Welcome again to the session everyone, lovely to have you all join us. I'm Mary-Rose Delorsen, I'm Head of Alumni Engagement at the Sutton Trust, which is an education and social mobility charity, but prior to that I worked in higher education for a long time as well as a brief stint at a fundraising start-up, so lovely to have you join us here and I'm joined by Hannah Fox. Yeah, I'm Hannah Fox, I am the Director for Alumni, Community, Careers and Network Development at Regents University London. Welcome back to anyone who's seen us before at Trials and Errors and welcome if you're new. I was just going to say, so for those who've joined us before, this is a slightly different but similar session, we're doing a mini-series for the new year and the series is to look at people who've perhaps been in HE and then changed to a related sector, done some kind of slightly different work, so it's all about, you know, thinking about a career changing and for any of one of you who might have slightly kind of January itchy feet and be wondering what is next for me if I've only ever worked in higher education or advancement. So yeah, we're joined by Andy and Jenny today, so Andy do you want to introduce yourself? Yes, thank you, thank you for having me on your show. Worryingly, I realised I've been working in development for over a quarter of a century recently. Started out in Alumni Relations, regularly giving, moved into major gifts before spending about 13-14 years as a Director of Development at three different universities. I began my consultancy career whilst still a Development Director, so as an associate, which is quite commonplace, you'll be brought in to deliver certain elements of a project. I enjoyed dipping my toe in the water and was offered a full-time role with that firm before I became Managing Director, which I did for two and a half years or so before a bit of a career break that happened to coincide with the pandemic. As things were starting to ease back in 2020, I set up on my own, a number of contacts from the sector got in touch to ask for advice and support. I needed a job and it happily turned into a business. I've been really fortunate to have a number of fabulous clients across universities, schools and international charities. The main thrust of the work I now do is working with institutional and fundraising leaders to create more successful frameworks and strategies. I offer interim services to plug gaps in senior fundraising roles and I particularly enjoy coaching Vice-Chancellors, Heads, Directors and major gift fundraisers to hopefully help them get a bit better. Amazing, thank you Andy. Jenny? Hi everyone, I'm Jenny Mole, I'm currently Managing Director of Advancement Services at the University of Cambridge. I joined the university sector back in 2002, so about the same as you Andy, and that was the University of Exeter, but I didn't enter the development advancement profession until 2006 when I moved to London and started working as Deputy Director of Development Services at UCL. I was there for 11 years and during that time saw lots of changes in the office including a real growth. I think we were probably something like 20 staff when I joined and more like 80 by the time I left and in that role I was looking after all of the enabling functions and also doing the strategy and planning around the 600 million campaign that UCL launched in 2016. I left UCL in the beginning of 2017 and set up a consultancy business, Alveo Consulting, really focusing on development services, advancement services. We felt that there just wasn't really anyone else doing that, there was a little bit of a niche that we could fill, so we did that. I did it in partnership with somebody else, Kate Lawton, and I did that happily for eight years and like Andy, really enjoyed working with a really broad range of clients, universities, some schools, some kind of household name charities and also arts organisations. So I'm really focusing on all of those enabling functions and strategy and those sorts of things and then last year made the decision to move back in-house at the University of Cambridge. So I'm really delighted to be here to reflect a little bit more on that kind of consultancy side of my life and to think back to some of the things that I learned along the way as part of Alveo Consulting. Thank you so much and thank you for joining us both of you. The way that we're going to run this session as we normally do is Andy's going to kick off with his example and he's going to talk us through an error that he's made in the past few years in consulting and we're going to have a chat about that and then we'll move on to Jenny's as well. So Andy, over to you. Thanks Hannah. So as a throwback to a previous episode, I'll credit Kerry at Aston for inspiring this one from the memory banks. Kerry talked about projecting your assumptions onto your new place of work and her experience moving to Aston and everyone has a playbook of sorts that leans on their strengths or experiences. One of the challenges and pleasures of being a consultant is that you have a new place of work far more frequently than you used to when you're in-house and everywhere's different. There's different stages of evolution of your fundraising program, different people, cultures, history, leadership, demographics, dynamics, internal and external and a fellow consultant said to me when I first started out that being part of a consulting firm means that whatever the client, whatever the challenge, it's okay amongst us we've seen this movie before and reflecting on that now that holds up to a point. So core best practice hasn't changed massively in my 25 plus years. If you want to sustainably raise more money there's obviously new things have come along to bolster that but you know core best practice remains the same. It's how that best practice is applied to maximum effect which is the art and my view now on that movie analogy I was told having worked at five institutions and with dozens of clients is that every client has their own unique director's cut of the movie you've seen and it's your job to give them an Oscar winning ending and the problem in the story I'm going to share now was that I hadn't seen this particular director's cut before. So I was working with an organization on a feasibility study early in my consulting career. I'm sure a lot of people on the call are aware what feasibility study is but in a nutshell for those that don't it's about assessing the readiness of the fundraising function and the organization as a whole to be able to step change their fundraising performance so commonly it's used to prepare for a campaign and at the same time you're testing the scope for growth by speaking to donors and prospective donors to understand what potential there is out there. Now this usually takes three maybe four months and it's common to have a report halfway through to give the client a sense of what you've found so far and where things are going. You don't just want to reappear in 12 or 16 weeks time and give them a playbook with zero context and that meeting helps lay the ground for the final report whatever messages recommendations you need to share whether positive or maybe a more difficult and challenging type of conversation where they can't achieve what they want to achieve. So I was leading a team of three to deliver this no major alarm bells on the sort of internals some room for improvement as is the case pretty much everywhere but the numbers they shared on previous performance were benchmarking ahead of their peers and that was underpinned by a number of you know decent number of very large gifts and it's you know common in an organization of this sort to have those sort of outlier gifts and we were seeing early days we were seeing a lot of potential for them to do more of that from discussions with their donors and prospective donors. So we came to the midpoint report and it was a pretty healthy picture on the surface um the report was over zoom I still remember where everyone was sat so you had to remember my camera was reversed you had the chief executive up here you had the senior fundraiser here you had the board chair myself and the chair of their fundraising board. I'm extolling the virtues of their fundraising team's work today the good place they appear to be in and the early potential at hand and how excited they should be and I start to see a quizzical look spread across the face of the chief executive on the screen. Now we've all been on calls where the body language has gone a bit pear-shaped and we've all learned you know particularly since the pandemic that this can mean anything from their dog's just been sick on the rug or a delivery driver won't stop ringing the doorbell or however unlikely they might disagree with what you're saying. This last option seemed remote to me in the moment given how smoothly everything had gone so I put it down to the sick dog or the overzealous yodel employee. Wrapped up the call a few questions at the end nothing to ring any alarm bells went off to grab something to eat I think it's like a two-hour call and my mobile rings and it's the chief executive and he's not a happy camper. I mentioned earlier they'd landed some big gifts it turns out that the chief exec pretty much secured those lead gifts solo. It's a reasonable mistake. Problem was I'd apportioned because of my assumption based on my experience as a senior fundraiser over a lot of years I'd apportioned a lot of the credit for that to the senior fundraiser and their team. Fundraising said often at case conferences is a team sport but we discussed those gifts on the discovery calls I knew the chief exec had been involved in those relationships and had actually thought he was taking an awful lot of credit for them based on my experience reality and it's pretty rare for anyone to land a really significant gift flying pretty much solo even when you're the leader of the organization. However my assumptions have created this alternate reality which I'd conveyed in that report that reflected my experience. The fundraising team had stewarded the gift really nicely so they could talk knowledgeably about it as could the board chair who'd been you know tangentially involved in the relationship but as the lead consultant it turned out I probably hadn't dug enough to understand the dynamics at play. Some of that was masked here I'm giving some excuses partly masked by the headline figures which showed everything seemed hunky-dory partly because over nearly 20 years I hadn't encountered a leader who happened to be an amazing solo fundraiser. I found a lot of really good ones a lot of less good ones but I hadn't seen anyone quite like this and I just stripped them of the massive credit that he was due and handed it to his staff. So what happened next um obviously I owned it on the call I was he wasn't he was more bemused than angry it's probably fair to say so I owned it I was suitably apologetic but I still had doubts this still felt foreign to me I was like this I've not seen this before I haven't seen this before and as a consultant you meet lots of leaders some who talk a great game on fundraising but are maybe a bit more peripheral to the process than they make out. Was this the case here? This leader didn't have an ego the size of a planet we got well through the service I trusted him so I went back through my notes and with this new information that he'd given me the signs were very much there in my notes that he'd been far more central than the fundraisers more peripheral to the gifts but I translated that as a positive partnership between the fundraiser and the leader rather than the leader doing an extraordinary job and being a totally natural fundraiser. So of course that then changed the tenor of the report the chief exec had no problem with the fundraising team but like any leader he obviously wanted more out of them than just good stewardship work of um stewardship of his work especially when he could see from the other work that we've been doing that there was a lot of potential out there so the more challenging discussion was actually with the fundraising team who'd received a fairly glowing midpoint report but I then had to downgrade their gold star status and encourage them to start providing the leader with some healthy fundraising competition um also made us check some of the related findings and dig a bit deeper where we found a few things to be a bit more professionally critical of than giving them a clean bill of health thumbs up saying everything's great more of the same please it was absolutely the right thing to do but bear in mind you're running a business and we weren't getting paid for that extra but very unnecessary work so something I had to you know smooth over with um my peers when we were being told that the project was going a little bit out of scope so big takeaway from me and what I've sort of carried through from this experience and it might sound slightly flippant but as a father of three I know it's appropriate um is I need to channel my inner two-year-old uh a lot more um and I say this to client new clients when I start with them I'll sometimes sound like a two-year-old why did that happen how did that happen what did you do there why is why is it like this what are you you know who why how when where what um incessant but obviously very highly professional questioning to get to the heart of things because if you don't get there as a consultant anything you recommend is likely to be a superficial sticking plaster and you end up providing cookie cutter solutions to you know what are unique challenges you're critiquing the wrong director's cut of their particular movie and it was a bit of an epiphany for me I realized I got buy-on assumptions based on incomplete excuse me incomplete information for a lot of my career which I don't think is uncommon we all make assumptions but it can be dangerous really when you're providing paid advice and so I learned to you know be brave enough to ask what you what I think now might be a dumb question and weirdly I now take this perverse sense of enjoyment in asking those questions people hire consultants to come up with solutions provide insights and answers and help them to get better than they otherwise could more quickly there's not a consultant on the planet with all of the answers and a great joy of consulting is learning from my clients as much as I'm advising them but the best answers come from understanding the situation properly even if you feel uncomfortable asking the questions to do so thank you cathartic experience yeah thank you so much for sharing that Andy and really we always appreciate it when people are so candid so um yeah it's great to be so reflective already I know I've got quite a few questions already brewing in my mind so just a quick reminder to those watching do put the questions in the chat if you have any and Han and I will keep an eye but just to kick off I guess one of the first ones I'm thinking of is you described that so well of being on that call and that kind of realization that you know you have made assumptions that perhaps weren't correct in terms of you know looking at this as a situation where you realize you've made an error on some form and then you had to rectify it can I ask how did the dynamic feel different you know being in that situation with like I said a paid consultant and you know them being your client as opposed to perhaps just a regular situation where in a normal workplace you've made a mistake you have to tell your manager about it how could you describe a bit about how that feels different being as you say in that kind of paid advice position yeah it's it is different and I think when you're being paid for your sort of expertise and experience insights you know having an opinion I think there is a different pressure to that and I mean partly as Jenny will know this as someone who runs their own business like I don't want happy clients I want satisfied clients because they're much more likely to want to work with me again and sidebar this client did work with me again so all was well in the end but I think there is a different sort of pressure that you bring and that you experience sorry so whereas you know certainly I'd make I was glad you asked me to do this one because the litany of mistakes I made in-house would have needed a feature-length episode so you know I've always been one to own my mistakes but it is slightly different with the client but like using the same I guess model for owning my mistakes when I was in-house it's it's about the candor but it's also about how you're going to fix it it's the classic I used to say to my employees you know don't bring me problems bring me problems with solutions and it's you know I think carrying that through and being able to you know hopefully identify a problem before the client does but if you if the client happens to identifying it being able to work through it with them I think it's really important. I think there is something that comes from that they've paid you for your advice and then you feel if you have made a mistake or like I totally agree with you Andy the the kind of coming with your experience and the assumptions that come from that and you can't help but start there but until you have that moment of realising how curious you need to be it is difficult to realise that some some things are assumptions and when somebody has paid you for advice there's something in the beginning of being a consultant where you don't you feel like you need to know the answers and you can't you know I need to be the expert they paid me to be the expert and if I if I'm asking these questions does it make me look like I don't know what I'm talking about so there is you're right there is definitely a different feeling to it when somebody's paying you and you feel like you've you've made a mistake or you've disappointed them or you've not quite understood it. Yeah there can be a sense of helplessness when you first start out as well because you you need to be this know-all sage. Yeah exactly the know-all because everyone loves the know-all right Andy? Yeah I mean it's how it's how it's put across but yes. That was actually going to be my my question Andy but also I was just going to refer back to the fact that you said that you were pulling in from Kerry in the previous episode but I also think that Steve would have been very proud of your film film analogy there he would have been. I did think that yes. Very much but but my question was going to be completely around that in terms of I think many people think that consultants have to have years and years of experience and be you know really really knowledgeable before they can even consider consulting as a as a kind of option. Is that true? Is that right in the the clients expect people to have tons of in-house experience before they come to consultancy or is there other options and ways in? So yes there are other options and ways in and so the firm I worked for and a number of firms every firm has a slightly different sort of model for recruitment. I was part of a firm that would hire incredibly talented fundraisers who didn't necessarily have 14 years as a director as I had but who came in and were just incredibly smart people, who importantly knew what they didn't know. And being part of a firm, as I said at sort of the top of my story, you know, you've kind of seen these movies before, so you've got that collective knowledge and collective experience base. So yes, there are, you know, plenty of entry points in there. I think it's probably slightly different if you're a sole trader or part of, you know, a small team where I think having a depth and breadth of experience is helpful, because otherwise you're going to have quite a narrow focus to your work, which obviously, you know, you're in it to make money. So it makes it harder to do. But yeah, certainly the firm I worked for and a lot of other firms, like not just in, you know, philanthropy and engagement and advancement services consulting, but just consulting more broadly has a way of bringing people in, teaching them their frameworks and methodologies, which I found hugely helpful in adapting for my work now. So yeah, absolutely, there are ways in. And yeah, I mentioned being an associate. It's like looking for potential associate opportunities with some of these firms who have that model, where they're bringing in people who have day jobs, but because they're particularly experienced, fundraising in a certain geography, maybe, or a certain type of fundraising, whether that's, you know, high-end annual funds that they've got particular experience in there that fills a gap that the consulting team in that firm don't particularly have. I was just going to come in on that and say, I think there is space for less experienced people to come to be consultants. And I think for those people, you've got to be bringing something to the table though. So I think it's always a really good idea to have a good network and to kind of have a, try and have a bit of a profile in the sector to help you if you want to be a consultant, because that was certainly the jumping off point for me with Alveo is I'd spent so much time working, doing volunteering for CASE and building my network. And so there was something that I had to start with, which given I did it, we did it on our own rather than going to a consultancy helped. But I think there's, I always try and say myself now as a leader, I do not think I have all the answers. I think there are, everyone else in the room has got something to bring to every conversation we're having and I want to be open and listen to that. So there is something about being the person in the room who can ask the really good questions, who's going to bring some fresh thinking, who's bringing something which is going to be additive. And I think the clients that I've worked for probably more often than not, when they're thinking of a consultant, they are thinking of the kind of aged, experienced person who's going to bring the magic answers for things. I always start by saying, I'm not a magician. I'm not gonna, I don't have all the answers, but I think if there is somebody who can come into the mix, who can challenge your thinking, who can bring fresh ideas, then I think you don't have to be the 25 years in the sector like Andy and I are to be able to bring something useful as a consultant. Yeah. And just quickly on that, Hannah, if I may, I think somebody said this to me once, it should be on a mug somewhere, but I think a lot of consulting, whether it's advancement services, alumni relations, fundraising, is about helping a client understand what they've already got, because they have a perception of, they're in the game. It's like crisis management or comms crisis management. It feels much worse when you're in it than when you're outside it, looking in sometimes. And so the phrase I use is, why are you looking outside the box when you don't know what's in the box in the first place? And I think that's such a large part. And going back to that, can people with less than 25 years, less than 10 years experience be great consultants? Let's, if they can work to that in the first place and be able to demonstrate and reflect back to the client what they have got, they don't need bags of experience for that. They can create a framework that does that to the client and that should demonstrate massive value. Yeah. So then you need to be really clear what your kind of USP is that you're offering. You need to be really clear what it is that I'm bringing to you. It isn't that it's something else, which is gonna be really useful to help you look inside your own box. And I think also that network point, Jenny, is so important. And we were just having a conversation before we joined the call about how case can really help raise the profile of yourself in the sector. Before we move on to Jenny's example, I just have one more question for you, Andy, which is when you talked about, obviously when it got to the final report, there was that slightly awkward point where you had to downgrade some of the glowing reports of the fundraisers. So I wondered how did you approach that? Because that's obviously a really tricky situation. So how did you do that without kind of completely deflating them? Good question, unfortunately. So we have the midpoint report, but we also had regular check-ins with the client just to make sure, scheduling discussions with the prospective donors so you can bring certain things up there. So I agreed an approach with the chief exec and said, look, I want to, this is my interpretation that's caused this, so I'd like to deal with this. So we dealt with that actually between the midpoint report before the end report. So everybody was on the same page rather than getting to the end report and say, you know what I said six weeks ago, scratch that. And so we had sort of sidebar conversations to be able to do that. And they understood, they felt slightly uncomfortable with the credit that I'd stupidly been giving them. Thanks Andy, appreciate that honesty. Jenny, do you want to go ahead with your example? Yes, and like Andy, I was reflecting on the fact I've got lots of things I could have talked about. And just before I actually go into my example, I wanted to go back to something Andy said at the start about becoming a consultant and all the rest of it. I think the first mistake I made actually was assuming, it's another assumption, assuming that being a good or an experienced director of operations was the same as being a good consultant. And I think I kind of went into it all a bit gung-ho thinking it would be more obvious to me what a good consultant was than it was, you know, and actually ended up taking quite a bit of time to think that through. And one of the hardest things for me, which Andy also referenced is, you go from having one boss and one context to having lots of different bosses and lots of different contexts. And all of the bosses want to feel like they're your most important boss. And each of the context, you have to get really good at going quickly into client A's context, coming out of that and going across and down into somebody else's context. And it is a different kind of way of getting your brain to be able to juggle multiple things because it's not juggling multiple things within one context, it's juggling multiple things each within a different context. Anyway, a conversation for another day, but that was the first thing I think really is just not really understanding how different it would be. Anyway, I've got a specific example to talk to you about today. So we were asked by a client to do what we called a size and shape review, which was a really kind of common product for us. We would go in and have a really good look at an operations team, ahead usually of the department growing. And you know how much growth there's been in our sector over the past few years. So quite often the department would have a successful business case, meaning they'd got investment to grow. And they would say to us, we kind of know where we need to grow from a fundraising perspective. Could you come and have a really good look at our development services function and help us figure out where it needs to flex and how it can best support expansion and grow itself. So that's what we set out to do. And we were assured nothing here is broken. There is nothing to fix. This isn't about fixing things. This isn't, we're not bringing you in to help us figure some stuff out. This is actually about growth and you helping us to think in that way. We knew the leadership team quite well. We knew the director of ops really well, but we also knew his team members quite well, partly because of that, as I was explaining, being in the sector and the network, we knew a lot of these people. It wasn't, they weren't a kind of faceless, nameless crew to us. However, once we got started on the work, it really quickly became clear that the need wasn't quite as it had been explained to us. There were actually quite a lot of things that did require some change. There was quite a lot of dissatisfaction within the ops team, as well as elsewhere across the office. And that, by the way, is totally normal. Being a consultant is often a bit like being a counsellor. And when you go and ask people what they think, they'll tell you what they think. And it's not always just in the scope of the thing you're asking them about. You know, you end up harvesting all sorts of stuff and you have to kind of stay in the scope. But it quickly felt to us that actually the situation was quite different to how it had originally been pitched to us. And one of the important things was actually one of the most important things which led to this, the kind of mistake that I'm about to describe, is that fundamentally the development operations team had a very, very different understanding of what this project was about to how it had been commissioned to us. They were expecting something really different. So the mistake that I made is that I didn't acknowledge that difference with the client. I didn't say to the client at the point of it becoming really obvious, hang on a second, actually we're hearing something quite different to what you said to us. I didn't say to them, your guys over here actually are expecting something completely different to come out of this report. We just forged ahead. So we carried on with our interviews and all the rest of it, and we wrote up our report. But we didn't just write up a report that was the size and shape review. We also wrote up in the report the feedback that we'd received and our interpretation of that and some of the changes that we felt were needed and would be helpful. As a result, when we delivered that report initially to our clients, the person who'd commissioned the report and subsequently to their team, they and their team were a bit blindsided. The team particularly were really surprised and disappointed because they really felt that the report didn't do in any way what they had been really hoping and what they'd been expecting it was going to do. And the result of that was the report became, well, not just the report, I mean, that's just the physical artifact of the a physical artifact along the way, but the report and the consultancy that we'd done became really mistrusted by the team, not necessarily by some of the stakeholders because I think some of the stakeholders did recognize it, but by the team themselves, they really mistrusted it. It led them to really doubt our experience and expertise as consultants. They felt they hadn't been heard, they felt they hadn't been understood and that we had not understood the real problems in the situation. And after that, it took loads and loads of work. It kind of created a problem for the clients, which you don't really want to do as a consultant. And it took loads and loads of work and kind of emotion and effort thinking all of it through. We had loads of one-to-ones with different members in the team, we kind of explored it we got to a place where what we had recommended and the insight and everything we provided did become a useful and accepted piece of work. But it was a real lesson for me in understanding how to engage with the whole team, not just the person who's commissioned you because the person who I'd commissioned actually didn't feel any of those things. They were really pleased that once they got over the surprise, they were really pleased with what we'd done for them, but the team didn't. And I think that was the real mistake. I had really underestimated that. And so I think I learned that in this context, surprises rarely go down well. Great children's birthday party, perfect place for a surprise, not good in this situation. It really taught me something about the human impact of the reports that we wrote and the emotional power that they have. And it was just a real reminder for me about how passionate people feel about their work, particularly when aspects of it are challenged by an outsider. And I think it's easy as a consultant to become a bit detached sometimes and a bit blasé about the feedback that you're providing. And this mistake that we made, that I made in approach really taught me a valuable lesson. Thank you, Jenny. That's really interesting what you're saying about feeling sometimes it's easy as a consultant to feel a bit more detached. And I would like to explore that in a second. But my first question to you to kick us off is what stopped you from pausing at that point and saying we need to have a conversation about this? What was it there that stopped you? It's interesting because we paused internally. We talked about internally and said, what are you hearing? Oh yeah, I'm hearing that as well. That's a bit strange. That doesn't really correlate with exactly what the person who commissioned us told us. I think probably because we often hear stuff that we're not expecting, I think we just thought that it was kind of par for the course and we carried on. And I think the mistake that we made was not hearing and really understanding this difference between what the team was expecting and what the person who commissioned us was expecting. Because I think that actually was the root of it all. And I think probably, if I'm really honest, I think probably we undervalued the importance of them and the team's views in this exercise. I think we probably were like, well, as long as we report back to our client and our client hears us and we're doing what they've asked us to do and we're going to add value on this bit, which is different to what they asked us to, they're going to get extra value because they're going to get two things. So I think we had just really undervalued the team and how they would feel about it and how important it was to bring them on this journey with us. Go on, Andy, are you going to come in? Yes, thank you. I mean, there's a couple of things here that- You were going to say, Andy, this has never happened to you. No, they sent shivers down my spine, Jenny. But the few things here, just there's one sort of general thing that I know now that I didn't know when I was trying to win business, which is almost going back to how you set it up with what the client wanted. It's like the more certain a client is of exactly what they want, the more worried I am about whether that's what they need. Sometimes it's absolutely right. But often it isn't, Andy. It's like great major gifts. If you co-create something with the client, you will get the best out of the service. They will get the most value. If you try to be too prescriptive at either end, either I'm saying this is how you should do it or the client is saying, no, this is how we want it doing, the outputs diminish, in my opinion, nine times out of 10. Sorry, Jenny. No, I was just- It reminded me of something else, Andy, where exactly that is such a good point. Early on in my consultancy career, somebody was really clear what they wanted. We did it. And they knew what they wanted the output to be. We did it. The output wasn't what they had thought. They asked us to change it. We changed it. I never did that again. That was another real learning point for me. And later on in my career, somebody was absolutely adamant what they wanted us to do. We did the report. It didn't say what they wanted it to say. It didn't. And we refused to change it. And it caused some problems because he thought he was engaging us to be an external person representing his view. And actually we had something slightly different to say. So it's a good point, Andy. And the other side of the human impact, and this is true of sort of internal people you have discussions with and externals where you're talking to some of the organisation's biggest donors. Frequently, very frequently, and it's led to me introducing myself very fully at the start of every conversation. They're not quite sure what they're being, what they're involved with. So can you speak to this consultant or can you? Yeah, and that's to a donor who's given 5 million pounds on one occasion to a client. And so the question I would always ask is, do you know what the purpose of this call is today? And a frightening number of times, it's not that I'm not criticising the client. They may well have been told, they may well be very busy. They may well just want to hear it from me. But just that repetitive nature of saying, this is what we're doing. This is why we're doing it. And this is what I'm looking for from you today in terms of your feedback is really helpful. And the level of candor you get from staff and donors. I don't think I've done a discussion with a donor. Must be hundreds of them now where I haven't been able to give some substantive feedback that the client didn't know about and how they felt about the organisation, how they felt the gift was stewarded, how they get on with a particular member of the senior leadership team. And these are some 20 plus year philanthropic relationships where they know each other's families and they're very engaged with one another. But there's something about seemingly speaking to somebody with a title consultant that just opens people up, which is invaluable for clients, but often quite surprising for them as well. I can imagine. I really love the link to being like seeing a therapist, Jenny. I think that's quite an interesting idea to make. So yeah, people say that I'm sure this is the same Andy for you loads of the people say at the end of the call, gosh, that's felt a bit like therapy or that's felt really cathartic to get that off my chest. And then your job is actually to kind of analyse and interpret what they've told you to see which of this is just the kind of therapy angle and we can park that and which of this is a common thread or a common theme or genuinely a piece of insight that will help to move things forward. And often asking having to feel feeling like you have to ask permission to be able to escalate some of that. Oh, yeah. You know, donor donor would vent at me occasionally. And I'm just the vehicle. So no offence taken. But it's like, can I share that with the client? No, I just wanted to get that off my chest. So having to encourage them to say, not being able to share this will not make your relationship better. And that's what I'm trying to be here to do. I think that's such an important point. Just going back to my one which was about staff, which is I've got more experience of that than talking to donors and getting feedback. I think that's a really fine line, the this, you know, you can talk to me about anything, you can be honest, I'm not going to go back to my client and say, Jane told me this. But them understanding that you are going to synthesize anonymize, you know, take that what they're telling you and use that to relay. And it's a really fine line, particularly with staff. And you have to very, very quickly establish a rapport with people, which is quite similar to coaching or, or even to counselling, you have to be able to do that to get to be able to have their trust. And then as Andy was saying at the beginning to be able to ask the really good curious questions that will get you the insight that you're looking for. That leads me quite well onto my next question, then Jenny, and I should just say there's a couple of good ones in the chat. So we will come to them shortly. But just you mentioning that kind of speed of building that rapport. And earlier on, you know, I think as you were opening your example, you mentioned having lots of bosses and Andy, you know, you mentioned, you know, changing workplace every six weeks or every six months, I think whatever it was, could you both just share a couple of reflections on what what is that like when you're used to perhaps working in HE, you know, being at the same university in a team, very much embedded in organisations? What is that contrast like as a company, you know, going to consultancy, changing that regularly, and those relationships resetting so often? I guess, Jenny, do you want to start and then Andy come to you? Yeah, I've been at UCL for 11 years before I left to start Alveo. But, and so it was quite different. But working in a really big, complex university, I did spend a huge amount, even in ops job, I spent a huge amount of my time building relationships across the university, there was regularly turnover, and it was a new Director of Finance or a new Director of Estates that I was having to build relationships with. But I usually had a lot longer to do it. And we we generally had a lot, you know, there was more shared, there was, you know, something to do, there was generally actually something we were building relationship around. I found it really stimulating and exciting. To be honest, I found it I mean, I love building relationships with people. And I think that probably is a helpful starting point. If you're interested in consultancy, I think you have to be somebody that is curious and interested in people because it is largely a people game, whatever it is you're looking at. So I found it stimulating and interesting and exciting. And I really loved it. And I did find it quite tiring, getting into the stamina of, I need to be able to do this, that and the other. And I actually saw a huge shift in it post COVID as we went into a hybrid world. What the way my working pattern had been before that was generally a client would ask me to go on site, and I'd go on site, and I'd be on site with the client one or two or three days, whatever, probably as part of quite a long term engagement. Post COVID, what happens is people would want to, you know, we'd be we'd be doing things online, because it was more cost effective for them to do it that way. What what then ended up happening is instead of having a day where this was my day with client A, and I could spend time at the beginning of the day, just getting my head in the zone and doing it. And then I was out of that one. And the next day, I was into client B, it became my diary was just a melting pot of client A, client B, client C, client D, client A. And, and that then becomes much harder to manage because of that context shift is, is much more constant throughout the day. So I think, interesting, Andy, to hear your thoughts, but how I was operating as a consultant really shifted, pre and post sort of hybrid working. Yeah. And like you, Jenny, I found that aspect of the role of having to build relationships that weren't an inch deep in a mile wide, very quickly, like really thrilling. It's, it's great. And you know, as a development director, I was meeting lots of people I never thought I'd meet in my life, you know, high profile people, philanthropists, major philanthropists, real influencers, influencers, not in the social media sense. But it's quite challenging. There's, there's an inherent trust, because they've hired you, which is great. But you kind of need to build that trust, if you can, before they hire you, and it's quite difficult. And in terms of the working practice, and how I sort of ended up doing that when I wasn't so green as a consultant was how I partitioned my time to look at how I try to manage my clients better. And it's like, who do I need to touch base with? And who, you know, do I need to drop the head of that school in email, even though I've been mostly working with a development director? Or do I need to drop that provost chancellor in email who I met a few weeks ago, because I know that's going to be relevant to something coming up. And so my time management improved markedly. I think, I certainly think the long, the longer you have with a client, and I won't be saying this, because everyone likes a long term contract. But the longer you have with a client, your the value you bring to it goes up exponentially. I've seen that with three clients I worked with so well in excess of 1218 months, and I got to know all the players. And so I didn't have to relearn, relearn things. And I knew, you know, the Vice Chancellor's PA, and you know, you started to be able to take these shortcuts to be more efficient. And so post pandemic, I don't know, we were quite lucky in that I worked for an international consulting firm. So we were quite used to zoom. And so limiting our in person time because the consultants were dotted all around the country. So I think pre pandemic, so I personally felt like I had a bit of a head start on that greater efficiency in terms of use of time. But then clients also like the FaceTime, like going in a meeting, you know, I delivered some projects during lockdowns that started and ended without being able to actually meet physically meet the client, which is a little odd. And, you know, looking back on it, certainly, I think they got far less value out of it, I got far less enjoyment out of it. But, you know, I didn't find if I'd have got on the road and gone to see the client given the circumstances. So I think that FaceTime is important, but understanding where and when that will have the most impact and with who is great, because you can do an awful lot more with your time now. But there's also that building the relationship and making sure that when you do present them with your final report, or your summations, or the recommendations to what you need to do next, or what they need to do next, rather, that you've built up that trust that they take that forward, because there's nothing more frustrating than giving a set of recommendations to a client, and they cherry pick two or three. And then, in a year's time, you should check back and see how they're doing. And they haven't implemented anything, everything you said, and now annoyed that it's not working. Because there's a reason there were seven recommendations, because all seven things are interlinked, in a way, rather than you just chose the first two. Yeah, it's, you know, it'll get you somewhere, but it won't get you where you need to be. Great. Okay, well, we have had some questions in the chat, and we have 11 minutes to try and bomb through them with a bit of a roundup. So I'm going to start with Dave's, who refers back to one of you saying being the person in the room who asked the really good questions. So I think, Jenny, that might have been you around when we're talking about new consultants. So Andy mentioned asking questions a two year old might ask, which is great. But Jenny, do you have any methods you could share of getting to the right questions? Well, I, in the end, created a bank of questions. And we had a whole list of questions that we would review when we were going to do various meetings. And in generally, when we were starting out doing a project, even if the project was something one of us was leading on and doing most of the work on our own, we would try and spend a bit of time with me and me and Kate spend a bit of time thinking through what sorts of things we wanted to ask questions about just to kind of myth bust, kind of bust that thing that Andy said at the beginning about what your own assumptions are and all the rest of it. So we're trying to start from that place. I have found that thinking with trying to think with a kind of coaching mindset, a little bit of, you know, trying to ask really open questions, not asking, not asking too many why questions, trying not to ask too many closed questions. And when whenever I would prepare for a meeting that I was going to have with with with some people, for my clients, I would prepare a list of questions. And I would pick three core questions. Like you can actually ask you can if you're going to have a good conversation, you can probably ask a lot less questions than you think you can ask. So try and be really realistic and pick three core questions. And they were generally things that started with how or tell me about this thing that happened. Had that happened before? What's what's your experience about? What have you seen in other places? So those sorts of questions. And then I would have a whole lot of backup questions that I would have just thought through in advance. And the more I did it, the better I got at just being more natural about knowing the sorts of things I wanted to ask people. And often, although everybody's is, you know, all of my clients were different and had that I can't remember, Andy, what is it have their own movie or their own playbook or their own story? There were loads of similarities and often the work that we were doing was was similar. So that the sorts of questions I kind of started to refine them. And then I always finished pretty much always with like a kind of if you had a magic wand, what one thing would you fix? Which is such a kind of silly sort of question. But that was one of the most insightful questions because you've got the kind of thing that people felt was kind of too often it was the thing which was too big and too difficult to change. You need magic to fix it, or it would just be a with, you know, this, this one quick win would would really sort things out. So that sort of thing. So I guess kind of thinking in a coaching mindset of asking really open questions, bearing in mind Andy's view, and Andy's comment that the answers are often inside, you know, it's holding a mirror up and asking people to look inside their own box before they're looking outside the box. So using a kind of coaching mindset, open questions, having starting to build up a bank of things that have worked in the past. Thanks, Jenny. That's yes, some really good advice and more questions flooding in. So thank you so much. Andy, I'm going to come to the next one because it's quite a quite practical one directed at you. What are the pros and cons of being on the payroll of an established consultancy firm and running your own consultancy? I mean, the main pro of running my own consultancy is the flexibility of my time. And that works for me and my family. But it also, I hope has worked for my clients as well. So I've been able to be responsive and flexible for them. And I can sort of I find a sweet spot most of the time where I can coach my son's school football team on a Friday afternoon. And like that sacrosanct and that's in there. And I probably could have done that with some conversations about working in a firm. Obviously, working on your own brings its own stresses if you've got to go and win the business. And there are more and more consultants cropping up on LinkedIn, I see on an almost weekly basis. So there's that challenge versus being on PA where you having a nice pension contributions being able to do all that. Well, there's having your then there's, you know, my side of things, having your own accountant, paying various different tiers of tax, corporation tax, VAT, income tax. So there's a complexity. So get yourself a good accountant would be one of my bits of advice. But yeah, it's quite different. And I don't know if I never wanted to set up on my own, it just sort of happened by accident. And I've really enjoyed it. It's been very stressful at points when, like the summer, if you don't have anything lined up, because the summer is quiet, generally, is difficult, whereas, you know, you have that slightly more year round feel, which is much more, it's much closer to being in house. So yeah, there are pros and cons. I mean, the other thing is, like learning from colleagues being in a firm, you know, that was if you after six months of joining the firm I was at, you know, I thought if I went back in as a development director, now I will be twice as good as I was. And I was, I thought I was half decent. So it was like, you know, the accelerated learning. And I saw that with a number of sort of more, less experienced consultants would come in, do some consulting and go and get a much more senior job off the back of the consulting experience than they ever would have got staying, you know, in the sector throughout that period. And are you pointing a finger at me having gone back into University of Cambridge when you say that? No, no. Does it does feel like that? It's like the amount, it's like an accelerated learning programme. Yeah, where you're just absorbing all of these different experiences. And I said, during my example, that, you know, I've learned ridiculous amounts of my clients that I now carry with me and apply appropriately with other clients. And, you know, if I ever did a Jenny and went back in house, I would take them with me as well. So we have four minutes left, and my Rose is going to wrap up shortly. I've got one more question, loads of questions in the chat, but I've got one more that I'm going to bring to Jenny before I round off with my final question to both of you. So we've got one from Nicole, who says that I've noticed that post-COVID, it's more difficult to land in-person networking meetings and even to get time with people on Zoom. Overall relationship building just feels a bit harder. What strategies have worked for you? So if you could try and answer that in 30 seconds, Jenny. Go to where people are already and try and do it there. So try and go to a conference or a seminar or workshop, something that's already happening in person, and then try and have meetings at that place. Andy, maybe you want to come in on that as well, then? No, I'd second that. And also, you know, through case and off people's own backs, they naturally create great networks. And it's being able to just have the confidence to reach out and say, you know, to colleagues, I'm struggling here. I'm struggling to do this. What are you using to overcome this? And I've had it with my clients, and you know, all sorts of different ideas come up. And there's no such thing as a bad idea to try and overcome a challenge like that. Great. Okay. And one question left for both of you, seeing this as this is a bit of a career focused one for anyone who is either in or thinking about consultancy. So what one piece of advice would you have for anyone who's in the sector and is thinking of making the move to consultancy? I get asked that actually quite often. Lots of people have asked me that. And I always say the same thing that I said earlier, I'm afraid, which is that I think it's well, I think two things. It's really, really important that you have a network and a profile in the sector because it's really hard work otherwise, because there's some really well known consultants. And so trying to get it be a new person in the And secondly, be absolutely clear what your USP is, what's what is your niche? What is the your difference in approach? What is your difference in experience? So I think those are my two top tips. Yeah, and I got given a terrible piece of advice early on when I was given a client. And it wasn't really in my wheelhouse of experience. And they said, Oh, come on, you fake it till you make it. And I said, No, I'm not going to fake it. I'm not going to fake it. And they said, Oh, come on, you fake it till you make it. So that's, I mean, that's not me anyway. But I'm not, I can't do that. And it's like, be confident, be confident in what you do know, and be aware of what you don't and concentrate on the stuff you do know. Thanks both so much. And for that really concise ending. That's really appreciated. And I think there's lots of food for thought people will take away from this session, not more than just be more tea rolled. Although I think that's probably one of the big headlines that I've taken away. Thank you both so much for your time. And like being so honest, being so reflective, it's really helpful, really appreciated. And thanks to those who asked questions and those that we didn't get to apologies, but I think it's clear from all our discussions that this is a small and welcoming and open sector. So do reach out and continue the conversation offline as well. We'll be doing a couple more in this mini series around career changing over the next kind of six weeks. The next one is on Valentine's Day in February 14. So don't miss that lunchtime with that one's got focus on school. So we've got a couple of speakers who've moved from higher education into the school sector to share their reflections as well. And then following that a couple of weeks later, we've got a session on those and supporting sectors. So again, we've got someone from Giving Day platform, someone from the forum team as well. Do you get in touch if you have any questions or suggestions for future speakers? Thank you so much for your time. Have a nice weekend, everyone. Thanks so much, Andy and Jenny. Pleasure. Thanks for having me. Thank you. Thanks for having us.

career transitions

higher education

consultancy work

client dynamics

rapport-building

organizational needs

professional networks

unique selling proposition

relationship management