Authentic Achievements With Special Guest David Johnson
🎙️ Episode 35: “Transforming Challenges into Triumphs” with David Johnson (@TurnaroundDavid) 🌟 Welcome back to another empowering episode of Authentic Achievements, the podcast that delves deep into the inspiring stories and practical wisdom of individuals who have turned dreams into reality. In this week’s episode, we are honoured to have a true expert in organizational change and business transformation, David Johnson, join us for a captivating conversation. 🚀 About Our Guest: David Johnson boasts an impressive 25-year track record as a driving force behind organizational change. As an advisory powerhouse, he has stepped into roles as an interim executive and financial advisor for numerous middle-market companies navigating transitions. A true thought leader, David’s commitment to sharing his insights shines through his engagements as a speaker and the articles he has penned on pivotal subjects such as business transformation, change management, interim leadership, restructuring, turnaround, and value creation.
His academic journey includes an MBA from the prestigious University of Chicago and completing his undergraduate studies at Fairleigh Dickinson University. 🌈 What to Expect in This Episode: Join us as David takes us on a riveting journey through his career, highlighting key milestones, challenges faced, and the lessons learned along the way. From thought-provoking anecdotes to actionable advice, this episode is a goldmine for anyone aspiring to navigate the complexities of business transformation and emerge victorious.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
– Learn how David’s commitment to thought leadership has shaped his career and the organizations he’s been a part of. – Gain insights into the world of interim leadership and financial advisory, and discover their pivotal role in steering companies through transitions.
– Uncover the principles of successful business transformation, change management, and value creation from a seasoned expert.
🎧 Tune In: Don’t miss out on this enlightening conversation with David Johnson. Whether you’re a seasoned entrepreneur, a budding professional, or simply someone hungry for knowledge, this episode promises to fuel your journey with inspiration and actionable insights.
🎉 Connect with David: – Website: https://abraxasgp.com/ – Twitter: [@TurnaroundDavid]( / turnarounddavid ) – Linkedin: / davidjohnsonagllc
📌 Stay Connected: Make sure to subscribe to Authentic Achievements on your favourite podcast platform for more riveting conversations with trailblazers who have turned their dreams into authentic achievements. Your journey to success starts here! 🌐
Connect with us online: – Website: [www.authenticachievements.com](https://www.authenticachievements.com) – Instagram: [@kimadele10]( / kimadele10 ) – Twitter: [@kimadele10]( / kimadele10 ) Remember, your dreams are within reach, and Authentic Achievements is here to guide you every step of the way. Stay inspired, stay authentic! ✨
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Transcript:
0:00[Music]
0:07[Applause] hello and welcome to this episode of authentic achievements where I’m
0:13delighted to be joined by The Fabulous David Johnson also known as turnaround David who has a 25-year track record of
0:20driving organizational change in an advisory capacity David served as an interim executive or financial advisor
0:26to dozens of Middle Market companies in transition throughout his career David has demonstrated a commitment to thought
0:33leadership with numerous speaking engagements business transformation
0:38change management interim leadership restructuring turnaround and value creation to his credit David received an
0:45MBA from the University of Chicago and completed his undergraduate studies at fairlay Dickinson University David it is
0:52a delight to have you on the show Welcome Kim thank you so much and thank you for the kind introduction oh my
0:59pleasure I’ve been so looking forward to this because we obviously we chatted just the other week didn’t we um when we were getting ready for uh getting you
1:06involved in my latest book um and I just thought your insights were were just so insightful so I’m so thrilled that you
1:13agreed to come and join us on the show and share more about your journey with
1:18our audience so absolutely tell us a little bit more about your journey so far please so I started my journey early
1:28on I started uh research project when I was 19 that became a company that I
1:33worked on in my early 20s and that was a wonderful experience unfortunately it
1:40didn’t work out but failure is a great teacher because it really does prod you
1:46to interrogate what it is that you did wrong and that first entrepreneurial
1:55experience and realizing that it didn’t work out really kind of launched me into
2:01a lifelong quest of what do you do when you take a wrong turn how do you help a
2:08company steer out of that how do you help them chart a new strategic path and
2:15undo the mistakes of the past and actually kind of write a new chapter of value creation oh I love that because
2:22it’s true isn’t it I mean we we sometimes think that their failure is so final but it’s only final if we allow it
2:27to be final if we instead look at from um the opportunity to learn something and to see what bits did work as well as
2:35what bits didn’t work because often it’s not everything that failed is it it’s one element of it so when we absolutely
2:42highlight those bits that go these bits work so let’s do them again this bit didn’t work so what can we do
2:49differently with that with that one bit then that’s when we start to find those opportunities to change isn’t it that’s
2:56right I I think that’s that’s so insightful the that binary thinking this was a complete
3:03failure this was a complete success is not helpful every failure has wonderful
3:11lessons that you can learn and every success has pieces that you can say well we we didn’t need to do it that way we
3:18could have gotten where we were going faster or reached higher if we had avoided this or made a different
3:24decision here I just feel like in Failure there is more time to really
3:33interrogate and think what did I did do wrong whereas it’s very hard for us when we’re successful to step back and say
3:41okay what did I do because it doesn’t feel like you did anything wrong even though you could be better and I think
3:47sometimes as well you don’t you I don’t know about you I I sometimes am like like don’t jinx it
3:54right just be grateful just be grateful thank the Lord and and don’t jinx it by going and Di into it which is is
4:01obviously the wrong type of thinking because I me and my little girl we’ve got a um a family mission statement
4:08which is to live a life of passionate curiosity and to pass our thoughts words and deeds through the lenses of is it
4:15kind is it honest and does it add value and if the answer is no you you change
4:21what you’re do um and I’m trying to apply that now to the lessons which is you’ve got to go and look at them you’ve
4:26got to go and see not just things that that went um well look at the things that went badly so that you can now make
4:32informed Choice isn’t it sure and I guess that’s what you help organizations do isn’t it is find the courage to make
4:40the informed Choice by going and looking at the details that lifting the lifting
4:45the HUD up and seeing what’s happening underneath almost you know I think that’s absolutely right at at the end of
4:52the day I I recognize that my clients are bringing me in and they are
4:59undergoing some real challenges but um giving people the space
5:07to kind of one understand what’s happening because I found that too many
5:13people who do this work lead with numbers and don’t get me wrong analysis
5:19is important at the end of the day especially when you need outside Capital you need to have uh a logical analytic
5:27story but there needs to be a narrative and that’s so important for the people
5:33that were in the company for the decision makers the board or shareholders who may have been along
5:39throughout the journey what happened and why does this work and not this why is this working now but we tried this five
5:46years ago and it didn’t work I increasingly spend a lot of time focused
5:53on to different stakeholders uh a different level of detail what’s the
5:58story what what’s the through line we were at this point we’re at this point now and we’re going here and why is it
6:06working and why didn’t it work in the past I think that’s so important oh it’s
6:11so true I mean I think that is one of the levelers in life isn’t it you know relevant of our um our race or our
6:17culture we teach and we learn through stories so I think once we can get to that story and we can translate it
6:25almost so that it makes sense for the audience that we’ve got so whether that’s our employees whether that’s our
6:32potential investors whether that’s our Regulators you know wherever it is it’s the same story but you might just need
6:38to bring it to life in a slightly different way right resonate but I think
6:43that’s crucial isn’t it because if we can get people invested in the story um and
6:49they they then want the story to have the best outcome because they’re invest
6:55in it then actually that works so well with your employees it works so well with your clients it works so well with
7:01um with your board with with your investors because they can see what it is they’re getting involved in and they
7:07can see the part they’re going that they’re expected to play to make that um
7:12successful and I think that really allows you to take something really quite complex and make it understandable
7:19and and easy to digest isn’t it I think that’s right and as you said it Fosters
7:25buyin at the end of the day um stakeholders are differently situated
7:32and it might be difficult to get a supplier to be excited that we’re
7:38targeting 20% evital margins but that supplier can get excited that look we’re
7:44rationalizing our supply chain and I want you to be our A supplier and this means you get 75% of our business and by
7:51the way with the rationalization we think we supercharge growth they’re excited about that so the stories have
7:59implied numbers for the different stakeholders but I do think it also
8:05creates a super structure where it’s easier to create buy in for the different constituencies you’re speaking
8:12to no I completely agree an apologies put in the dog decided good not
8:18helpful he was clearly intrigued um but I think I think you’re right it’s kind of it’s helping people to understand how
8:25they fit in why is it important to them um why should they care um and the
8:32what’s in it for them that’s usually the reason why they’re going to Care isn’t it I think when we take that effort when
8:38we we make those steps it starts to become a much easier ball to keep
8:45rolling doesn’t it to kind of manifest so you must have learned so many things
8:50on on your journey having done this what what would you say is the thing you’re proudest of so far so um actually I I’m
8:59not dressed down I wore this t-shirt on purpose it was a gift to me it says Mr
9:05liquidity um from the management team at a nonprofit I turned around a few years
9:12ago it was 120 year-old nonprofit that had had a single CEO for
9:21the prior 20 years that CEO was departing um and I was brought in as the
9:27interim coo to stabilize the business rationalize the management team and
9:34prepare the way for his successor and when we met every day I
9:40would talk about liquidity and these are a bunch of very smart social workers and
9:46socially minded people and they didn’t know what I was talking about for a while but they were too polite to tell
9:52me so I I’ve kept this shirt all of these years because one I thought it was
9:58funny and two I think it’s a wonderful reminder
10:03that it is so easy for us especially as we get deep in our chosen specialty to
10:13forget that even though we’re speaking the same language we’re not speaking the same language I was using a word around
10:20a bunch of very very intelligent and accomplished people and they didn’t know what I was talking about and it took
10:27them a while to screw up the courage to ask me and every day I put on it’s my
10:34one of my gym shirts every day I put on this shirt I smile because that’s a nice little reminder that you have to be
10:41mindful of what you’re saying who you’re saying it too and take the time to make
10:47sure you’re clear not clear to yourself but clear to your audience I love that
10:54what a great story and you’re right it’s you I always think it’s the role of the communicator to ensure the
10:59communications landed and right it just reminds me of a I remember being in a board meeting once and they’re throwing
11:06around that much jargon it was embarrassing um and I remember saying to them I think I know what the answer is
11:12and they all looked and I was like I think what we need is a few more tlas and everybody
11:17nodded talking about um so it kind of carried on for for a minute or two then I was like can I just ask who’d like to
11:24be responsible for getting some more tlas um and eventually it’s one whole soul put their hand up and went I don’t
11:31know what a TLA is thank you for having the courage to to say that a tlaa is a
11:37three-letter acronym and that’s all you guys are talking about so we’ve spent half an hour talking about T’s and C’s
11:44and I know that you three at the bottom think we mean um terms and conditions don’t you and they like yeah I said you
11:51three over there I think we mean training and competence they like yeah I said so you’re not even talking about the same thing right so we’ve got to be
11:58really clear that we understand what we’re debating before we debate it because if not we’re never going to get
12:04the right answer are we so I think that’s that’s such it’s such a gift isn’t it when you think about making
12:10sure that you’re communicating in a way that the communication lands for the audience not for you that’s right you
12:18actually can have the right conversations no I think that’s so important and very
12:23true I love it so what would you say has been the um biggest learning uh that you
12:30now Implement um regularly with the organizations that you work with so when
12:37I started as uh a consultant in the turnaround and
12:43restructuring world I was a junior uh consultant fresh out of business school and you’re really Canon father um have
12:51laptop will travel your your job is to crank up a big financial model and churn
12:58it and make sure it’s pretty and put together Powerpoints and it’s a great learning experience um you it’s
13:04certainly wonderful training but what I’ve learned over time is in a
13:13transformational leadership capacity I really have to discipline
13:20myself and my team that the opportunity cost of me solving a problem directly is
13:28enor so the things I will jump in and help
13:34with in month three I won’t do in month six and the things I’ll do in month six
13:40I won’t do in month nine and that’s not because I can’t it’s because it’s so
13:46important to build up the capacity of the organization for the team to
13:51understand that for all of us to reach our potential we have to give the those
13:59in the organization the opportunity to succeed on their own terms so I’m going
14:06to give you training I’m going to give you support I’m going to give you coaching we’re going to spend a lot of
14:12time on communication and then I’m going to let you do something that the first
14:17few times out I know I could do better but it’s it’s an opportunity cost for I
14:24can do it better but I’m not going to learn anything I already know how to do it I need you to know how to do it yeah
14:31and skill isn’t it it’s giving it’s allowing them to grow it’s allowing them
14:37to grow but it’s also the um I’ve found it’s also the Journey of a leader my job
14:46is not to be an individual contributor my job is to be a catalyst that’s a
14:52force multiplier for all of the people in the organization so how do I make
14:58every everyone 10 or 15% better and when I think about it that
15:04way it seems less urgent and less important that I am 177% better at a
15:14PowerPoint than that person that person will get up to speed if I give them the opportunity and I really try to do that
15:21I love that and it’s so true isn’t it because you know when we start out we
15:27probably went to good at doing the PowerPoint but we were given the opportunity to keep doing it right and
15:33then when we go back and we allow somebody else to step into that and and start their Learning Journey um and I
15:39think it is that you as a leader it is about making sure that you Empower
15:44people to become the best version of themselves and that involves you giving them um the opportunity to do some stuff
15:51and and it it can sometimes be hard can’t it you know hard you think I could do that in
15:57five minutes it’s G to take two days you know because if I never it’s a
16:03little bit like with my little girl you know if I never let her try it’s always going to take her forever to do it so
16:08that’s right yes it was going to take a little bit longer yes it’s probably going to be a little bit messier than if I did it myself but if not I’m going to
16:16take away her passion for wanting to learn I’m going to take away her desire to understand how to do it and do it
16:21better and I I used to see that in the teams that I led all the time um and I
16:27inadvertently once uh managed to really offend somebody so i’ got a really dull job of creating this spreadsheet that
16:34was really boring and I was like my team busy doing other stuff I’ll do it and didn’t realize that inadvertently one of
16:41the girls who did all the spreadsheets came over and went don’t you think I can do it and I was like I know you can do it it’s really simple I just thought you
16:47know you’re really busy you probably don’t need to do that she but if I’m really busy aren’t you really [Laughter]
16:57busy but I just didn’t want to give you a really dull job and it was yeah it was probably about 15 20 years ago but it
17:02was a real lesson for me and going I thought I was being helpful and inadvertently I was making them feel
17:08unappreciated and undervalued by choosing to do it myself rather than allowing them to do it and take a little
17:15bit longer maybe but to to learn from that and I think that’s so invaluable in
17:21what you do isn’t it because part of your role is to make sure that the organization is ready for your departure
17:27and that only happen if you’ve upskilled everybody to be able to do what it is that you do for them that’s exactly
17:33right the the change in organization you’re um you’re changing positions and
17:39you’re putting uh new people in but I have uh a philosophical approach I don’t
17:48try to create a mercenary Army so I’m an outsider and obviously if we need
17:54outside skill sets we will bring them in but as much as possible I like to promote from within I like there to be a
18:01lot of cohesion in the leadership and management ranks and I very consciously
18:10and very purposefully look at the team that I’m building and the culture that
18:16I’m building such that when I leave it’s not going to be disruptive I love that because that’s
18:22your Legacy isn’t it you know when we go in and we transform something we only transform it if it stays transformed
18:28when we’ve gone if not we had like a little bit of an impact and then it exactly and then it disappeared so I
18:35think it’s that that’s part of um I I was given some great advice many many years ago which I’ve tried to live by
18:42which is your job is to make yourself completely inly dispensable through competence not
18:48incompetence um but you’ve got to kind of like make sure that actually it operates without you because then what
18:53you do is is you leave it in a place where it’s going to continue to thrive
19:00um because I think you in my opinion organizations are usually in one of three places they’re either in run grow
19:05or transform um and the skill set you need to transform like your skill set is very different to the skill set that you
19:12need to just run it um that’s true so it’s it’s making sure that you we’re putting the right people in the right
19:18roles at the right times to enable the organization to go on the journey it needs to go on and recognizing that it’s
19:25Journey um I had the great pleasure of working with a number of very talented
19:33people um one or two of them I’ve had some polite but long-running
19:38disagreements with because there’s always the Temptation oh why don’t I why don’t I take a full-time role here I’m
19:46good at transformation I’m not the steady state person I’m just I’m not and
19:55I I think that I am not alone alone in
20:01that talented as I believe I am I also need to make sure I’m picking the right
20:07situations for myself and it’s also important that in leading an
20:13organization you’re fostering a level of honesty are you the right person for
20:18this role what does the next what characteristics does the next leader need I always tell the boards that I’m
20:26reporting to your next leader should not be like me yeah if they’re like me we
20:32did something wrong you shouldn’t need my skill set next time you should need something completely different I’m
20:38handing the Baton to someone who is radically unlike me I love that it’s so
20:44true isn’t it you I’ve it took me a long time to realize transformation was the place I play best and it was only
20:50actually once when I inadvertedly my boss thought it was hilarious I bought a
20:55pub while still running a big organization and I Chef in it in an evening um and I
21:01said it’s because I realized I’m bored um because when I came in to do the job it needed transforming but I but I took
21:07it on as a permanent role and once it was transformed and it was just running I couldn’t have been more bored if I
21:13tried needed to do something else and it was my it was my moment of realization which is transformation I love I love
21:20the problem solving I love the taking people on the journey um I live the helping them see how they get across the
21:27whatever they need to get across I said but once they’re over there you don’t need you don’t need me and I don’t play
21:33well in that space right I it’s not it’s not right for me so you then to your
21:39point it’s finding them the right people but it’s helping them understand that Journey that says you need different
21:44people at different points of that Journey because they’re going to need a different a different skill set they’re
21:51going to need and they going to need to have a different driver I think um because what drives you if you like
21:56transformation is very different different to what drives you if you like to just run a business because
22:02absolutely play in the messiest space don’t we where you’ve got to have the more difficult conversations in the the
22:08more the more challenging areas which isn’t for everybody and I guess that’s
22:13why people use people like you to to kind of help them on that part because it is a unique skill isn’t it
22:21it um thank you that that’s very kind I like to think that it’s rare and
22:27unevenly distributed um certainly not unique but it’s it’s so true we we have
22:34to be honest with ourselves and if the work isn’t feeding us there’s plenty of
22:41work out there to be done go find the work that feeds you I love that I think
22:46we we have to find the thing that makes our soul sing and then do our best to do it all the time um because that’s as
22:51living our best life and it’s where we’ll operate at our best because we’re enjoying it it’s it’s something that
22:58that that feeds us whereas if we’re doing things that don’t um I think we can do them but we probably um don’t do
23:05them with any joy for ourselves and not a huge amount of joy for anybody else
23:11that’s interaction because you know don’t you if You’ got to do stuff that you don’t want to do um right it has a
23:18different energy level with it doesn’t it it really does and it it’s almost inevitable you know we’re we’re human
23:24beings we’re we’re fed by um all of these things that we do that we spend
23:29our time with and if it’s not feeding you it’s not worth it no no I couldn’t I
23:36couldn’t agree more so if you um had to go back and give your younger self some
23:41advice what would it be oh that’s always a tough
23:52one I would have counseled my younger self
23:59that the most important thing and I think I kind of fell into this but I
24:05think I fought it for a while the most important thing early in your career is
24:10the experience you’re getting and block out the noise it doesn’t
24:17matter what your former classmates are doing it doesn’t matter who’s posting
24:22what on LinkedIn about where they’re at if you’ve got a plan and you’re working
24:28that plan and it is what you want to do just do that and love it I ended up
24:36getting there but I I feel like looking back I twisted myself in too many
24:44emotional knots when really I was just doing what I wanted to do I just couldn’t I had a hard time giving myself
24:52permission for it oh this doesn’t make sense I’m trying to get into the turnaround and restructure ruring
24:58industry in the middle of a boom no one else is doing this what am I missing I don’t think I was missing
25:04anything I just found the thing I wanted to do I love that but we do so often don’t we look at other people and and
25:12kind of I think we we’ve created a compare and despair Society so we compare oursel to everybody else and
25:18then despair that our messy reality looks nothing like their Airbrush Airbrush Perfection we find ourselves um
25:25lacking and and I think when we give ourselves permission to pick our own goal um you know there’s been parts
25:33of parts of my life where sometimes my goal in life is to adult appropriately for 12 hours it’s like if I can do that
25:39not goal but I’m gonna think that’s successful right now absolutely but I think once you give yourself that
25:46permission to say I’m pleased for everybody living their goal um but I’m
25:51not going to compare it to mine uh because that’s their life it’s not my life and I think sadly we learn it too
25:59late in life we it kind of comes back to like why didn’t I know this when I beat
26:04myself up for like 20 years because I wasn’t going fast enough or or being um
26:11being seen to achieve the things everybody else wanted to achieve it’s like when you look back my friend bought
26:17me this actually the other week and which I really loved it was a little quote on it saying I didn’t realize we were making memories I just knew we were
26:24having fun um and love it because it’s like you’re right at the time you don’t realize what you’re doing is creating
26:30creating the memories you’re going to live for the rest of your life at the time you’re just you’re perhaps not as present as we could be because we’re
26:38we’re rushing to somebody else’s goal right once we realign ourselves to our
26:43own goal it’s like you start to really get present to the moment don’t you take advantage of the of as you said it’s the
26:51journey I think sometimes we worry it’s the destination and we miss out the fact that the true Joy comes in the journey
26:58that takes us there because not Everything feels like it’s in our favor but eventually we realize it was the
27:04lesson we needed to learn that allows us to develop to be who we’re supposed to be well that’s exactly right and I I
27:12also think that one of the one of the traps of our society is that um
27:20especially when you’re young and talented and ambitious it seems like
27:25your career is going to be a series of brass rings but when you get up close
27:31you start realizing that the time in between those um those hits of
27:40endorphins stretches out it’s it’s not you’re not going to have a test every week or no one’s going
27:47to celebrate your outcome of that particular test so at some point you’re going to have to love the journey
27:55because there’s going to be a year where you’re doing stuff but if it’s a
28:03two-year gig you’re there there’s no brass ring at the end of that not in the year and
28:11as it stretches out I think it kind of at least for me really forced me to think about what am I doing this for and
28:19what is it that I like because I’m not necessarily just doing it for a win just
28:26doing it for accolades the way you can fool yourself that you are when you’re younger when the
28:31feedback loop is so much quicker I love that that’s so true isn’t it because as you as as we do get older
28:39we we those those gaps between the feedback become so much greater and therefore you’ve got to find that bit
28:45inside you that you get the strength to keep going and you get the motivation to
28:51keep going because you’re like you know you want you want to be on your on your A game and look at it now my little girl
28:56six bless than not and there’s nothing in the world she wouldn’t do for a
29:02sticker and I I look gr and it’s the same it’s the same for all of our friends like I don’t to do that I’ll
29:08give you a sticker and it reminds me of like that’s
29:13what it was like when you were younger you got those accolades came so much faster the feedback was was there and
29:18actually it’s probably the thing that we lose more as you know as we as we get older and as we get more seier um
29:25because you know if you’re the CEO of something where do you go for that feedback because you’re not going to
29:31tell anybody got problem in case the board loses confidence in you you can’t tell your direct reports because they’re
29:38looking to you for the answer so so kind of where do you go and unless we get better at seeking it out what happens is
29:46we become our own Council and that can have positives and negatives I mean
29:51brain s surgeons can’t do brain surgery on themselves for a reason you’ve got not got the right persp perspective have
29:58you when you’re looking inward on yourself versus having somebody else hold that mirror up for you and help you
30:04see what the rest of the world is seeing it’s it’s true one of the uh most
30:11frequent points I make in coaching um newly Advanced members of my
30:18leadership team is I just remind them leadership is lonely and that’s
30:25okay so I’ve made it a practice to sponsor uh a weekly lunch for my leadership team
30:33they don’t always take me up on it but they’re they thank me when they do I’m not there Talk Amongst yourselves
30:42because no one else is going to understand it the way you do you’re all at the same level you’re all in the same
30:48company you can speak to your loved ones for a little bit and they’ll they’ll
30:53humor you but after a while you’re just talking at them and they’re getting bored you can talk to me but I’m your
31:01boss so you might not be comfortable and you can only talk so much to the people that report to you to your point at a
31:08certain point it’s just not appropriate it’s so important to build that Network and that support structure so that you
31:14can keep doing this as long as you want to because otherwise um you put a very
31:20nice spin on it sometimes being your own Council works but a lot of times it doesn’t yeah oh I love that and I love
31:27that you that you take that initiative with the team because by doing so even
31:33though you’re saying not everyone takes you up on it what you’re doing is demonstrating to them how important it
31:38is that they also take some time right because I think that’s often the thing that we that we don’t do for ourselves
31:44is it is take those moments it’s like no nobody factors in thinking time it’s
31:50like you you have to think about some of these things you have to be creative you’ve got to that’s an important part of us developing the the business and
31:57doing stuff and you know I I had one organization I worked for where literally they were back toback every
32:02day in meetings it’s like when’s anything get done sure just keep having conversations
32:10about the actions that you’ve not got to yet because you can’t get to them you’re in meetings for like the the entire time
32:17and like I’ve not thought of that I like you’ve got to factor in some time to think and some time to do as well as
32:23some time to talk because if not you can have great conversations and nothing’s going to change um because you’re not you’re not kind of
32:29taking those activities David I could literally chat to you all day if you had
32:35um one last bit of insight to share with our audience what would it be so I’ve
32:41been kicking around the this idea um for a
32:48while I feel like there is a state of the world in which business
32:55transformation is thought more more highly of and we aspire to reduce the
33:01failure rate of companies by 5% and the radical value creation
33:11outcomes and social outcomes of just that change would be enormous we’ve
33:18gotten in this space where we think that we can’t change something that’s
33:24pre-existing we have to start something new and history tells us that that is that
33:32line of thinking is not going to get us where we need to go as a society and for
33:39the betterment of our individual goals so I’m really focused it’s my lifelong
33:46passion to just drive uh awareness and a sense of the
33:52possible of business transformation and really change how we think about it stop making it a dirty phrase and really
33:59start looking at it in terms of no this is what we should do you should recycle
34:04and companies that are in a transformation spot should invest in that rather than walking away I love
34:12that it’s so true because as we said at the start of this episode so much is in
34:18the lessons it’s in the learn isn’t it it’s in looking at what went well as well as what’s not going well and I think sometimes when we get when
34:24organizations get to that place where they’re facing a transformation um they stop seeing the
34:30stuff that’s working um because all they can see is the problems whereas people like you can come in and say these bits
34:36work let’s turn the volume upon on those right these don’t work let’s change them
34:42but actually isn’t everything needs to be thrown out it’s it’s a case of let’s looking at you know what bits how how do
34:49we take the Lego apart and repl and rebuild to make it actually fit for
34:55purpose for what we’re doing right now versus we just give it all away because that would make such a massive impact on
35:02um on the economy and on society wouldn’t it and given the impact that that has at every level if we just
35:11didn’t assume everything was so um easily disposable
35:17right I love that um so D David how can people get in touch with you so um I can
35:24be reached on LinkedIn my Twitter and Instagram handle are both at turnaround
35:30David and I can be found on my website um AB axas gp.com perfect we will make
35:40sure all of your contact details are in the notes below um for people that are
35:45listening and watching this thank you so very much it’s been a joy as always and
35:50I look forward to next time Kim thank you thank you for the time take care y
35:58a