S9E05: Building, scaling and decentralising… all the way to full employee ownership, with Thomas de Cad’oro Granier (CEO, Equal Experts)

Richard Medcalf
Thomas, it's great to have you on the show today. Thank you for coming.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Thanks for inviting me.

Richard Medcalf
You've built an incredible business you started 15 years ago, in London, and now you have 3000 consultants in Equal Experts across five continents and I know you're generating, I think nine figures of revenue. So you've got an incredible journey over over that 15 year periods and would love to get into that today with you find out what makes you tick, and what drives you and some of the stories perhaps, on that journey. Perhaps before we do that, don't explain a little bit about what is Equal Experts, and why did you found it?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Sure. So we are a consultancy and what we do is we use software and design to create digital products and service. So mostly for large corporates, we do also scallops, and a lot of sort of public sector. So I mean, just to give you some examples, I'll try not to get too technical. So we build something called priority, which is the customer loyalty program for voting and doing that, you know, it was all about reducing customer churn by 30%. For January sponsorship, we really scaled and automated the digital capabilities and actually, during the pandemic, we helped them shift, like 75% of the Revenue Online, which really helped save the business, you know, what kind of doing my bit for, for for the UK. High Street, in public sector, that kind of thing we've done is, we build the entire HMRC digital platform estate. So this is really about helping, you know, the 5 million business and fully funded individuals pay the tax way more efficiently and also, if you renew, I mean, you bring it if you renew your passport, at the home office, we rebuild the entire backend system, that we use all the passports, you know, so that it's about savings and better service and only if you had a good experience, if you're renewing your passport recently, so that's the kind of thing, right? So maybe beyond those products that we deliver, the way we do this is really close with our customers. So it's really not about, you know, outsourcing, like solve your problem, solve problems for them, we try to solve them with them for and the idea is, we want to merge your capabilities, you know, in our culture with with their staff, so they actually can learn in the process, you know, it's about all about improving their own capabilities and the idea is, you know, we want to innovate by making small continuous improvements with them and at the beginning, it's really hard for them to innovate. It's like a flywheel. You know, we automate stuff, we remove barriers, and they pick up momentum and by the time we are done working with them, they have this flywheel of continuous innovation and they really have transformed the the organization. I mean, that's when he goes really well, which hopefully goes as often as possible but yeah, so that's really, the business. So even though we know we're a fairly small business, well, you know, a few 1000 People come in, compared to those massive, massive corporates that have billions of revenue, we still can be very good partners for them.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, it's fascinating. I mean, pretty consultancy business isn't always easy, right? Because it's one person at a time. It's one consultant at a time that there's various things and yet you build out this this fantastic model with a team of several 100 people and in this network of consultants that you draw upon and several 1000 but tell me about what motivated you to set up this particular business in the first place? You know, was it just like a pure financial opportunity that you saw? Or was there something else that drove you to create this?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Yeah. So I've been in consultancy all my career, but first in Paris, then in New York City, and then in, in London and so my basic motivation was freedom. I don't know, for me, it was freeing myself from any kind of structure that is imposed on me. I mean, I was telling you, I really enjoy the relationship you have with a customer, because it's very much black and white, you either give them value, and you get along with them, or you don't and there's nothing more to read and I always found that the kind of thing I wanted to do as much as opposed to having a lot of buses and your keys and, and possibly sometimes perverse incentives internally that stopped you from doing what you want to do with your customer. Right? You have to think about internal commercial targets. You have two staff people that are on the bench that are then available right now all those things that go into the way of us just thinking about either the customer in front of me Let's work together. So what I wanted to do is free myself from all those constraints and build an organization that I really wanted to be part of and hopefully, where everyone else was, you know, all the people wanted to be part of, I think it's when I was younger, I was not a loner, but I think I was much more at ease with a smaller group of people, you know, where I can be myself, then a larger where you have to follow lots more code, even as a teenager. Like I mean, you know, I did a lot of role playing games, and I always wanted to be like the Game Master and bring a few people together and have a really good time over.

Richard Medcalf
I am with you. Yeah, I took it out on role playing games when I was young. So there you go, as we should do an impact multiplayer role playing game.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
And I think I'll always instinctively distress you know, authority in your keys, at least in business. Yes, because I contrast exactly what the motivations are. So what I wanted to do is build something where things are so transparent, that people understand why we're doing things and then they can decide where they want to be part of it or not. So we need just, and I work in really great companies. So I took this 10 years of observing how consultancy work, how they treat the employees, or they treat the customer and then I just, we assembled it in my own head and try to do something like better.

Richard Medcalf
Yes. Okay. So having is that kind of Yeah, that freedom on a personal level, and then there was a sense of wanting to create transparency and simplicity, perhaps.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
And transparency of intense like, I really think I mean, consultancy, is very simple business, there is no investment. You don't own any kind of material, anything. It's just all the people, right. So the idea for me is the simplest way to make this work is just align everyone incentives and make them super transparent. And try to make sure that these as soon as it's a conflict, that you work on resolving that conflict. And that's, that's what I'm trying to do is Equal Experts.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And so that was way when you kind of started off. And now as you look at the impact that the business is making, yeah, what do you get most proud about?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
A lot of small and big things. You know, I mean, a small thing is we build a business in South Africa. It was not my, my idea whatsoever. We just had somebody, we're going back to South Africa, saying, like, why don't I try and I'm like, the business is very much about, you know, freedom of decision making. And I'm just people trying thing, sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing, and said, Sure, why not what the worst can happen, you know, you succeed, though. So he went out there and built his business in south in South Africa, we got incredible people that I never saw, even existed, with huge work ethic and etc. In a country where I've never been, you know, I never thought, Oh, I'm gonna go on vacation they have, I never thought about it. And so today, we have this, and which is just came just because of the structure of the company, they think, try new thing. And then more recently, I don't know if you heard but there was quite a few uprising, an uprising, there was some problem in South Africa last year, and lots of troubles, unfortunately, happen. So some people now want to leave South Africa, and settle somewhere else. And with the company, we could help a few people we settled in, in the Netherlands, because now we have an office in the Netherlands with a few people in the Netherlands that you know, what are doing great job. And it's it's just that that serendipity and just them saying, you know, thank you so much, Thomas, thank you. I could bring my family to Netherlands and I could do this. And I was just like, wow, I was a small part of that. That's, that's nice. You know, yeah. Yeah. It's just like, I didn't see that coming. But I'm not multiplies across with a lot of different ways, right? It's just and the other bit, of course, is when the customer tells us that they think we do a good job and that we are genuinely in.

Richard Medcalf
So tell me, how would you describe the personal mission that you're on? As a leader? Like, what's the legacy that you want to create? You built this business for 15 years? You know, at this point, yeah. What's the mission that you're on?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So I have this obsession about freedom. I'm not sure where it comes from. That was a very happy child and everything. But yeah, for me, it's about helping other be free. You know, and what I mean by that is create a place where people have They there's very little manipulation coercion or or Kool Aid, or, you know, perverse incentives, where people are expected to behave as grownups and sing for themselves. I find it so hard in this world to think for yourself that simples activity actually requires a huge amount of effort today. And I don't sing corporate companies in general, they don't help you think for yourself, they actually sing the way they want you to sing. And I was, so it makes sense, because you want an organization you want to but for me, now, I just want this actual structure to help people think for themselves, and they only do things because they believe it makes sense. Or because they have this intrinsic motivation to do it, not because they're being told to, and then try to make that happen with 1000s of people. And, and that is the thing, it's just creating that place where people are genuine. And I think it just makes business sense, right? Because if people are really genuine and autonomy to decide what they want to do, and treat each other like equal, they can really then treat their customers as an equal. And they can really build a trust, you know, because we're in the business trust where we're consulted. That's what we do.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So, what I'm hearing is, yeah, creating a structure, you talked about structure several times, right. So the structure within which people can think for themselves, I think it's a beautiful way of putting it right. Because there isn't, you're right, a lot of thinking actually is quite hard. People like to skim on the surface, right, yeah and just get on and do stuff. So that's really...

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
What's fascinating is to see how this works with every culture we ended up working with, right? So we started in London in the UK, then we started with the north of England, which was brilliant, by the way, as well. And then we started working with people outside of the UK. And today we're working with I don't know, maybe people working, they live in 30 different countries. Status, so different, but then that kind of that kind of value system that really appeals to everyone. And I wasn't sure at first, if he would, and it's really interesting and heartwarming to see, of course, it's slightly different in every country is but and that's true for both customers and consultants. There is a there is a need for for this, regardless of where you live.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, no, it's fascinating. So what was right now in the business, what energizes you and excites you? You know, what, what kind of motivates you right now and what gets you out of bed in the morning?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So, I mean, I've got to confess, I got really excited by COVID. I know I shouldn't say that. But because he was a crisis. And I live in a crisis and are getting really excited in a crisis and, and even though he was hopeful for many people, in other ways, it was also a very interesting moment in life for everyone. The thing that excites me right now is remote working. I think remote working, they create this incredible opportunity for us to bring people as I said, from a lot of different countries that we never could work with before, not before. In Europe, we only worked really with Portugal, in Germany, and now we work with nearly every single country. In the European Union, we we stopped at Russia, thank God, we didn't get in there. But now we have people from Latvia to Spain. And that's incredible development. And we could never have done that without remote working again, but it's not just that it's getting those people to work together. So we have always people that either from India working with South Africa working you know, we Germany, and the US working with Brazil, and just seeing the people from different countries working together and really learning from each other. Right. And that's finding a new way to, to work with our customers without being able to see them always. That's a huge, this is a very transformative moment. I hope it stays in the industry. Because this is going further to people now are able to stay independent, they don't need to join a big structure, but they can still achieve and lots of stuff and they can still have meaningful relationship with people. And that's what equity experts was all about, right? Let's try and build something. It's all based on your relationships, because it's a network. And let's see if together we can do something that you can do on your own without having to join a constraining, like, Red Army kind of rigid structure either. So it looks like the world is moving in that direction, as well. Again, it's a bit early to say she's gonna last.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, no, it's it's It's definitely a trend. What's, just your own focus? Like we're in the business right now? Where do you put your focus your energy?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Oh, it's comms..

Richard Medcalf
Communications. Okay?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Yeah, communication, it's I just realized that it's, this is the most important thing I can possibly do. Because we're in this business where people only do things if they're convinced that it's the right thing to do. So I have to repeat myself in lots of different ways, and also really listen to people and, and we find my thinking, and then we present it again, and do the same as the customer. So the columns, actually me doing anything else and columns should be illegal. You know, I mean, it's like, a nice, because I want to do things, but I shouldn't, I should really just just be able to, and it's not just my thoughts that I need to communicate, it's, it's understanding everything that's going on, and then synthetize it and bring it back to the business. So that's, and I don't know if I'm that good. So yeah, I'm working on it.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Should be illegal to do anything apart from communications. It's interesting mantra. Yeah, it's actually very interesting, because it actually makes you. Yeah, it actually takes things off the table, which can tempt a lot of CEOs, you know, getting involved in particular operational decisions and everything else. And actually, when you think about it, as well, you know, what do I need to be communicating at this point in order that those decisions are made? In a better way? That's different? A different question. Yeah, it's really, it's really nice. So we were talking about communication. So I guess, how do you, you know, how do you do that? How do you mobilize people? You've obviously got a lot of people, a lot of countries, some of whom are employees, some of whom are not there. They're contractors, or associates? So how do you kind of get people excited and mobilize? And what difficulties have you encountered as you go through that?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
I mean, so like, in any organization, regardless of the structure or innovative, you can get to this a huge amount of inertia. So I'm not gonna, you know, pretend there isn't anything to do with change, you get so much pushback, right? There's no question. And we don't have like bonus incentives. We like middle management, we don't have performance appraisal. You know, we don't have any of the levers that you could get maybe in a more traditional corporate. So it has, it has to go down to talking to the hottest minded people. So it can be quite frustrating sometimes. What's your there's no question. I think the way it works for me is because it comes from the gods. For me, I always, so people see that and respect that. So because they see that it comes from my guts, they are going to be more inclined to listen, what the hell am I supposed to say?

Richard Medcalf
It's interesting one, that one, one thing I would like to say to people is if you speak from the head, you talk to the head. Yes. speak from the heart. You talk to the heart. Right. And you know, you need to speak at different levels different times. But I think it's a great point that you have to really believe right?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Yeah, no, absolutely. And if I'm not sure what something I say it as well, I'm like, I'm just I do tend to get some random ideas. And I say, Okay, this is a random idea. And then people understand that it's just, maybe, maybe not. And again, you're listening is just trying to get other people to nourish and shape the vision as well as it's not just me, right? We have something we call the advice process, which just enables people to make decision internally without having to refer to some authority and just nourishing that process that really shapes a lot of the culture of the company that helps a lot.

Richard Medcalf
I mean, how does that work? A lot of people struggle with that, how do you do it?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
It's a powerful communication tool. So the idea is, instead of taking a decision, and just applying the decision, anyone in the company, we really ask them take the time to write down the documents that you say why you would like to do something. And then take that document to 10 people, people, maybe you don't work with all day all the time and ask them to do to, to give you some strong feedback about it and then refine your thinking. And if you still want to do this, then publish a document is I'm doing this here is the reason why I ask those people or refine it for this. I'm going to take three months, this is what I'm going to see. And then this is a rule that applies to everyone so myself, but someone that just wants to do something in another country. And so everybody has to follow the same transplant process where we really genuine We have to show us reasoning, and sometimes everything is flow, then we look down. And that's okay. And that is the way. And that really helps us. So the advance process is not just for people with no authority tech decision, it's just trying to create transparency and get people to understand why things are happening throughout your company.

Richard Medcalf
At what level, when do you need to trigger that process? Right? I mean, presumably not going to do that if you decide you want to buy a different lunch, you know, somebody for lunch.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
The trigger is if it's something you have never done before, if it's a decision you've never made before, if he or nobody in the company has good guidelines about or if it's something that has a big impact. So you know, if you want to sponsor a conference, but you need to have never done that, oh, maybe because it's 20,000 pounds, or whatever. Or if you want to hire people to do something that we don't tend to do, and like, Oh, if you want to build a product, or if you want to invest in a customer, and you want to give them some prototype, anything that is out of the ordinary, or that could create some liquid at quite an impact down.

Richard Medcalf
How did you embed that culture? It's a great, it's a great, it's a great piece of the culture, I think it's so sensitive, but how did you embed it? How did you get people to do that?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
By doing it myself. And trying, it's really hard, but it's taking so many decisions, right? So you got to slow yourself down. And like, and just open your The hardest thing and people have the hardest thing is to really let people make their own homework. You know, we use Google and slack. So you put the document out there, you have 3000 people that are going to put comments in your documents, and you got to be in six game to take it all in and say this is all for the better and then use it. So you know, it's it's about? Yeah, so by us showing vulnerability and just doing it, that's when I say is, is the exec team. And doing more of that, and also letting people do things I don't agree with, like, I didn't agree with going to South Africa, because I was worried about I don't know the currency or suddenly, but then I let it happen anyway, because I trusted that person decision in the yard ask a lot of other people for their input. A lot of things we've done like this, necessarily would have done myself. I've happened. So this created some kind of a, you know, people know that it's possible.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, I love that. That's a thing. It's such a great and wide process that so many that could be beneficial for so many other countries, companies. So thank you for sharing. Now, let's move on a little quickfire questions I always like to get into the minds of, of the guests to find out what their inputs have been. What's their favorite quote that, that inspires you or governs how you how you lead?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So I got many I leave the Napoleon ones for another audience. niche, he said become who you are. So that's, that's a big one for me become who you are. That's done. That's what I mean. It's like, it takes effort to think for yourself, and to really understand and evolve into what you are meant to be in the first place or something. And, and for me, that's, that's the point of being here. You know, that's, that's so concise and so well put.

Richard Medcalf
Yes. Yeah. Become who you are. Yeah. I love it. It's one of my same one of my quotes is that he I mentioned to you before you don't get what you want, you get who you are. And so actually become Yeah. know who that is, and turning that the volume up is on that it's important. What about a favorite app? Is this an app you have on your phone that is particularly you like or gives you productivity boost, or whatever.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
And I've tried to spend as little time on my phone as I possibly can for for someone in digital, and I'm a very anti digital person, I shouldn't really say that we're going to. So no, I don't have anything. I mean, I just check boxes the other day, because I could never make it work. And now I can make it work. I can't believe how much improvement they made leaps and bounds is incredible. I was like, Wow, good firm. That's about it.

Richard Medcalf
Got it. What about book then go back. And log was a book that's really influenced you.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So there's a lot of books. So I think fiction, I have to say I'm a nerd. I have to say when I was eight years old, I read Lord of the Rings, and that just blew my mind. And that made me you know, shaped my imagination. With the nonfiction, the one that shaped my thinking a lot was reinventing organization.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
By a guy called Frederic Laloux.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
And this whole story about self organization, self management. He also spoke about advice, process, all that stuff. I really got profoundly influenced not I, I think that's what I'm going to do is equal experts but it's still hugely influential.

Richard Medcalf
Because you're thinking, Yeah, that's right. What What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Do more role playing games, your friends, because you won't have the time to do it later? I think about it. Yeah.

Richard Medcalf
Play more now. Yeah. About advice? Yes. Many of our best guests on the show come from referrals. So I'm always interested in who inspires you. You know, who's an impactful CEO, you know, who you've come across? That, you know, again, who might be a great guest, right, who might have wisdom to share?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So actually, the honest truth is, I don't know many CEOs. I'm sorry, Richard. I know many CEOs. I know CIOs, though. Yeah, that's more at the level we work with.

Richard Medcalf
I'm just curious, you know, when you when you meet somebody who inspires you? Once you get inspired.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Number, I think about Mike Porter, which was the Interim CIO, for for for HMRC. And in other places, you really? Yeah, it really helped me understand what what what they think, you know, what, what's important for them? If I just single out one person.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So what was it about that, but what was it that was inspiring, or impactful?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
It was just that he was in this, you know, civil servants, working in massive organization, their budget is 1 billion pounds a year, just just to spend. And he still managed to, to think about value, and what am I going to do with each pound I spend that is for the citizen? You know, I mean, he was like, he managed to keep the Nimble mind of someone running a small organization like mine, and applying it to this in Mungus.

Richard Medcalf
Right. Yeah.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Please, please, you know, with the public servant as well, which is difficult, was impressed with that.

Richard Medcalf
Right. Lovely. So no matter where we've, we've achieved, it's always the next level to get to so where do you go from here as a business? What's next for experts?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
I tell you, I think for me, it's really building a solid solid succession plan. I'm not going to retire tomorrow but my biggest drive now is how do I ensure that my business can keep his independence for the long term without ever losing sight of why we exist in the first place and that has to be beyond me. So for us, it's looking at ways of keeping the bins independent. So what we want to do now is sell companies, as I was saying to you, before I sell a company to employees very much following the John Lewis model because that is to me, like that's the next logical step of this whole decentralization and self organization so much when it's like, the company now needs to grow up, you know, and I need it needs to really become its own thing and is unconcerned where I am just a cog in there.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So it's a great shift, right? It's shift from the kind of founder led business to suddenly this real decentralization of that ownership, which is, I guess it's a huge shift but as you said, in terms of really growing up the company and creating that, that sustainability, it sounds like it's a huge thing.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Yeah, absolutely. I think that there was a lot of effort put in this. So it has to be for something more.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, than just me. So I guess, sound, the image comes to my mind is sowing seeds, you know, it's like, we've kind of gathered the seeds together, or whatever, you know, built this business and now you're going to sow the seeds, you know, you're going to distribute, right and as you do that, probably something in you is going to need to shift right as you go from where you are now to where you want to be in the know how many years right a few years time. So what are you going to need to personally do differently, to multiply your own impact and to actually do that, make that shift successful?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
I mean, the one thing I need to do is to be less distracted and to do less things at the same time and follow through more and the other thing is, I need to let go as well. I find why I used to just just just yeah, really, really let the business go without this this trombone like it's my third child. Yeah. And which was great, which is great but I need to think about how can this thing?

Richard Medcalf
Yeah, well, hey, it's really fascinating speaking with you, Thomas, I really enjoyed it. If people want to find out more about you and about equal experts, how do they do that?

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
So all the contacts on the on the website, but if people want to talk to me, they can just contact me on LinkedIn as the best place.

Richard Medcalf
Perfect. Well, hey, it's been really great talking with you, hearing about the business, how you've scaled it, how you're going to now move it to its next level and distribute ownership, you know, talking about communication as as the important Yes, of being so important in the CEO role talking about the advice process. Yeah, I think there's so many so many valuable things in this conversation. So thank you again for taking the time and look forward to following on the journey.

Thomas de Cad'oro Granier
Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Richard Medcalf
Take care now. Bye bye.