S1410: The skills you’ll need in an AI world, with Tim Smeaton (CEO, Kubrick Group)

Tim Smeaton
And I was asking myself, why is it we have some highly resource intensive parts of the business that over the last 3 or 4 years, we’ve failed to ask ourselves, you know, why don’t we disrupt this in some way? There are parts of the business that effectively haven’t changed almost since since we started. I think a lot of the time people think, you know, if it if it ain’t if it ain’t broken, you don’t need to you don’t need to fix it. So and and therefore therefore, they tend to go after new ideas. So new ideas often are, like you say, new markets, new propositions for those markets. You know, it’s kind of fun, isn’t it, sometimes to think about, you know, new ways of working that are a bit wacky, a bit out there, etcetera, etcetera. So I think you’re absolutely right. People do tend to come with the new ideas around new things that we can do. And, you know, I definitely like to look at some of the things that we’re doing relatively well and think how we we could have some new ideas about about disrupting those.

Richard Medcalf
Welcome to the Impact Multiplier CEO podcast. I’m Richard Metcalfe, founder of Xquadrant, and my mission is to help the world’s top CEOs and entrepreneurs shift from incremental to exponential progress and create a huge positive impact on our world. Now that requires you to reinvent yourself and transform your business. So if you’re ready to play a bigger game than ever before, I invite you to join us and become an Impact Multiplier CEO.

As artificial intelligence rises, what are the skills that you’ll need to develop in your business with your staff and as a leader? This is the question that I explore today with Tim Smeaton. Tim is the CEO of Cubic Group, and the founder of that business. And that business helps companies realize the value of their data, their AI, and their cloud technology. And Tim’s really been fascinated and looking at what are the skills that graduates, and employees, and employers will need, as artificial intelligence really disrupts things. And, today’s episode, we get really into that question. Tim also shares his wisdom as an entrepreneur. Why he recommends you ignore amazing opportunities. How he found a structural issue that was valuable and he felt he could solve in his business.

And as well, he shares some of his inside track on exactly how AI is disrupting IT departments, businesses, and leadership.

So enjoy this conversation with Tim Smeaton.

Hi, Tim, and welcome to the show.

Tim Smeaton
Hello, Richard. How are you doing?

Richard Medcalf
I’m doing really well. And I look forward to speaking with you today because, Tim, I know that you’re a serial entrepreneur. You’ve built, multiple companies. I think this is your 3rd or perhaps 4th, business. And, right now you’re right at the heart of AI and you run a consulting business that focuses on AI and AI skills. They’re called Kubrick Room. And, before we jump into that, which I’m sure is gonna be a fascinating conversation, I want to know why one of your pieces of leadership advice is to tell people to ignore amazing opportunities, which doesn’t sound the kind of advice I would expect from a serial entrepreneur.

Tim Smeaton
Well, I think it’s the number one affliction for an entrepreneur really, isn’t it? Is that there’s always there’s always lots of opportunities. I’ve I had a break of 3 years, before I started Kubrick Group, and, I wasn’t quite sure what I was gonna do. And I had lots and lots of ideas, and I had to find a a way of not just running after them willy nilly and getting carried away. So I had to sort of formalize formalize an approach and pick the best one to give me the best chance of it of it winning. And, you know, it’s the same in business. I surround myself, with people that are more intelligent with me, and they come up with lots of good ideas all the time. And if we followed all of them, we’d never really we’d never really get anything done. So I just I believe in a really tight arrowhead picking the best idea and going after that a 100% rather than trying to spread yourself too thin, really.

And that’s that that I stood the test of time across all of my entrepreneurial ventures, I think, over the years. Seems to have worked anyway.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, obviously, it has. So tell me a bit more about that, actually. So how would you do that? Because I guess many entrepreneurs would say, yeah. I would love, you know, I do wanna focus, but I don’t seem to in the end. These ideas leak in and we ended up we ended up diluting focus. But how do you kind of do that? Or how do you with yourself, perhaps, when you’re choosing the business or then when you have with your executive team, when other people are bringing ideas to you? How do you keep that that tight arrowhead?

Tim Smeaton
I tend to I mean, for my own purse for my own personal, approach, I tend to be quite sort of diagrammatic in everything that I do. So if I’m if I was just, you know, wanting to put things in order of importance, I might put different you know, I I’d think of, like, quadrant models always, and I’m always thinking what’s on the x axis, what’s on the y axis, and I sort of plot my ideas to always try and get them into some semblance of importance. Or equally, I can, when I’m working with other people, ask them initially, you know, what’s the what’s the real opportunity we’re going after here or what’s the problem we’re trying to fix. And if we can’t answer that question, let’s make sure we can. And once you, once you can are, you know, once you know the, the problem that you’re trying to fix, you can create a scorecard and then you put your ideas through the scorecard. And, and I’ve become very, I’ve had to teach myself to become very, very analytical because I’m, you know, stylistically a creative individual, and I can run after lots of good ideas as much as I like. So I, you know, I just think it’s sort of order order sorting, stack ranking, and getting clear on, you know, what what it is that you’re trying to do and the and the question that you’re that you’re trying to answer, basically. I’m told that the skill set I’ve most developed by the people I work with is the ability to ask really piercing questions.

So I think that’s probably the the other thing, you know, really strong qualification of of what it is that you’re trying to do. But, yeah, I’ve I’ve wasted countless hours chasing after stupid ideas. You know, the word pivot is really one that drives me insane because I think it’s just an easier option sometimes to think about pivoting than it is to think about the the real situation you’re in at any any point in time. So, I’m a bit of a bit of a stickler for that. Must must annoy people, I’m sure.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting, isn’t it? I think I think there is, I often say there’s a time for strategy and a time for execution. In other words, there is a time to review and decide, do we keep doing what we’re doing or do we change? But I what I’m picking up is I think sometimes, well, often people use pivot as an excuse for try chasing the new thing.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. Absolutely. Or introducing complexity, you know, the ability to execute on something is, you know, a key factor, isn’t it, in deciding deciding what you might want to do. You know, there could be 2 amazing business ideas. I can’t think of 2 off the top of my head to to get illustrate as an example, but but, you know, the number one score might be the ability for you to execute on that business idea rather than the the, you know, the the the size of the market opportunity or or whatever it, you know, whatever it might be. But, yeah, I used to I used to have a mentor many years ago, I won’t name, who used to say everyone has good ideas, Tim. Sort of hold a mirror up to me, and I think that’s that’s absolutely true, but not everyone executes on them or or initially takes the decision to take the risk to try and execute upon them. So, yeah, I I do believe in that.

And I think the older that you get and the the more you kind of see this type of stuff, you you do realize that, you know, the grit and the grind around execution is is often where the biggest impact biggest impact is, basically.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And within your own business or within your business experience, when people bring ideas to you, is there kind of like a, well, ideas where you feel actually they are distractions. They are adding complexity. You know, is there kind of a realm in which they tend to emerge? You know, is it like new new product lines or new markets to pursue or is it new operational efficiencies or, things to refine. I’m just kinda wondering whether you kinda have particular areas you watch out for in particular. Yeah.

Tim Smeaton
Well, I think that’s actually that’s a really, really good question. Because I was actually pondering this question in a in a meeting prior to to the one that we’re in right now, genuinely. And I was asking myself, why is it we have some highly resource intensive parts of the business that over the last 3 or 4 years, we’ve failed to ask ourselves, you know, why don’t we disrupt this in some way? There are parts of the business that effectively haven’t changed almost since, since we started. I think a lot of the time people think, you know, if it if it ain’t if it ain’t broken, you don’t need to you don’t need to fix it. So and and therefore therefore, they tend to go after new ideas. So new ideas often are, like you say, new markets, new propositions for those markets. You know, it’s kinda fun, isn’t it, sometimes to think about, you know, new ways of working that are a bit wacky, a bit out there, etcetera, etcetera. So I think you’re absolutely right.

People do tend to come with the new ideas around new things that we can do. And, you know, I definitely like to look at some of the things that we’re doing relatively well and think how we we can have some new ideas about about disrupting those. And sometimes I might put the priority above, you know, those sorts of priorities above and, above a new a new market. I think you can also, when you when you talk about quite a lot of new ideas, you can sort of put your analytical hat on pretty quickly and and and look for the the question, which is what which is why why why do we need to do this, and why would it work? So again, just back to that point, isn’t it asking the right questions really to people as to as to the as to the why and and whether it worked. But I think your your your question is a very good one because I do see that a lot, you know, shiny new stuff. That’s much more fun, isn’t it?

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. In fact, I’ve I’ve realized in my own business experience that even within x quadrant, you know, I’ve done something similar actually, which is, you know, it’s Facebook experimentation, which does tend to create complexity. And then, and I what the problem is it distracts because you divide your attention. And but and what I’ve spent the last season really focusing on is realizing fundamentally what we do is always the same thing. Right? Like, it’s actually helping these, I call, Maverick Bright Spark leaders who aren’t satisfied with kind of conventional incremental success. You really push the levers around how they think and how they act and how they lead to kind of create these breakthroughs. And all the things that we end up doing end up fundamentally around that theme, right, of, how do you build a world changing business or create a legacy of exponential impact? And so rather than seeing, for example, in my own world, different products and services as different. I’m thinking, well, how do we actually make it all one thing so that you know, potentially with various levels of access, various ways in.

But, fundamentally, when whenever we improve that, we’re improving the one thing and not deciding which of the 6 things we’re going to improve. So I think trying to look at ways to, converge so that rather than dealing with multiple initiatives, you have more of a platform

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. Yeah. Approach Yeah. Worked well for me. Yeah. No. I would agree with that. I think it’s all you’re always back to the same question, aren’t you? What’s the problem we’re really here to fix? You know? And, and that kind of aligns people.

And and, if you can all align around a vision and surround yourself with good people, then you’re giving yourself a a good good shot at some success. I think that’s the the secret.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Exactly. So let’s let’s switch gears a little bit and start to talk about business that you decided decided to build after you’ve gone through this process. So perhaps we can start there. Like, what was it about, you know, when you come up with your list of ideas, after your 3 years pause, what was it that made you go, yep. This is the next business around AI?

Tim Smeaton
Well, I mean, it was it wasn’t so much around, AI or data, which is kind of where we started. It was more that I felt that there was a structural problem, and the structural problem was that, people coming out of university and college aren’t suitably equipped to do, the type of work that the vast majority of enterprises and organisations want done, which is technology orientated work. And, you know, people are coming out with, without, without those skillsets. So therefore I thought there was a bridge, that could be built that would enable people from all sorts of different backgrounds to be trained in data skills at the time. We chose data because that’s where the biggest demand and supply imbalance existed. And we built an engine basically to train people up, to be able to undertake data work that our clients would find useful. And we built project teams around those people and then went and solved client problems around data and, and laterally, around around AI. So there’s a lot of people, you know, statistically, 40 something percent of the jobs advertised are around technology, for for graduates.

But the number of people who are majoring in, you know, a computational science field, is so significantly less than that, that there’s just a huge demand and supply imbalance. And the pace of change within technology goes faster than the pace of change within education. So that that demographic I’m describing is only gonna, in my opinion, worsen, as time goes by. So we thought about build the engine, the engine would allow that bridge to happen. And then we thought, well, we would want to deploy people into businesses to to be able to solve solve client problems. And that, in turn also did one other thing, which was increase diversity in our industry. Because, you know, by taking people from all sorts of different backgrounds, different types of education, and reskilling them, then, you know, you’re just opening up the inclusivity funnel to allow allow you to have a more more diverse workforce. So I wanted to try and solve that problem, And the act of picking data and AI was where we decided to to do it because the, the difference was so dramatic, basically.

Richard Medcalf
I find this really interesting because you actually found a bottleneck and made that the business model. Whereas a lot of leaders actually complain, oh, we don’t have enough people, you know, available in the market for our kind of business. And yet, well, he said it was us actually an opportunity because if we actually solve that problem, do it ourselves, train people ourselves, build the engine, then actually we have a competitive advantage because we will have a much bigger flow of, I guess, available candidates than anybody else because we can train them better than anybody else.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. That’s exact that’s exactly what we did. I mean, the the model intrinsically carries further risk because, of course, we’re we’re training the individuals, we’re paying for their salaries, and we’re we’re training them for 16 weeks before we can even make them productive. Whereas the, the traditional consulting model is, you know, give them some training for a short period of time and then let the clients, you know, put them on projects within clients to skill them up. And the client effectively pays for some of their training as well. You know, it’s a well known, well known fact. So we just wanted to make a very clear model that showed that we were adding value. We were accretive to the data and AI industry, data and AI industry through through the through this, through this type of process.

And, it’s interesting, you know, because when you do come up with a business idea, you go and validate it, you go and talk to some people, some trusted advisers. You know, I was fortunate to have some old clients that were on the periphery of what I was talking about. And I went and met them and one of them said to me, so God, what a, God, what a, what a great business. That’s a really humble business. I really like that idea. It’s so additive to the industry. And then I met another and I met another individual, and they went, gosh. Yeah.

I’d really like that idea. I’ll have 50 of them. So I won’t lie. I was also heavily, you know, heavily, impacted by just what a few people said to me. I hadn’t had that before with any of my businesses, so they went, gosh. That is a good idea. You know, that really is solving a problem, and it’s a it’s a good model. So, I thought I might be onto a little bit of a winner when, when that when that happened, basically.

And, yeah. And the rest is history, as we’ve said, you know, we’ve grown, you know, staggering, right, really.

Richard Medcalf
And so now in the business, how many people have been trained through that model?

Tim Smeaton
22 and a half I mean, I’m rounding up numbers here, 2 and a half 1000, nearly.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Amazing.

Tim Smeaton
You know? And and, it started in the UK, and then and we’ve been in the US for for 2 years now. And, you know, it’s a, yeah, as I say, it’s a good i’s a good, wholesome model, isn’t it? You know, I’ve I come to this company, they train me up, and they deploy me into work that I enjoy doing, and and, they they accelerate my career and and kickstart me. And we’ve got a wonderful alumni now of people that have been through this program that some of which are actually our clients already. So, you know, it it, hopefully the sort of the the payback, also is in our favor as well from from that alumni.

Richard Medcalf
So does this make Grove very expensive if you have a 16 week, investment period, yeah, 4 months before you can do day 1 of of billing. Right? Obviously, in consulting that, it’s quite a hard model to pull off. Is it just that your rates are so then, you know, you’re so astronomically profitable at that point, you know, perhaps, right? The it’s really easy or were there other ways that you dealt with that? You know, is it just because you obviously had high growth as well. So investment plus high growth would mean quite a big cash requirement.

Tim Smeaton
Well, you have to remember that the inner consulting first is in many ways very high as well because they carry a lot of, tiered individuals and a lot of non billing resource. So, you know, we didn’t have that we didn’t have that cost pressure on us. Undoubtedly, we found that, you know, we are not paying, the top salaries to, the people that we hire, that perhaps our end user client is because the proposition is so strong, you know, who else is going to pay you a salary and train you for 16 weeks? So, you know, you can afford yourself a slightly lower training cost from a salary perspective because the proposition is, proposition is so strong. And, you know, I, you know, I don’t want to get into podcasts, but rates and things of that nature, but, you know, we’re pretty we’re pretty damn good value because, you know, we generally actually are a lower we are a lower rate card than a lot of the implementation consulting partners are are already, and that might be legacy of how they’ve driven their costs up. And, and, and the final thing is also we let our clients keep some of the project teams so they retain the IP, so that there is a value there that they see. So that allows you to, you know, add add a bit more onto onto the onto the rates as well. But, no, I think we’re, you know, reassure reassuringly good value, Richard.

Richard Medcalf
Very good. Yeah. Well, I think it’s a great model because you’ve been putting your money where your mouth is, right? I mean, you’ve actually, your whole business is predicated on, on investing in people, trading them up, and making them valuable, right, in that in that area.

Tim Smeaton
And do you know I mean, this isn’t the case now because, you know, where we are in the technology cycle obviously is is is slightly different at the moment, but at the height of the market, sort of pre pre COVID and post COVID, you know, the average tenure of, people in the data and AI industry was sort of 12 months or less, you know, so it takes someone quite a while to get productive. Whereas our average tenure in our business is about 2.8 years at the moment, and that also has something to do with how young we are as a business because it tracks that down. But, but you you can see that there is a payback also for that investment that comes from our people, which is that as an you know, they’re not all graduates that work for a sovereignty, but, you know, we do manage to retain our graduates for a lot longer. So, hopefully, there is a a loyalty that we get from quite a lot of them, which is because of what we’ve done and the and the development that we’ve given them and and the opportunities that we can give them as well. So, you know, elongated tenure is a very important measurement for us.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. So so let’s talk about this. So, as AI, obviously, you started in the world of data. AI has kind of obviously really kicked into gear in the meantime. What are you seeing in terms of, you know, the effect, I guess, both on demand, what people are asking you for? And also on the skills and supply side. Right? Have you had to change the way that you train people, what you train them in? You know, if you’re a graduate, what should you be thinking about? What skills should you be building, I guess, to be employable?

Tim Smeaton
Well, I think just from a, sort of talk perhaps from a demand, you know, a demand perspective first and kind of what’s what’s happening out there in the world as far as as far as I can see, is there is there is a little bit of a hiatus at the moment because it’s the first time, you know, the technology has has been talked about around the boardroom table almost before the IT departments have talked about it because, you know, the speed you know, I’m sure a lot of your listeners have seen the statistics around how quickly chat gbt got to, you know, 10,000,000 users or whatever the statistic is, I can’t recall now. You can see that the sort of knowledge and adoption of thinking around large language models has been very, very quick. So what’s lagging in a lot of organizations is the governance and, and there’s a lot of insecurity as to how do they actually use AI, particularly around these large language models, you know, where’s the data coming from? And we’ve got copyright infringement issues that we’re actually worried about. You know, are our suppliers’ systems with AI built in, are they infringing any copyrights, or are they using our data in their system for the benefit of others? So so it’s a strange thing that the technology is sort of accelerated beyond or faster than the acceptance of a lot of organizations to to implement it. So you do have a strange sort of phenomena at the moment, but what what that what I see that translating into is just just continuous small experiments by our 150 something clients at the moment in lots of different parts of their business to try and actually understand what impact it can have, it can have on them. So from a demand point of view, people are really learning, trying to learn from consulting firms like Kubrick Group, You know, what’s the right environment to set these things up in? What’s the right governance structure? What’s the right controls to have? And actually, you know, how can we generate ROI by doing this, and how can we really, really benefit our build our business? So everyone’s coming from a relatively low base in terms of understanding and knowledge around that. So I think the world is just experimenting at the moment with with, you know, these these large language models. AI, of course, has been around for quite a long time, and there’s lots of other really cool stuff that’s happening in it, which I won’t go into.

But but, I think, I I I would basically sum it up by a period of reflection is is being undertaken by a lot of organisations at the moment when they think about, you know, their strategies over the next 1, 2, 3 years. And they’re definitely getting very excited by these productivity gains that are being mentioned that they, that that they could achieve. So I think the demand is, you know, is focused around that type of things, but we haven’t seen the total sort of industrialization or productization yet of AI within corporates because they’re still in experimentation mode, and I suspect suspect they’ve still got a set another 6 to 18 months of that, because of the legal framework they want to to think about. And then if you’re a graduate right now, I mean, gosh, what an interesting and exciting time to think about your career, isn’t it? And it’s definitely more difficult, because, you know and there is plenty of, of opinion around, you know, quite quite a few IT technical jobs being eaten up by AI. You know, coding engines and things of this nature might mean that you don’t need quite so many software developers as you have done before. So it’s definitely a, a more complex, you know, employment market. You know, and and that’s also complemented by interest rates, you know, and being high and maybe investment being a little bit low by people hiring. So, you know, it’s not the you know, it’s also a slightly difficult market for more difficult market for graduates, but, you know, I I think, the ability to put yourself into analytical thinking and analytical roles within organizations is still the future for for a great deal of the graduate appointments kinda kinda going forward as time goes by.

Richard Medcalf
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Yeah. I mean, I I guess there’s a question about, you know, whether you’re doing the calculations yourself or, you know, or some of the reasoning or whether you’re able to kinda have a mess of you. Right? Because clearly, if you are gonna be lost, you know, it’s asking the right questions, at least at this point, seems to be a lot of the battle. Right? And and knowing how to interpret what you’ve been given. Right? And so if you don’t have the mental framework for that, it’s gonna be hard to add value.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. I’m a big subscriber to the World Economic Forum. You know, I don’t read reports from that many sources because, you know, I can form my own opinions, but I I always have focused on the World Economic Forum. And for many years, they’ve said that the future skills gap is around critical thinking and communication skills and things of that nature. So, you know, my advice to any, you know, to anyone coming out of education really is, is that, you know, some of, some of these skillsets that I’ve just described are going to be really, really important to you no matter what, no matter what job you do. And, you know, and how much are they really developed in places of education? I’m not sure that they necessarily are. You know, your back your background might input you know, might be a the biggest factor that that relates to your capabilities in the areas I’ve described. So I think, you know, if you want true diversity within your organization, you have to accept that perhaps you’re gonna have to train people on some of the things I’ve just mentioned, not just, you know, how to code or how to be an accountant or whatever it might be.

Richard Medcalf
And and so when we talk about the productivity improvements that you you alluded to earlier on, where where are they? I mean, are they gonna be in your view, like because obviously, you could look at them in the white collar work. You can look at them in the I mean, in specific in the world of coding. There’s, you know, there’s potentially a number of different places. And yeah. Well, how do you kind of see that? And I know there’s no crystal ball at this point. Right? And, yeah, the jewelry’s still gonna be out. If you’re new, would it be it’ll be probably very rich by now already investing. But what what’s in your mind?

Tim Smeaton
Well, I think you have 2 2 zones, really. The first zone is where you see, you know, repetitive tasks being undertaken. So I think first on the list, if you read any research, will be around sort of customer interaction, you know, chatbots and things of this nature. I believe the latest report I saw was sort of, you know, 50 something percent of organisations already have invested in that. So I think, you know, the ability to look into the business and see where you have highly repetitive tasks that involve, you know, interaction is is a key is a key place to see and look for productivity gains. And frankly, they probably exist in every single department. So the question is, how are you gonna how are you gonna put that in order, really? And then, the second, I think, exciting part of AI really is more around decision making. And, again, you can look into lots of research about this, but, apparently, when you apparently when you get over 6 or 7 factors involved in the decision, us humans aren’t very good at dealing with those.

My my wife would argue that once I get above, two 2 things to think about, I’m not very good at decisions, but the, the point is, you know, AI is good at that. So I think the other thing, you know, around, better quality decision making, which comes from analytics and things of that nature, is is a very exciting is a very exciting place to be at the moment. The, you know, decision science, decision twins, people that are helping humans make better quality decisions, I think, is is a really, really, really exciting place because that, you know, rather than just talk about operational efficiency and perhaps overhead removal, which is the first example I gave, you’re actually talking there about better quality decision making and uncovering information that you not might readily have found before, allowing certain things to happen much more quickly that are much more dramatic. So that could be anything from, you know, drug research. You know, that’s really primed and pumped for for this type of stuff, for example. You know? So I think you’ve got 2 really interesting areas, and the big question I always ask myself is kind of, you know, if these organisations really get these productivity improvements, so let’s say it adds 3 or 4 percent to their EBITDA margin, you know, what are they going to do with that 3 or 4 percent? Is it all going to go to the shareholder? Is 1% going to go to something else? So I think there’s really another interesting question, which is, what will this productivity gain do in the economies of the world? Will it drive more innovation, future growth of these companies, or will it just be a way that shareholders actually receive a higher rate of return on their holdings? So, you know, that’s an interesting that’s an interesting quandary. And if you can answer that one, you can probably start predicting what’s gonna happen to to the employment market. I can’t answer it.

I don’t know. But I think that’s the really, really interesting question from my perspective.

Richard Medcalf
You better ask an AI to find out what they say. Sounds like it’s a multivariable problem.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. Yeah. I I don’t know. Well, you’ll know when it’s you’ll know when it’s really clever, when it just, tells you an answer that suits it better. But I don’t think I think we’ve got a while to go on that though.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Absolutely. So so that’s actually really, you know, it’s an interesting question, which is, you know, you’re obviously kind of helping your customers navigate extremely uncertain times. And so, you know, clearly you probably have a better vision than most people because you’re, you know, involved with different customers and, you know, you’ve had to kinda go deep in your own industry and do all your training and all the rest of it. And yet there’s still many questions which are which are hard to answer. So I’m kinda wondering, how do you gonna help clients in that context? Right? So do you kinda recommend, like, you focus on very short term kind of projects? Do you focus on, like, multiplying experiments? Do you, do you have a particular point of view that you kind of actually really deeply believe in and kind of evangelize as as, like, this is probably the way we things are gonna happen? You know, did you scenario planning? Like, how do you can help clients navigate what is a level of, you know, complexity that probably means that nobody can actually predict what’s gonna happen.

Tim Smeaton
I think that I I yeah. I think at the moment, it’s really hard to have those huge big conversations. So I think it’s the ability to try and refine down the refine down the each each problem into a a a defined problem statement. I don’t know how what percentage of of times when we meet clients this is, but it’s a very high, high one. The the the problem that we think we’re in the meeting to talk about is never really the problem that we’re there really to talk about, if you know what I mean. So so having a good structured approach to really qualifying what, you know, what is it we’re really going after here? What’s the what’s the itch we’re trying to scratch, really? You know, I think solving that, getting really clear on that then enables you to kind of work out what’s in and out of the, of, of the scope of what you’re doing. And actually, therefore, what’s the real measurement of success that you wish to apply to it? And those three things can very often be out of kilter in my experience, the kind of, here’s the problem statement, you know, this is the scope of what it is we’re trying to do on the business, and, and here’s how we’re gonna measure its success. And the 3 aren’t always in kilter and and and linked.

So if you can, I think if you crack that, then you can get then get into experimenting at a lower cost, getting a, you know, getting some, you know, evidence or proof point that you you know, that the problem statement can be solved? And then often, you know, you’re into for clients, you’re helping them then actually identify what budget they can allocate to to it because they actually can see a little bit of evidence of of what the ROI is that they’re gonna get from that piece of work. So that becomes relatively relatively form formulaic. I think when you’re having those bigger conversations, which you were alluding to before, which is, you know, how are we gonna be affected by all of this? It’s I mean, I I just I just believe that, you know, it’s gonna be a it’s gonna be a difficult a a you know, a bit of a difficult period for organizations to put things into order of priority and not try and do too much, and relate the things they’re doing to their biz you know, don’t become too internally focused just looking for productivity improvement from this type of stuff. Think about how you’re positioning your business for the the market that you see in 3 or 4 years’ time so that, you know, become too introverted, I guess.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. And it also went to my mind. Well, a, it leads back to what we talked about at the start, right, which is about the shiny object syndrome versus focus. Right. And, and also, by not increase, not including, not creating complexity. You know, less is worth it because potentially building out a whole structure to use AI to serve, solve things might be really powerful if you know what you’re trying to deal with. But if your business is gonna shift dramatically in that area, it might be another IT project that you need to rebuild because you now a different question you need to be answering. So what I’m I’m getting a sense is again, that need for really kind of picking your bets is quick still.

Tim Smeaton
What’s most scary in my mind for for people right now with AI, if you’re if you’re kind of if you’re running a business really is is, you know, what does that future marketplace look like? And is there someone just running somewhere in my shadows that’s suddenly gonna come and eat my breakfast by kind of redefining, you know, the way of the my business model so dramatically that, you know, it it it, it has the kind of, you know, the effect that the Internet had on on on organizations, you know, and just look at Amazon now. So there’s lots of examples in the past, which we didn’t used to have 20 years ago, lots of examples in the past of actually how even very large corporates can, you know, have, you know, have their breakfast eaten very, very quickly. And I just think what’s a little bit scary at the moment is visualising what is, you know, how does my business model need to evolve to suit the world in the future? And, you know, I’m not around the boardroom table of our clients, so I don’t get to involved in that conversation, but I I have a sense that there’s a lot of those conversations going on at the moment. And and, you know, how is the consumer gonna change due to AI and and and things of this nature is quite a I mean, these are big questions, aren’t they? They’re really sort of, for people far brighter than me.

Richard Medcalf
Plus, I mean, to my mind, you know, reminds me of all my fashion consulting days, you know, but it’s really asking, like, if you’re gonna build a new business, like, now or in a couple of years time, you know, if you did wanna kind of really disrupt this industry, what business would you build? Which is a very different question from where in our existing business processes can we use AI? You know what I mean? It’s a very different way of looking at the question. And my suspicion is probably is that first question, which is gonna be the game changer on that.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. I I think so. I gen I I think so. I think as and therefore, that’s where the risk is, is that, if you go after the short term wins and deploy all your resources around AI and data, data is so important. It’s not just AI because, you know, if you haven’t got the data, then don’t spend the money really, or you can’t validate the data. So, yeah, I do think it’s going to be a super, super interesting time. They always say, I don’t know if you I’m a bit older, you know, I’m, 52, and I sort of ended up turning into my parents or, you know, my mentors when I was younger, but I’ve definitely do subscribe to this sort of every decade. It seems to get harder.

So, you know, it was definitely easier to start a business when I was 24 than it is to start one now. It’s just the environment is just way more complex, you know, and we’re living in a more complex world, are we? There’s lots of other reasons at the moment around, you know, political imbalance and things of that nature. So, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s stiff. It’s tough.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, Tim, it’s really interesting conversation. Let’s just quickly as we move towards the end here, I’ve got 2 of my favorite questions for you. So the first question is, within Cubic Group, how do you wanna multiply your impact? You know, what’s what would an multiplicative success look like, for you and for the business?

Tim Smeaton
You know, I think solving, you know, expanding the digital areas within which we operate and solving, the resource problem of, of, you know, not enough highly skilled people. So building out our training engine and, and bringing more diversity into that training engine for people from all backgrounds, I’d really like to see that happen because, you know, it’s not just about how we deploy them into projects. It’s really about how many people we can, you know, how how many lives can we change really is kind of the measurement that I would apply from a, from a personal perspective and for the business in terms of our, in terms of our training engine and how we bring them, bring them into the industry. And I, you know, on a, on a second point, I’d really like to, see the effect that we have on our clients. You know, how do we really multiply the effect on our clients and how do we, you know, how do we bring some of the processes and and repeatable processes that we use to really, accelerate something, you know, something that they want to do? So I’d I’d measure it by, you know, those sort of war stories in 3 or 4 years of how many clients we’ve really changed the lives of and how many people we’d, we’d change the lives of. That’s our sort of impact measurement that we that we like to look at. And how do you do that? Well, you do that through increasing your TAM. You do that through sort of, you know, increasing the skill areas or the specialisms within which you operate, your geographies.

You know, that’s the kind of, you know, the business management book, isn’t it? But that that that will be the the things that are really pertinent pertinent for me and for the organisation. And and, and I guess also, you know, how many people we’ve employed here at Cubic Group, how long they’ve stayed, and how much fun and success in relatively equal measure they’d had they’d had during that period.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Well, there’s plenty of things we could go into there, but perhaps for the sake of brevity, we won’t right now. There’s plenty of places I’ve been really curious about. But I the question I really always love to really finish with is where might you need to, evolve yourself as a leader as, you know, to help your company modify its impact or to modify your own impact. Because you’re somebody clearly who’s built several, you know, businesses in the past. This is obviously working out really well. And you could probably stay and rest on your laurels and and kind of keep going as you are, and it’s all gonna be great. But what might be a shift that you can still make in who you are, how you show up, what your leadership style is that would really get everything playing at a different level.

Tim Smeaton
Well, I think my, your biggest strength is your biggest weakness. So, I mean, I love a start up. You know? I I love the, adrenaline rush of it all. It really is great fun being part of a, you know, a a new company that’s growing fast and and and all of that type of thing. And it’s, but as organisations get larger, you need to, you know, be able to have a really effective leadership team around you that is that is running the business. And and that’s I think that’s a challenge for a lot of entrepreneurs, myself included, is how, you know, how do you build that team? How do you make sure that it’s, you know, a well formed team that is driving the business in the right direction and executing on all its plans and learning to take some of the big decisions itself? And to do that, it’s, you know, you can’t just one day be the key decision maker, the entrepreneur, you know, that sort of sets up the business and then say to them, right, it’s all over to you now, guys. You have to evolve and change personally and get the team to grow with you on that journey. And that is really difficult, to take people on, you know, on that journey.

And often you hire a lot of these people from much larger organizations when you hit a certain growth size. So they come in and they’re on a bit of a learning journey. So it’s about, you know, don’t underestimate the amount of time you need to spend communicating with one another, looking at that future picture and, you know, painting yourselves in it and helping them paint themselves in it and asking the questions to to really create a a plan that, you know, facilitates facilitates success. And, yeah, I mean, that’s, you know, that’s mentally, really, you know, it’s difficult sometimes to pull all of that together and and kind of and kind of get a a a bigger team of people acting as one towards a, you know, a tight arrowhead. And I find that, you know, I find that really difficult, and I have to spend a lot of reflect, you know, I have to spend a lot of time reflecting about how I will do that. You know, my parents used to say, where fools rush in, you know, one of those sayings I end up saying to my own children now, and I’ve got to learn that, you know, that reflection time’s good, you know, and, and helping people towards that. So, sit back a little bit more and about that.

Richard Medcalf
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I see it often. It’s a really it’s a thank you for pointing it out because it’s it’s actually some of that deeper identity shift as well. Right? Because the value, you know, the the as an entrepreneur, you have the value of, like, charging head first, you know, and being at the very front of the of the charge. And and also kind of being, in some ways, the genius who have understands the biggest pick I mean, who has the biggest possible picture of everything and all the history and and all, you know, and all the kind of background. And that kind of shift, at some point, it can actually become like a prison because, you the you know, you’re so much the bottleneck.

Right? And, I think you’re right.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. I learned the hard way that, I used to be a little bit addicted to having the answer. But now I have learned to feel a great deal of satisfaction from other people having a far better answer than me, and and find the patience to do it. So that is my, you know, seek first to understand, then be understood.

Richard Medcalf
Beautiful. Well, hey. That’s a great place to leave it. Hey, Tim, it’s really been great speaking with you. I’ve enjoyed really this whole discussion, you know, starting from, you know, this question around focus and looking at different opportunities. And then actually seeing the way that you build the business by identifying what many people would see as a problem, like we can’t get enough people, And actually turning that into the engine. It’s solving that almost in the back office as a core differentiated competitive advantage that can then help you serve clients. So all of them, it was the direct client problem.

You well, you were solving the client problem, but you were sort of solving almost a level back. So that you could have a unique position in the industry, which I think is a fantastic lesson, probably for many leaders who perhaps, who have problems that actually, if they look to those problems, they might be able to create a solution to those problems and take a leap forward. So I think it’s a great great message. Along with all the other great discussion we’ve had over over the future of AI. So appreciate it. And, yeah, look forward to following along on your journey. If people wanna get in touch with you or about or or with, you know, Cubic Group, where do they be at?

Tim Smeaton
Well, it’s 1 or 2 usual. If they wanna get in touch with me, LinkedIn is always good. You know, Tim Smeaton or, is a good, is a good way. I do look at them all. If you wanna learn more, look at the websites, cubitgroup.com. So, that’s the that’s the best I think that’s the best two ways. And my email address would be pretty easy to work out as well. It doesn’t have any dots in it.

So, you know, I’m sure I’m sure wouldn’t take a huge leap of faith.

Richard Medcalf
Here we go. Play them all. I’ll clear that one out.

Tim Smeaton
Yeah. Too true.

Richard Medcalf
Okay. Orty, many thanks. And, yeah. I look forward to following along on the story.

Tim Smeaton
Brilliant. Thanks, Richard. Thanks for your time.

Richard Medcalf
Cheers. Goodbye.

Tim Smeaton
Thank you. Bye.

Richard Medcalf
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