Tom Kegode (00:00)

When we talk about transformation it signals that there will be an end point. People always quite like to have an end point because then you can say tick, done and move on to the next thing. What I've learned from speaking to different organisations and the work that I've been doing within Lloyd's is that, you know, we get to this point where we are – now. 

So I've stopped talking so much around the concept of transformation and started talking much more about the concept of evolution and that kind of iterative approach. Because, you know, the transformation in the world that we live in with the kind of disruption that we're seeing, we're not going to have an end point to this, it's going to be constant change. And the trick is to get people comfortable with that with operating in that environment.

Intro (00.48)

Hey everyone, welcome to Work's Not Working, a show about forward-thinking people leaders, innovators and academics, and how they think we can fix work to make it more meaningful, healthy, inclusive and sustainable. Brought to you by The People Space.

Siân Harrington (00:57)

Hi, I’m Siân Harrington and in this episode of Work’s Not Working… Let’s Fix It!, I sit down with Tom Kegode, former People & Places Culture Transformation Lead at one of the UK’s biggest banks, to explore why our corporate obsession with “transformation” may be holding us back.

When we talk about the future of work, that word transformation keeps coming up.
 But here’s the problem: transformation implies a finish line – a point where the work is “done”. And in a world of constant disruption there is no end state.

So maybe the real fix isn’t transformation at all. Maybe it’s evolution – ongoing, human-centred change that adapts as the world does.

That’s where today’s guest comes in. After 16 years at Lloyds Banking Group, where he helped reimagine everything from hybrid workplaces and leadership culture to skills development, Tom is now designing experiences that help leaders unlock bold thinking and deliver outcomes that actually stick.

In this conversation you’ll learn:
 • Why transformation programmes fail to stick and what evolution looks like in practice
 • Why workplaces should swap generational divides for generational exchanges
 • How small, continuous shifts – from office design to learning culture – drive lasting change
 • And why leaders should be looking to Africa for the next phase of growth.

But first, a bit more about Tom. He began his career in customer, sales and leadership roles at Lloyds Bank, progressed through regional management into business design, and later moved into innovation before leading People & Places Culture Transformation. Today, he helps organisations spark the shifts needed to build future-ready ways of working.

So we open in an unexpected place, with Tom walking into senior executive meetings in a green Adidas track top and a baseball cap. Not as a gimmick but as a deliberate act of friendly disruption. A way of challenging the assumptions that keep big organisations stuck –  and a signal that there are better ways to lead, to listen and to evolve.

Siân Harrington (03:14)

It's lovely to have you on the programme today, Tom. I'm going to just dive straight in. I heard you once describe yourself as a f’riendly disruptor’ during your time at Lloyd's Bank. What does that actually mean day to day in an environment like a big bank?

Tom Kegode (03:23)

Yes. So I think the concept of being a friendly disruptor is one I've kind of just used throughout my career to almost act as a way of me being able to exercise my curiosity as much as possible, and actually always be the person that is challenging the status quo. 

So, you know, my background in the organisation was leading regional teams and branch teams, first of all, then I moved into the kind of innovation space. So from like 2015 to 2020, I was in an innovation team and our focus was really around helping make innovation everyone's job. 

And I always had this kind of concept in my mind that there's always a better way of doing something. We just haven't quite figured out what it is yet. Being a friendly disruptor is kind of like being almost that annoying person that is going to be asking you why and why and why again. So it's almost like that kind of, you keep asking questions and being curious until you really start to get under the skin of what the real challenge is. 

And often large organisations, particularly where there's quite a lot of legacy and when it comes to ways of working, you can find that people are just doing ‘stuff’ because they've always done that ‘stuff’. And actually when you start to really give them the opportunity to open up the discussion as to why they even operate in that way, you can kind of quickly get to the point that they're not quite sure. And, actually, they are open to trying new things.

And so it's kind of a way of being able to challenge the norms in a way that's kind of guided rather than creating an environment where people feel like change is being done to them, which I think never works. I think it's about how you can ask the right questions that people that potentially if you're going into a situation you can ask the questions that people are too afraid to ask, right? Because you don't know enough. So it's really about sort of that leading with curiosity but doing it in a friendly way. 

And for me, a friendly disruptor, like, I've kind of done that, I do that in various ways. So, the curiosity when I go in but even the way that I dress sometimes when I'm going into leadership team meetings, right? I had the kind of this signature at Lloyds where I’d wear my green Adidas track top and a baseball cap as I'm going into a senior executive meeting. And they're like, who is this guy? Like what business have you got walking into this room looking like that? But I do that deliberately to disrupt what it looks like to be a banker. Because then I think that kind of sets the scene for, okay, this conversation may be slightly different. 

What I've learned by doing that though is actually you've got to be even more on top of your game because people are thinking, you know who you to come in and challenge this? 

But every way that I would approach things, I would kind of bring that curiosity, but also do it in a way that's like, this could be awesome, like, let's shape it together. So that's where the friendly element is really important. Because if you're kind of a disruptor for the sake of being a disruptor, that can really rub people up the wrong way. So it's all about the kind of behaviour and the attitude that you approach that with from a place of genuinely wanting to co-create something with people and not, you know, not rubbish everything that's gone before. It's almost how can you build and how can you iterate? And that's kind of the way that I've kind of built that mindset and the way of sort of working. 

So it's got to be respectful and really about how you can move the system, not necessarily blowing it up for the sake of it.

Siân Harrington (06:56)

Yeah, I love what you said then about making innovation every day. And one of the things we've talked about in the past is the concept of transformation. The thing about transformation, it very much feels like it's a thing, a project, an end point. But of course, today, work never stands still. I mean, we're transforming all the time. Why do you think people still see transformation projects as this one big thing and what is it about that mindset that really fails in practice?

Tom Kegode (07:28)

Yeah, and it's a really interesting point because when we talk about transformation it signals that there will be an end point. People always quite like to have an end point because then you can say tick done and move on to the next thing. What I've learned from speaking to different organisations and sort of the work that I've been doing within Lloyd's is that, you know, we get to this point where we are – now. So I've stopped talking so much around the concept of transformation and started talking much more about the concept of evolution and that kind of iterative approach. Because, you know, the transformation in the world that we live in with the kind of disruption that we're seeing, we're not going to have an end point to this, it's going to be constant change. 

And the trick is to get people comfortable with that with operating in that environment. Because if you frame it as a point where something will be done and then it's all of a sudden you come out and say, right, now we've got to do another transformation. You kind of can get that fatigue, right? So it's almost, if you're able to position evolution instead of transformation, you are saying we are in a place where things will be constantly changing. And actually that's good to get comfortable with that. 

I think it's also really important from a wellbeing stance as well, because when you think about appearing to have a specific end date to something, some people will sort of hold back, say, right, I will keep going and I'll keep going until this project is finished. And then actually, you can really quite quickly find yourself getting to a point of burnout because you are holding on for that moment, which is effectively now never going to come. 

When we think about the kind of disruption, as I mentioned, we've got things like the, the uprising of technology and the impact of AI, generative AI on the workforce. You've got geopolitical challenges. You've got a range of different kinds of things when it comes to rights, and equity, conflict, global conflict, there is so much happening. That's why it's really important because you can't really plan for that one linear transformation journey anymore. The concept of that timeline needs to be kind of expanded into this kind of concept of a time cone, where actually you are planning for multiple different futures. And actually you are really adaptive to what's going on around you and the organisational context that you're operating in as well. 

So that's why I think there's that there needs to be that that kind of shift from kind of transformation to evolution to really get the best out of your people but also to kind of look after yourselves as well during that.

Siân Harrington (10:03)

Wellbeing is a very good point there that you've made, I think. So let's say we're now effectively saying kill off the word transformation. We don't want that anymore. We're going with evolution. What does evolution look like then in the real world? Can you give me an example maybe from your time at Lloyd's?

Tom Kegode (10:21)

It's very similar to some of the methodologies that you see in an agile framework, right? So actually that kind of iterative approach and creating those kind of short term, regular sort of lines in the sand that you can kind of think. So I use a sprint methodology when I'm working with teams, specifically to think about how we can shift the dial to create a particular shift with it from somewhere to something else. And actually that kind of iterative approach gives people the opportunity to stop, take stock and then continue or course correct and adjust as it happens. 

There's a prime example for us when we were looking at during the COVID times and the hybrid approach that we were building within Lloyds Banking Groups. That was a really kind of a co-created situation where we were looking at, okay, let's understand what the real challenge is. 

And the methods that I use is kind of this grounded in design thinking, identify, co-create and activate. And those are the kind of the phases that I'll take teams through with change. So, how do you bring people together to almost start to come together around what that problem is, identify what the problem is and work it through. Then you would almost, you know, co-create what that solution looks like. 

And then that's the point where you're almost going for that MVP approach. So what is it that we can get out into the world now and start testing, seek feedback, understand and then evolve and iterate. 

So we started the journey with, with a hybrid approach at Lloyd's where we, we were saying, look, what it's about is finding the right balance for the business, the right balance for the team and for you as an individual. It's that Venn diagram where it meets in the middle. So that was kind of the initial start point for that journey, the first iteration, if you like, of what we were looking at. 

At the same time, we were looking to redesign the offices to be fit for the future as well. So what we found as part of that journey was that actually we weren't getting the level of office use that we were hoping to see, and against the backdrop of us trying to redesign the offices to be really fit for the future. So then that was kind of like, okay, we need to now iterate this again because that that first approach wasn't giving us the outcome that we were looking for, to create connection and community in our places. And so then we kind of iterated and evolved that approach. 

And that was when we moved to set the expectation around 40% of office time. By doing that, that meant that we were able to then justify the investment in the offices that we wanted to create the offices of the future.

And then that journey continues –  you go through that change curve of how people respond to those situations. But actually, by saying we are working through this together, and actually we're listening and that's a really important part of any of those kind of journeys is that we're listening and we're iterating and we'll continue to evolve what this looks like. That really sets that expectation that it's not a one and done. This is the first part of this journey, which we're all on together and all of your insight is important to that. 

So I think that's probably an example of that how you can take an evolutionary approach to something that's quite big, for an organisation. but making sure that you're co-creating collectively with everybody as it goes and sharing those successes and the stories along the way. And then that will help you to kind of identify the route you need to take.

Siân Harrington (13:46)

So when you were talking about the office the first one didn't work quite as well as you were planning, what were you looking at? Did you set up to do that agile approach? Did you say, right, these are the sort of metrics we want to see – we can see it's not hitting these?

Tom Kegode (13:48)

Yeah. And there's a quite a prime one for that was the office attendance usage and the data that we were seeing from that. So we were looking at, were looking at that. We were also looking at how teams are interacting with each other and the kind of time that people are spending with each other as well in terms of that level of connection.

And let me just give an example – teams are saying that they are going in but the rest of their team isn't there. Okay, so how can we then define and create some tools and some things that people can use to test. 

So as a result of that we created a hybrid working toolkit, which gave people the opportunity to think about what might an anchor day look like for their team? How they can make sure that they are sort of being more prescriptive in terms of the tools to enable people to think about that. Also, what does it mean for people that when they want to think about the work they do and where that work gets done. 

So the characteristics of this concept, which I coined, which was like “unboxing your week”. So the things that you do on a home day are very different to the things that you do in an office day. So it's almost like you need to be able to give people prompts and little things that they can test and experiment with to enable them to evolve their approach as well as their personal operating model and that of the team.

Siân Harrington (15:11)

That concept of unboxing your week is great, isn't it? Because you so easily could go in the office and then sit and do like Zooms all day or whatever and just not utilise it. So making actually your people think as well as your managers and your leaders about what that looks like is really great. 

Tom Kegode (15:19)

Totlsly. And it's that kind of people don't know what they don't know as well. So if you know that the way that you've worked up until now is that you go and you sit at a desk and you do that for the day, then that's what you see your work to be. 

It’s kind of similar to when we were in COVID and we had the conversation around pivoting the concept of work being from being a place that you go to, a thing that you do. I think people are starting to get that now but almost people are then still going in and executing their work in that way when, actually, if you can then create spaces and encourage people and create behavioural nudges for people to behave in a different way in those spaces. 

So you may go in and you may go and have a first meeting with somebody in the coffee shop, or you may go and sit on the terrace and have a one-to-one. You might go and use the games area and have a one-to-one over a game of pool with it's something that's a bit more social. And then you may go and do some deep focus work for a period of time. But actually being intentional around the types of things that you do where. 

So when I would go to the office I will clear my diary as much as I can of virtual meetings and push them to my home days so that I can be speaking to people, chatting, because I find those are the bits where it's like, just let me just catch you on this. Like, what do think about this? And actually then that's building and generating all the sort of deep work that I need to do when I'm on a home day. So it's really trying to get the most out of both those spaces. So giving ideas and prompts.

Siân Harrington (16:52)

Absolutely. And if we want to take a more evolutionary approach to work one of the vital ingredients is learning. We need to be constantly learning. We hear a lot about learning cultures. And you've done some very interesting things at Lloyd's here. I know you helped build the data and the tech academy, you did ‘drop everything and learn’. So let's talk a bit about that. What do these teach us about really creating a learning culture as opposed to just the typical tick box training that I'm afraid most people, even when they talk about wanting to have a learning culture, really end up doing. So give us some examples there and how that's taught you what learning culture looks like.

Tom Kegode (17:28)

Yeah, and it's this thing around like, tracking, one of the one of my favourite things I see is this kind of concept of tracking learning hours, like how many hours have you done learning? And it's like, that's one thing, but it's not the be all and end all right. And actually, it's how those moments happen, when people come together. 

So when it comes to talent, skills and learning, I think there's, it's a stage where when you think about skills now, like the shelf life of a skill last time I looked was about five years, the tech skill being two and a half. So it's almost like this, again, there needs to be an iterative evolutionary approach to learning. And that's the way that you'll create the culture is that the learning doesn't necessarily happen, not always in the classroom, like it happens on the job as well. So it's thinking about how you can create time for that. 

Then through the mediums that people can absorb information, you know, some of the best learning can be done listening to a podcast, right? Or when you're out for a walk with a dog and you've got a podcast on actually, that's when you're some of your best ideas are going to come to you. There's actual science behind this because you're more creative when you're up and moving because you're taking in more oxygen is going to your brain. So there's like, so we've got to kind of be adaptable to the different types and styles of learning. That said, there's a huge, huge opportunity when it comes to bringing people together for moments of learning. Collective learning is, I think, a key use case for offices. so I think there's like kind of five core reasons that we use office spaces. 

One of them is meeting people on purpose. The second is meeting people by accident and those casual conversations. The other one is workshopping, getting in a room and figuring a load of stuff out. And actually you can get so much more done than you would have thought. The fourth one is team cohesion, simply having that time to bond together. And then the fifth one is this collective learning experience. 

So I think learning as an experiential thing, rather than a kind of training as it would be classed, I think is something that actually you can really create time for and it has a significant value. 

So the concept of ‘drop everything and learn’ was something which we pioneered at Lloyd's over the last couple of years. So from when I moved into the team we looked at how can we look at deciding what the critical skills that we need as a function. So we have 1,500 people in the People and Places HR team. And it was like, how can we think about what are the key skills that we need to uplift across the function as a whole to make it relevant to everybody? So define what those things would be at the beginning of the year, and then actually create that time from a central perspective where we'd say, ‘drop everything and learn’. Once a quarter we will bring together our teams. We encourage and promote everybody to drop everything and learn on that one day per quarter. The expectation is that is fronted by leadership in each of the hubs across the UK and globally. So they will be all going on at the same time. So you've got 1,500 people dropping everything to hear from either insights from across the business, get some hands-on practical experience. 

So one of the last ones that I did before I left was around AI. We did it so that we brought people together. I was in Bristol for this one. We had some inspiration around how AI is being used externally through some of the partners that we had in the external environment. Then somehow it was used internally and then an opportunity to put that into practice by bringing people together in small groups to redefine and redesign a core process. In this case, it was onboarding that we were looking at. So giving people the opportunity to actually learn, absorb, collectively together in groups of people they wouldn't typically work with builds deeper connection across the wider function. 

One of the things that I most loved about that one is the cross-generational interaction that you can create in those kinds of events and experiences. And there was one team that I was with in Bristol and I was watching all the teams and going around but I just heard so much laughter coming from this one group. And I like, look, I love seeing people have fun at work. I think we spent so much time at work, how do we make it fun? 

So actually what I found from the discussions and had a lot of help with what's going on, that we have three sort of longer tenure people that were that were in with this group with a load of grads and apprentices that had joined in that week. So they had a real like real experience of the onboarding of the onboarding journey, right? But then you've also got people that are sort of longer tenure that have that kind of a deeper organisational knowledge and experience. And what I found from the discussion was they just said the best thing about this whole experience has been being able to work with somebody from a completely different generation and I've learnt so much by doing that. And I think there's kind of it's so easy to jump to this kind of generational divides. I think the opportunity for generational exchange is huge and should never be underestimated. 

So that was just an aside from ‘drop everything and learn’ but the way that ‘drop everything and learn’ operated was there was one specific curriculum item per quarter and they had that immersive day but we also put in so that was ‘deal’ day.  ‘

Deal’ time was a one hour a week that we sent from a central calendar to all of the HR function to say this is your time to do learning. You do three and three to four on a Wednesday was the time that we settled on at that point. And, it was kind of, this is up, this is over to you, like, we will not put any central meetings in and we encourage you to decline meetings during this time as well. So this is the standard when we were seeing people say, no, I'm learning at this time now, so that I won't be able to join that meeting. And then that started to kind of populate across the organisation as well. This is interesting. ‘What is this ‘deal’ time’ because it was active in calendars. And then we started to see more teams start to roll that out. And that's what led to some of that data and tech stuff as well. 

So it's that kind of building a collective identity, the concept of a bit of an academy of themes and topics that are really relevant, but giving people the freedom also to do the kind of learning that works for them as well as the curriculum is really important. So it's that continuous learning and creating a bit of a movement and excitement for that. You put on lunch and stuff, people have the opportunity to really come together and have those experiences collectively, I think is really important.

Siân Harrington (23:49)

Giving people the ability to be able to say, no, this is my learning time is really an interesting concept. And a word you keep using as well as co-creation. I think these go together because one thing you could quite easily find is a manager, a leader, who actually doesn't really buy into this and is like, well, I need you, I need you in that meeting at that time, hard luck, you can't do your one hour. How do we bring leaders who have, and it ties in a bit with your longer tenure in Lloyd's and the like, how do we bring people who've grown up in a more hierarchical system? How do we get their mindset to shift a bit and to start thinking about it's no longer control it is co-creation. When we've put an hour in the diary, that hour is in the diary unless it's an absolute disaster, we really need someone. It is protected time. You've talked about conscious unbossing as well. I remember you saying that at an event I was at, how do we sort of shift people? What have you found has worked in your experience?

Tom Kegode (24:54)

So I think it's almost, it's definitely important to link to your organisational values as well. So, you know, if we set something out and that concept of co-creation being, you know, a really important one is almost I think it's this slight shift of, you know, to be more bold in what you're willing to do and the sort of behaviours you're willing to sort of encourage, discourage and tolerate across an organisation. And I think when you can do that and you can start to give people the autonomy to be able to make choices. And with the best will in the world, you you've got the deal time blocked out, something like change that may have to take precedent, right? But then it's saying okay, I'm going to have to shift my ‘deal’ time this week. So it's about giving people the ability to make that call and that judgment and say, I'll take it on Friday at 10 o'clock, actually, because that works for me this week.

 But I think just by being intentional in terms of putting it in from a central group, that's the standard. Senior sponsorship is also very important in this like you mentioned there. So we had two of the ex co members that fronted the People and Places Academy, as we called it, and ‘deal’ as a concept. So they and they would be the ones, it was a very open conversation where you know, if people are encroaching on your ‘deal’ time, let us know and like if you're seeing any of these challenges, talk to us because we want to understand why that is because that's the kind of the expectation that had been set from the chief people and places officer. So the sponsorship is critically important. And actually the activeness of those sponsors to drive that can then help to nudge those behaviours and help them shift along the way.

 Siân Harrington (26:39)

And picking up on the generational aspect you've just come back from Nairobi and we know Africa has got the youngest generation. It's going to be one of the really key areas going forward. Tell me bit about that experience. What did you learn there? Is there a different perspective when it comes to the younger generations and work and adaptability and agility? What stood out?

Tom Kegode (26:42)

So I think there's, so yeah, going back to Kenya was amazing because I'm half Kenyan myself, my sister, my older sister lives out there. So I was going out with a kind of, as I decided I was leaving Lloyd's I was like, I want to go back and reconnect a little bit but also as I mentioned earlier, I'm very curious, right? So I almost can't go on holiday somewhere without going and seeing what's the world of work looking like over here? I'm going to Thailand in February and I'm already thinking, I wonder what co-working spaces I can go and like explore in Bangkok. it's definitely that curiosity that led me to the point. 

So Africa, I think, yeah, huge. And I actually sat down with somebody, one of the top podcasters there to chat with him as well whilst I was over there, which was really interesting because there is huge, huge growth, like 25% of the globe's population will be African by 2050. So that's a significantly young demographic. 

The growth in Nairobi compared to when I went last time in 2018 is significant. And I guess highly tech-enabled, highly mobile first. 

Back in 2007, I think it was, was when M-Pesa, which was a mobile money app was launched in Kenya, so that was what like way before the incoming fintech and people using mobile apps, and it was just done on the phone infrastructure. And the reason for that was there was a less of a kind of infrastructure network, and you've got people that have villages and towns away from the nearest cash point or the nearest bank that actually they need to find a way of being able to transfer, put cash in and move it aroundsafely. And the way to do that was everyone had phones and it was just done on the old school like SMS networks, almost like you're using top-up vouchers, which you would use but you're just managing your money through that and sending it via that. 

So I think there's a level of resourcefulness that I definitely see in Nairobi. And the whole city is building upwards, like the skyscrapers that are there, it's changed so much since 2018. But generally there's a high level of optimism that I'm definitely seeing there. I think from a generational perspective, you're seeing quite a lot of very politically active in that space as well. So I think there's kind of a real – I spent some time in a co-working space when I was out there looking at some of the organisations - there's a big focus on learning, education, education tech, and also agriculture and agritech as well is very big out there because of the tea, coffee farming in general. 

And a lot of kind of social responsibility stuff too. So how you can help do good I think is also something that's really interesting. So lots of things starting to come through. Renewables was another one that was there as well, right? So actually building sort of smart city, smart homes, and they're building this kind of the smart town that's just outside of Nairobi that’s highly tech enabled, but also renewable energy. So yeah, techopolis is what they're calling that. So I think there's a lot of excitement there. 

And I think we'll start to see more and more organisations looking towards Africa and the global south in terms of this next phase of growth because that young demographic is hitting the workforce. Obviously, along with that comes a whole host of skills and opportunity and people that are really optimistic. Yeah, exciting times, I think, for the continent of Africa as a whole for sure.

Siân Harrington (30:52)

Optimism is a word that seems to be sorely lacking in some of the global north at the moment. So that's one thing we can definitely learn straight away is let's get some more optimism back.

Tom Kegode (30:56)

I know right. Which is why it's so nice to see. Yeah, and I think I go back to that thing around generations where it is so there is such an opportunity for mutual benefit by bringing together generations and I don't understand why we still stereotype generations. It feels like that people fulfil this unacceptable thing to do when actually it just doesn't make any sense.

There's different people, you've got different archetypes within those, at different life stages with very different expectations and desires from the workforce and the way that they want to operate. So we need to treat people as individuals. 

But also there's like this kind of concept of bringing people together from different groups for that mutual benefit and generational knowledge exchange and wisdom exchange. One of the last things that I was doing before I left Lloyds was working with the top 350 leaders in the organisation. who went through a kind of a two day programme of activity to really connect with the future and what's happening next. So it's a programme of activity called Grow With Purpose. It's one that we've run a couple of years. So they have a load of inspiration over a two-day period that they're together in cohorts, eight cohorts go through it. 

I ran a session at the end of that for all of these leaders, which was around the evolution of storytelling. It's really interesting because actually three years ago when the first one, I did a session on storytelling there and was talking about how do we craft and construct a story. And then it was almost how storytelling has evolved even since then. And the kind of the influence that TikTok has had on the way that people communicate and choose to consume content and that you've got three seconds effectively to capture someone's attention, which is a length of time of a sneeze, right? So it's how can you get your message to cut through? But also the opportunity that leaders have within that. 

So as part of the session that I designed and we ran, it was almost a bit of an overview of storytelling. Then I started talking about TikTok and you can kind of see the horror in people's faces when I was starting to talk about TikTok. I'm like, we've got something interactive for you. We set a creative challenge for them to create a TikTok of their experience over the last couple of days and the key messaging that they had and bring that to life. 

But how I did that was bring in a Gen Z cohort of the people that fronted the Lloyds Banking Group TikTok channel, right? So brought them in at the back of the room, it's like, who better than to help and work with you than some of our TikTok cohort that are responsible for the actual content that we put on the LBG channel. So they were paired and assigned a coach and the work the coach was there to do the recording, help them with the creative, do some quick edits and, at the end of that hour, we had a premiere of all of them as well. 

But during that time when the editing was happening before we did the big showcase of the TikToks that all of these teams had created, we just had a big room chat and discussion around how was that? Like I saw the fear in your eyes when we talked about you creating a TikTok. And actually the things that were coming out were the opportunity to work with their coaches and the coach that was someone that was coming in that was digital native, but also was willing to challenge them and was the most powerful thing. And they were saying, I need to figure out how I do more of this with my teams and how I connect with those generations and cross-generation more intentionally.

So I think there's definitely something in every single one of those that I've done, as well as the ‘deal’ day concepts that I mentioned earlier when we had this group, is never poorly received. People are always like, I need to do more of this. So I think there's a huge opportunity for organisations to really tap into that.

Siân Harrington (34:37)

I'd love that myself even as somebody who you could argue is a storyteller through my career, TikTok and things like that, they are very different media. And you do need to approach things quite differently. it's sometimes it is a bit scary.

Tom Kegode (34:46)

Yeah. And particularly when you think about I was operating with the most the 350 most senior leaders within the organisation who can often be quite used to operating in quite a polished way, and operating in quite a kind of sometimes in a scripted way, it's very formal. So actually trying to break that down. But what that did, because they knew the end result was going to be a 30 second to 60 second reel, they had to really think about the messages that they needed to land and  they wanted to land in that. So it makes them much more concise in the way that they're telling that story and bringing the key components to life. Which, yeah, it's out of comfort zone for a lot of people, but really critical to be able to tell stories in this day and age in a way that's going to connect.

Siân Harrington (35:35)

Was there a moment in your own professional life where the penny dropped on this? Was there an incident or a project you were working on or something where you just went, hey, hang on, we need to tear this up and start to get it differently?

Tom Kegode (35:50) 

So I think even when I was sort of setting up this concept of a work lab back in during COVID. I've been working in innovation for many years. And then we had to make change happen when we were sort of going into think about what work reimagine it like and how we could make and create the work of the future. But we didn't have very much time to do it. 

So that's when I came to the understanding that because we flipped everything to virtual, it actually broke down a number of the barriers to entry that were there previously. So this is why I love hybrid, but more than hybrid of the where you are, I like to think of the hybridity of experiences now. So what can you do that almost starts something in a virtual environment, then you come together for more meaningful time in person, and then you may finish something in the virtual environment. So that end to end journey of the hybridity. So when we were doing, you know, some of the research around what do different archetypes across the organisation need I was able to get people together for a rapid ideation session. Ideation workshops previous to this I would only do in person. And then obviously what I found is I was able to bring together like a cashier on the counter in Cornwall with like an investments director in Edinburgh on the same call for 30 minutes of rapid ideation and get so much insight out of the back of that. 

So I was like, hold on a minute, all of this kind of structure of designing these kinds of sessions that I've done in the past have really been democratised now because I'm able to bring in a really diverse group of people. And they're like, you'll never get this out in 30 minutes. I'm like, it's really surprising what you can and actually it gives people a short, sharp, espresso shot of creativity. And they leave, say, I'm so energised. Like I didn't realise we'd be able to do that because you're only tackling like three big challenges in one of those calls. But actually you're giving people the opportunity to exercise their creativity and actually do that in a way that's a really diverse mix of people. 

And that was kind of where I was like, hmm, this is a very useful tool. How can I kind of shape something that is a tool and a method that I can use but is also very adaptable because I don't want it to be, you know, one of the things I always used to find a real challenge when I worked in some of the digital teams when you had agile and you were going agile and it's like the teams that are like agile purists and it, must be done in this way. And I've always been a bit of like, let me just take what is useful for this particular moment and use that method there in like a loose way. If you wed yourself too much to a process you find yourself going through those process loops and jumping through hoops when it's kind of unnecessary. 

So how can you take the best of these different ways of working and make them useful for people so that they don't resent having to go through the process of those, but actually find it really useful as a mechanism and tool they can carry on into their day-to-day work as well.

Siân Harrington (39:00)

Not very agile, not agile minded, agile teams there then. Is there anything from what you've experienced in work and how you've now approached these things that you've brought back into your personal life? Has it changed you at all?

Tom Kegode (39:10)

So I mean, the curiosity is there in my personal life as well, right? I think for definitely this kind of, I've always found that what was interesting is I had an ADHD diagnosis a couple of years ago, and then a lot of things started making sense to me in terms of why I kind of gravitate towards creative type roles, why I sort of thrive in an innovation environment.  So I think that's helped me understand sort of who I am and how I operate and why I gravitate towards the kind of work that I do. 

What that's also done at the same time I've qualified as an executive coach as well. Now that journey was also a very reflective journey on myself and the way that I operate and the way that I coach. So I think it's helped me frame why I gravitate towards that and actually where there's some real superpowers that I can really, really bring together. But then also then how I work with people that are potentially not that, you know, necessarily as comfortable operating in a, a kind of environment of flux and change. So it's being able to kind of strike that right balance where you can create that space for people to that but in a way that coaches them through that experience as well. So, it's definitely been a reflective journey for me, but once I sort of figured out, okay, this is, why I gravitate towards this. How can I then help other people to work through challenges, whether that's leaders or teams that are looking to think about the future and make the future a little bit less scary, a bit more exciting and full of that kind of opportunity. And, like I said earlier, to do that in a friendly way, rather than in a disruptive way without the friendliness.

Siân Harrington (40:54)

Yeah, I love that. And we do use that word disruption a bit too much, don't we? To say it in a different way is a good way to do it. I really have really enjoyed this conversation. So let's use your superpowers here and your ability to storytell and get right to the point here and leave the listeners with your top three ways to approach this as evolving work instead of transforming it. So if there's three ways that a listener, a leader, an HR director, could start thinking, right, okay, I need to move away from this big transformation project mindset and I want to start this, what would your tips be?

Tom Kegode (41:18)

So I think three things, right? So I think the first one, and we've talked about a lot already today, but this kind of concept of co-creating your operating model. So give teams the ownership and the autonomy to, within the boundaries of what you're looking to achieve, give them the ownership and autonomy to shape what that looks like. So being part of the journey and enjoying the journey is critical. So, rather than to do to people co create with people. That's the first one. 

And the second one is this kind of concept of, of making learning continuous, right? So it's kind of an ongoing experience, not necessarily like training in a classroom base, but it's got to be experiential, whether that's weekly, the micro shifts that you're able to make by creating space for people to do their own learning, or whether that's something that's broader than that. But it's got to be continuous, it's got to be evolutionary, it's got to be in a way that people can tap into, learn in a way that works for them. 

And then this third one, I think is around building that -  it's all around that kind of concept of creating psychological safety, right? So building a high challenge and high support environment. Yu know, when you're delivering significant change in organisations, it's hard, right? And it's going to be bumpy, it's going to be sticky. There's a concept of when you're starting something, it feels exciting. There's always going to be the messy middle that you get into where things are not feeling like they're working. And then you go through that. It’s knowing that that environment is there and people have got the backing and leaders are creating that environment for psychological safety. 

But also create an environment where it's safe to fail in a safe way. So fail is great if you learn from that failure and you take action as a result of that. Innovation can only take place if failure happens. So we almost have to kind of normalise that and create the kind of environment that enables people to talk about their failures, learn from them, and then make an impact after that. So co-creating your operating model, building continuous learning and build a high challenge and high support environment.

Siân Harrington (43:35)

What I loved about this conversation with Tom is how practical his vision is. We spend so much time talking about future of work as if it's something abstract or far off. 

But Tom makes it clear. The fixes in the everyday experiments, the deal days, the redesign of offices as cultural hubs, the wisdom swaps between apprentices and 30 year veterans. And so I take this away. Work isn't broken because disruption is happening. It's broken because we still treat disruption as an interruption.

Tom reminds us that evolution, not transformation, is the real fix. So thank you to Tom for joining me today. You can find him at Spark Shift, where he's helping leaders and teams co-create the future of work. 

And thank you as always for listening to Work's Not Working… Let's Fix It! I’m Siân Harrington. And subscribe Follow me on LinkedIn at Siân Harrington ThePeopleSpace for more bold ideas and practical tools on the future of work head to www.thepeoplespace.com. This episode was produced by Nigel Pritchard. Until next time stay bold stay curious and let's redesign work for everyone. Goodbye