actually the evolution and growth of the business and he was the managing partner and had the deciding vote and voted for it, but it was a completely split vote with the board because they just saw it as an outgoing, but I I think actually it it's, it's crucial, and so setting up your systems and effectively operationalizing your business, I think is a key step in your growth journey and it takes an investment and therefore the timing of it is important. You know, in terms of if you're looking to set up a sell, then generally you know you're going to run it pretty lean and take as much profit out as you can.
Speaker 2:But if you're really thinking about setting up a resilient business for the market setting up a resilient business for the market and as a consultancy for a longer period then then you really have got to get into a growth journey and and you have to get your operations in place. And I think that's key learning. Um, it's key learning in terms of what. What we've gone through, uh, and I'm sure every single business you know that's going on a growth journey goes through. So I think that and I know, as I say, chairs of consultancies as well that are grappling with this conversation so I think it's key and I stick it on people's radars Think about this and think about when you do it and how you do it, but it is absolutely key to growing your business beyond a certain size.
Speaker 1:Okay, and do you have a COO? Well, I guess the question is when did you appoint your COO? Are you the COO in effect?
Speaker 2:Well, we're moving around that conversation and we are looking right now at our internal operating model four operations and we could well end up with a COO. At the moment we've sort of, you know we've sort of got a head of people and talent, a head of finance, a head of marketing and so on and so forth. But I can sort, you know, potentially. You know there's a route towards consolidation of those roles and you've got a COO that then runs the operation of the business and you, as the senior leadership team you know, can work on the strategy of the business, where you go, what the market's doing, how you evolve and change the business around it and, of course, maintaining your relationships and presence in the market. And I think that's a key point in terms of a growth journey. And you know we're still, we're still dealing with it and uh, and we'll evolve it some more and we might evolve it again sort of beyond that.
Speaker 2:But I would say in the last two or three years, you know, in terms of internal investment, we've put a lot towards, you know, those core functions and the leadership of those core functions. So I think you know, just just point to know, and it's not you know. Then you sort of get into a how do you build the leadership team, which is your question. So I think that needs to be part of it and part of your thinking. And then you're sort of into you know, the continuing sort of. You know it's the classic, you know, run the business, change the business. So then actually you've got run the business working quite smoothly and you can continue to evolve and change the business, and I think the senior leadership team has to have, you know, has to have the capacity to do that. Hence my first point.
Speaker 2:So I think you know, identifying individuals that are core to the business. So I think, firstly, you know putting the structures and policies in place for clear career progression are important so that people know that there's a direction into the future of the leadership of the business and that they are part of that journey. So you've got to do that and you've got to put a sub-tier in place in our case below the partnership team, a director team that you start to expose to the core decisions of the business so you start to have a more inclusive leadership team and build up the understanding and the resilience and the maturity of your leadership team to different reference points and experiences in running the business, but also in a changing market. So I think you've got your eye on people coming through continuously in a sort of 24, 36-month cycle. So to see people now is then dependent on growth and and and.
Speaker 2:If you're not growing, then ultimately you know you're sort of like, okay, how do you keep doing that? And and you know every business faces that in terms of how they deal with that. Um, but you know we've gone through a very rapid growth period so we've been able to pull people through and at the very sort of most senior levels. You know people have moved on to create space or we've had the growth to bring people in, you know, into the very senior roles. Growth strategy is key to incentivising and engaging everybody in your business, but particularly sort of your different governance levels of leadership and bringing them through.
Speaker 1:And I think, as I say, you have to create, or you have to look to create, an inclusive environment where people are exposed to the know, the key and crucial and critical decisions of running a business I really like the principle of you know, clearly it's not a voting situation, don't get me wrong but I do like the principle of involving, even in terms of visibility, the team in the goings-on of business, because I think one of the challenges, especially as you grow, is where juniors see it as a job, where they turn up, they take their money, they go home and I think, emphasizing that actually without growth it's not a very nice company. Without clients and profitability you guys don't get paid and perhaps don't have jobs.
Speaker 2:I think the more you can expose people to the runnings of a professional service firm, the the easier it is to get those messages across that you talked about earlier around business development, around profitability, around growth I mean, I'm a pretty transparent with our financials in terms of where we are in terms of, you know, that involves revenues, it involves profit levels, it involves what's hot in the market, you know, and what's not, and I think we've got better at that actually. And again, you know, we've invested in our internal comms. I think it's part of the operate, the operationalization of a business. Uh, and again, I you know it's actually having invested in it.
Speaker 1:I think we're really reaping the rewards of it actually in terms of how we engage with our business and how transparent we are with information in a drumbeat of of information that's going into the business I'm interested just just a quick one on on the people side of things, obviously as part of the operations stuff that you talked about earlier, with the whole competence framework, the training structures, the roles and all the rest of it. And I get mixed opinions from boutique leaders on the role of HR. Some of them can't stand it. I think this might be a size thing. I think once you get to perhaps 120, you actually realize you might need someone specialized in that area, especially if bad things start happening. So what's your take on the sort of HR director role or HR manager role? When and if did you start taking that more seriously? I think if you are a people oriented.
Speaker 2:So your asset in consulting are your people.
Speaker 2:You know, when you look at IP and what a consultancy really is, you're buying people and you're buying relationships.
Speaker 2:You can argue on the nuances of that and capabilities, et cetera, but ultimately you're buying people and the relationships people have in the market.
Speaker 2:And so if you're running a people business, then I think the people and talent as we morphed HR into a number of years ago is absolutely critical because you want your people engaged and in a business like Morehouse, where we espouse our values and we look, as I say, we look to live to them, you need structures in place and policies in place that reward people fairly, acknowledge people and show respect to people. And I think you have to have those things in place to build a business Ultimately, as I say, because people are your asset. So I think, take it seriously and take it seriously early and look for good people in the market that understand consulting. I think if you can find people like that and we've had people in our business that really do of being a consultant and build, if you like, the structures, policies, support frameworks around that, so I think it's critical. It's a people business, so you've got to invest in that space.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've seen a lot of partners in smaller firms think that they can do the HR bit as well as the marketing bit and everything else, and often they play with it for a while and then realize it actually does need expertise.
Speaker 2:I think it comes back to operationalizing the business, joe. I think when that penny drops and for some it may not be relevant, but I think when it drops it's a game changer- some it may not be relevant, but I think when it drops it's a game changer.
Speaker 1:Richard, I have taken up a lot of your time. I could talk about lots of other things. You've hinted at ai and um and future growth and things like that and what you're doing now, but I I'm I'm wary of your time, so I just wanted to say thank you so much for sharing what you shared. Um? I think there's a lot of lessons there for boutique leaders that are hoping to emulate what Morehouse have done, and I wish you all the best for the future.
Speaker 2:It's been an absolute pleasure, joe, and yeah, thank you. Thank you for the invitation to join you and I've enjoyed it. Thank you, richard.
Speaker 1:If you'd like to find more out about me and access some free resources to help your consultancy grow, do please visit JoeOmanicom. That's J-O-E-O-M-A-H-O-N-E-Y dot com.
