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Transcript:

Helen: My guest this week is Victoria Livingstone, who's Chief People Officer for the EMEA region at Dentsu International, part of Dentsu, which is the fifth largest advertising agency network in the world. Victoria is also the HR business partner to the EMEA CEO and the lead for the EMEA HR function. She has more than two decades of experience leading HR functions for some of the world's largest brands, including Ford, Vodafone, Cisco, and HSBC, and she has multinational experience in the high tech, telecoms, automotive, financial services and fashion e-commerce industries. She specializes in leading major business transformation programmes to drive growth, operational efficiency, and culture. Drawing on her expertise in mergers and acquisitions, organization design and development, leadership effectiveness and talent management. Welcome to The Business of Being Brilliant, Victoria!

Victoria: Thank you very much and thank you for such a great introduction.

Helen: You're very welcome. It's lovely to have you on the podcast and for people listening, you and I met through work quite a few years ago now. We were just chuckling off air about how long we've both been working and how interesting it is to look back over CVS and see all the experiences we've accumulated.

Victoria: Yes. I think our introduction was probably way over 10 years ago now, so yeah, lovely to see you again Helen.

Helen: Yeah, likewise. So we'll come on in a minute to the work that you do in your roles and some of your career experiences to date. And I'm sure you juggle a very busy work diary so I'm going to start by asking you, what is your ideal day off ? What do you do?

Victoria: Oh, yes, yes. An ideal day off. I think for me, it's always going to be with my family, and we have dogs as well and it would invariably be outside in nature. I have a teenage son, and one of the things that I think as a parent is that realization that your child and their interests evolve. And one of the things that we found a new shared passion for is learning new sports and new skills together. So over the half term, we went to Morocco to a surf and yoga retreat together, just myself and my son. And that was amazing; he was excellent at surfing, I was less excellent at surfing, but I think spending time together and seeing the support and the coach that's in my son, cheering me on to try and encourage my somewhat limited skills. It was a really great experience and I think I'd love to spend my day off doing something with my son where we do something outdoors, learning like that together, having a number of amusing moments. And then again, it would be a walk together out in nature with our dogs followed by a meal in a pub probably.

Helen: Oh, that all sounds brilliant. And what a fantastic way to spend some time with your son. It sounds like it was a wonderful experience for you both. And one of the things you allude to is how interesting it is when we stop being in the parent/child dynamic and become more equal because we're both trying something new for the first time. And then even sometimes as you say, a child might try and coach us and step into the parent role and it's both very endearing, but actually there's a point isn't there as they grow up that you realize that they have a really wise perspective to offer?

Victoria: Yes. Yeah. And it's also more emphatic now because my son's actually starting to get taller than me and so the physical element of it as well is that he's actually bigger than me and definitely a lot better at certain things than me. And there is a lot you can learn. And I think it's actually a good coaching moment and is a transition as a parent. It' beholden on us as parents, I think to always pay attention to the relationship and the dynamic and how our children are growing and changing.

And I think I see that day to day as well in how we work as teams and how we work with our stakeholders in our teams. Those relationships are never static. They're often quite dynamic and fluid, and I think it's really important to listen and observe and actually understand how that dynamic is changing and how we have to change with it. And I think as a parent at various points, you go through that parent journey, having to pause, reflect, adapt so that you're actually keeping that dynamic healthy and keeping that relationship healthy as well.

And it's lovely to spend time with my son almost as equals now. And as I said, he was so much better at surfing than me, and he was so generous in his advice and encouragement, et cetera. So yeah, a lovely way to spend a day off.

Helen: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, you're reminding me of a milestone in my own parenting experience. I have two now grown up stepchildren, and I distinctly remember the day that my stepson, who's now late twenties, was big enough and tall enough to pick me up and I couldn't do anything about her. And it just stuck in my memories; okay, I need to view him differently now! So... yeah, he's definitely growing up!

Oh, well thank you for sharing that. And moving on to talk a bit more about work and your career. So you've held a number of senior roles in quite different industries. Can you tell us a bit more about that and what's shaped or influenced your career path to date?

Victoria: Of course. Yes.  I think personally I'm very motivated by learning. I'm very motivated by change as well. And I think that has really influenced my career all the way throughout and initially working for a large multinational, it gives you lots of opportunities. So when I worked at Ford Motor Company, it was very large, had multiple brands of cars and it also provided a huge amount of breadth of development. And it was very easy to build a portfolio career of working through different HR functions. So it was very developmental and a really great grounding. But again it's a particular type of industry and then you want to see something new and learn something new. And that is really what has driven me whenever I've moved roles.

And the next role was for Cisco, a high tech company, Silicon Valley, completely different, dynamic. At the time, it was only just over 20 years old, and that was again, a super developmental stretch shift. The first six months were interesting and challenging, demanding and rewarding in equal measure. And again a large company where I managed to move into different types of roles. Also got exposed to M&A where we met originally, and also had some of the best developmental learning I've ever had in HR business partnering that has really stood to me in good stead going forward.

And again, the next moves are always: 'what's going to be additive to my CV? What's going to prove a learning experience for me and developmental, and is this going to challenge me? And again what are the people like? What's the dynamic like? What's the culture like, and is that something that I'm going to enjoy?'

Now that latter part is something that I think has developed more and more as I've worked through my career. I think we become a lot aware of what our value system is, what our non-negotiables are, and also I think we become much better at doing due diligence. Now, I won't say that I've got it right every single time and I will say that sometimes when you move into a company, the company changes and evolves and what might have fitted doesn't always fit later on. But I think that it's that always striving for something new. And to be honest, in the last couple of years I've actually changed industry with every move. And again, that's just driven by wanting to learn and understand the actual ins and outs of those. And it's why I've often stayed quite close to business supporting roles because it enables me to really understand the commercials, the operating model, the customer focus, the needs of the client, et cetera, that I think makes a HR professional really add value.

And that's something that I've always wanted to support my businesses with is adding value and not always in a traditional HR role. I've actually been lucky enough to now work in the business not just in HR and I think it makes me a better business professional. And I've also worked with McKinsey, Deloitte, Bain, BCG, Accenture, et cetera, on a number of transformation programmes, et cetera see the full portfolio of the business, the strategy change, and it really helps you see how elements of the organization are connected and it helps you understand all the different functions. And I've also been very lucky now that I've worked with leadership teams and on leadership teams for pretty much every function that exists.

And again, you get really deep understanding if you sit in a monthly meeting, learning about technology, finance, marketing, fashion, commercials. And so that really helps you then whenever you work in any future organization, you have an innate understanding of particular disciplines. So that's who I am and what I'm driven for, is that learning, deep learning, development, adding value, leaving things better than where you left them. And then providing huge value to the business in a maybe different HR way than they've been used to.

Helen: That's really interesting to listen to. And it sounds like the common thread, as you say, as well as looking for change and growing your learning has been learning about how businesses operate and how you can adjust them from all aspects, strategy, operating model, people management, et cetera. Did you ever feel worried that by changing industries that would be perceived negatively by any future employer? Because a lot of people might think you have to build up expertise within your industry to get into those senior roles, but it sounds like that that just simply wasn't the case from your experience.

Victoria: HR is quite lucky in that it's quite a fungible skill set and people are people, organizations are organizations. And I can say now being in my seventh industry, that the commonalities are more similar than they are different when it comes to the people dynamic. And the other element is that technology is so ubiquitous and all-consuming in every industry strategy that there are real relevancies. Having worked in technology companies such as Cisco and Vodafone, it's probably those elements that actually help move into other industries because they're at the forefront of innovation and future business strategies. And I think that actually helps.

But HR, by and large, I've always found employers really value the breadth of my career and the breadth of my experience and again, the breadth of supporting different functions. It means that I've got a deep T shape because I've got deep HR experience, not just in business partnering but also in COEs (Centres of Excellence). But I've also worked in change, strategy and transformation roles and I've worked in the business and I have breadth because I've worked in a number of industries and across different functions, and I think that piece really resonates.

Also when we reflect on what value do you bring in senior roles, it is less so about the what and I think some of it becomes so much more about how: how you interact, how you influence how you take that experience that you've got and how you apply it in a new way to the new organization that you've come to.

So I think that focus on industry is less so. There is no doubt there are certain types of companies like startups, et cetera, which are very different from large multinationals. So I know that there's probably a limit as to the fungibility that particular roles can have or particular types of people that would probably apply, but for the majority it's always been just really valuable to have that breadth of experience.

Helen: That's great, that's really helpful to hear. And particularly to hear the understanding of people dynamics, those softer skills, the awareness of how you are going about influencing people and creating commitment to going in a certain direction and adapting past experiences to apply to the current experience. They're quite intangible, soft skills but they're things you learn along the way and they're also things that you can learn formally as I did in my consulting career. I used to go off on courses and learn about human dynamics and managing group interactions and things. So really interesting to hear you talk about that.

And to dig a bit more into the type of business changes you work on: you have a lot of expertise in business transformation, redesigning operating models and organizations. Some people listening might get exactly what you mean by that; that might sound a bit newer for other people. What is it that you enjoy most about this kind of work? And if you can describe it in really layman's terms for anyone that that sounds a bit unfamiliar to, that would be fab.

Victoria: I think today you'll often hear people say that change is the only constant. And I think that companies are going through a huge amount of change and HR has a real opportunity to work with the business on how you affect the most optimum change so that it actually delivers the strategy that they're aiming for. And when I have worked on business transformation in the past, it's been a mixture to be honest of working on mergers and acquisitions where we are introducing a new company and needing to align that company so that it thrives, lands well both from a product perspective, but a talent perspective and from a strategy perspective. In other changes, it's around a shift in the strategy maybe because of external effects, challenges coming in disrupting the industry, a change in technology, a new product, and needing to work with the business on how do we go after that opportunity? How do we redesign our organization? And often it will start with what's the strategy that you are going after, the differentiating client offering? How does that translate into the products or the processes or the service that we're offering? Which then ties into the organization design, whether that be people, structure, products, processes, governance, et cetera.

But the glue that brings that all together is always the culture and the engagement and the alignment of people to the purpose, to the strategy, to the direction. So organization transformation, when you look at it in its fullest sense actually touches on lots of different elements. With the ability as a HR person that specializes in organization design, development, transformation and change, it's a chance to work on a super exciting project where you can really improve and you can work very collaboratively and co-create across multiple business functions, how you are going to deliver this transformation and how you will better serve your clients and your customers and effectively create growth and win for your company. And it's those kind of transformations that I've worked on over the last couple of years, whether they be restructures, redesigns, new products, M&A.

And I think for me, I have a strong passion for improving. I love change, I love change programmes, I love fixing things or building things and I think that's why I gravitate towards organizations that are going through those kind of change and transformation. And because I've now been doing it for over 12 years in this particular field, I've worked on such large change programmes that really help you understand the building blocks of the organization.

But again, I've worked with companies that have really focused on the culture, the people, and the purpose, and try to drive some passion and excitement into the change programme. I think sometimes change and transformation can become quite fatiguing and we can lose the whole purpose or the actual goal that we are trying to achieve. So for me, it's the best kind of HR almost. It's giving commercial value but overlaying it with the positivity and the optimism of getting back to growing and winning.

Helen: You've described it brilliantly thank you. Because it is big and complex and requires certain skills to hold that whole picture and figure out the way forward and make sure all the different strands of that work are lining up and pointing in the right direction. And something you mentioned around just the creativity that you have to bring into that kind of work. I know from my experience, that's what I relished was solving new problems, figuring stuff out, putting lots of brains together and overcoming challenges. I always felt like I was really working my grey cells in a really enjoyable way. But also as you said, it can be really fatiguing and for a lot of people, change is very uncomfortable, quite threatening and not something necessarily that we've chosen for ourselves, it might feel like it's being imposed on us. So I'm curious to know what's hardest for you as someone leading that kind of change, and then also what helps others get on board and really embrace it positively that, I guess, makes the biggest difference to the business at the end of the day?

Victoria: I think that the hardest thing is trying to ensure that there's alignment on the change and the transformation. If I had to pinpoint where things go wrong, it's where there's too many different versions of the change going on; there's competing or conflicting priorities.

 I think I've also seen if there's insufficient prioritization given to the change, insufficient budget, lack of senior buy-in. And I think that is always hardest to try and ensure that if there is a change and transformation programme, that it is really very, very clear and that all of the elements align to it that ensure it's being set up for success.

So the leadership team are all on board; there's clarity on the goal; there's clarity on how long it's going to take; that it fits with the realities of the strategy, the vision, the culture, the products, the services; and the reality of the external environment, whether that be economic, political, or competitive; and that that change programme is really prioritized and given the just focus, attention, resources, and support that's necessary and that the change management element isn't under-resourced or under budgeted or ignored. For any transformation programme to work effectively, it genuinely needs a people and culture element to it. I've yet to see one work, of a significant size, when that element isn't catered for. And I think the change element of it that's within that 'people and culture' strand is so critical in helping people to understand the change, helping them to understand the why, being able to connect themselves with that vision and that purpose, and ensuring that the culture is shifting with it.

I think that a culture evolves with the transformation and you can end up with a tweaked way of working, a tweaked culture, a tweaked value proposition for employees. Without it, it's just moving chairs around almost and without really resolving or moving to a different direction. Any strategy or transformation change has to bring people with it and people need to be engaged or on board or otherwise, they will fight against the transformation. And any end state, any future strategy or purpose or vision will require a shift in mindset and behaviours and how people will work with each other and how they will feel and how they will behave and act in that future state.

And it is absolutely fundamental to actually achieving any future strategy or transformation that a company is clear on how it will shift people in their organization, and how they will work and that culture, that value proposition. Those are some of my critical success factors whenever I'm working with transformation programmes.

Helen: I love listening to that because it reminds me of exactly that kind of work that I used to do for 15 years or so in, in my former consulting career. And we used to talk about change programmes: yes, they had to address the rational, but they absolutely had to address the emotional and not just win minds but to really win hearts as well. And then there's the, how do you actually do that? Which is the technical skills you start to learn around people and change and shifting mindsets and behaviours et cetera. So interesting to hear and when you were talking earlier about the need for, you know, single agreement on what we're doing, when we are doing, making sure everything leads towards that direction.

It reminds me of a very big global project I worked on internationally where when we started working on it and there were two consulting firms partnering up with the client on it. I think there were over 40 different projects going on in the name of this change they wanted to make happen. And I didn't understand how any of them fitted together; I don't think any one consultant did. And I think within the first month, that was the biggest shift we had to make was actually saying we are all building, working on a little piece of a jigsaw, but nobody knows what the big picture looks like or how the pieces fit together. So we had to completely redesign it, starting from the picture we wanted to see at the end, and then dividing it up into the strands that were going to get us there. So you've reminded me of just, yeah, it's quite complicated, but it's absolutely critical to making that work yield the results you're looking.

Victoria: Yeah, you're quite right. It is complicated and in a strange way, it's actually the heavy lifting. Often it will get misunderstood that all of these big strategy shifts, organization shifts, purchasing new organizations and integrating 'em, that that's the hard work. Whereas in actual fact, it's all of the culture, the engagement, the actual hearts and minds and the emotions that that's the heavy lifting because it doesn't happen that easily. It does require really strong thought and attention, care, and ensuring that it's completely embedded within every single one of the work streams and the processes, et cetera. So, yeah, it is the hard work, the complicated stuff.

Helen: And it's usually the reason why they fail, isn't it? Because they haven't paid enough attention to all of that. Oh, fascinating! Loving talking about this kind of work!

And has there been a particular resource or bit of wisdom that has helped you in particular during your career, that others can access, whether that's a book or a podcast or just actually some words of advice from someone that's really been helpful to you?

Victoria: Let me reflect. One thing I will probably say is that your career is not set in stone and it's very difficult to actually plan a perfect career. And I think particularly now for different generations coming and I think that even having one career or, or one discipline is also really not there let alone a job for life. I think there's actually different careers. I actually love the idea of having a side hustle. I haven't got a side hustle but I've got a few people that I'm friends with that have, and I admire that! I think that's very, very millennial or Gen Z, and I just think that The variety that that must give you and the things that it must teach you as well, and just the diversification.

 So I really admire some of those evolutions that are coming through the workplace and future careers. But I would say to people that you won't always make the right choices in your career; there'll be career missteps. But it's not the end and it does not define you. You'll go into something in full faith, full motivation, et cetera. You might get it wrong; just learn from it. It's no harm, no foul, it's a learning experience. I think that's one of the important things is: learn from things and then promise yourself that you'll take it and use it going forward and that you won't make that same mistake again. And then take the next step and don't have regrets, life is too short. So take these steps, take the risk, go in with positive intent and full faith and you'll be amazed at how often you will get something out of things. And don't think that just because something doesn't quite work out that that's it, that that's your career defined. It never is. There are so many different steps that you can take and different directions that you can take.

And I think the thing for me is it's so important to be happy in your work. I think happiness to a large degree is a choice. We can work with people that really engage us, that you can learn things from, that are also kind, supportive, funny. And I think it's one of the things that is really important. Go to places where it's fun. Go to places where you work with people that make it fun. Go to places where you're learning and you're building something. Don't tread water, always, always keep on trying to be that bigger person.

 And so I think that would be some thoughts about career. And then if I'm reflecting to your point about things that have helped me grow or develop, I think more latterly I've started in the last couple of years, started to question where I was getting some of my thought leadership from. Developing your understanding professionally, et cetera, is, once you've finished education, formal education, it's very dependent upon either your work environment or what you are doing outside of work or what you are reading or what you are learning. And I've consciously, over the last couple of years, really started to curate who I am connected to on forums like LinkedIn, so that I'm actually diversifying the perspectives that I am hearing. I realized that if I only kept my connections to people I'd worked with, it was very dependent upon whether those environments were actually diverse, whether that be from a ethnicity perspective, LGBT perspective, industry perspective or cognitive diversity.

And so I deliberately started to actively curate who I was accessing for thought leadership. And so I've built out a number of people who I'm connected to on LinkedIn because I value the challenge and disruption of their thoughts and approaches and their philosophies that they share, which might be diametrically different to mine or the construct or the situation that I find myself in my industry.

But I find that helps me understand the world in a more holistic way; helps me think outside the box; helps me see other people's lived experience and reflect on how I show up in that kind of environment.  So I've tried quite consciously to build out thought leaders on race, on leadership, on the world of work, on disability, neuro divergence, trying to ensure that there's disruptive voices in there that challenge me and make me think 'yeah, my view on that needs to expand' or 'I need to go off and learn something else about that'. I think that's how we keep ourselves fresh and keep ourselves open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.

To be honest, the older I get, the more I completely understand that I know very little. It is one of those advantages I will say to getting older is understanding my fallibility; is understanding in a very humble way that I only know a very small percentage about the world, about industry, even about HR. And I hold myself accountable to always trying to learn more and more and more, and to be really aware that I will only, when I'm making decisions, I have to reach out and ensure that I am bringing in diverse mindsets and that I am not accountable for knowing everything.

 I think that's another thing too, that I would think that it's only more latterly that I've really started to be very deliberate and mindful about that, about being cautious about where I'm hearing information from, and where I'm challenging myself so that I'm not insular and that I think more liberally, more broadly. And I think that is probably quite an important thing for us, particularly in HR, given that we have a huge influence on organization, culture, people, et cetera.

Helen: Thank you. What a rich answer and such helpful career advice for others. And wonderful to hear how your own thinking and mindset has evolved as we tick off the years of our career and, and get all different experiences under our belts. Thank you.

And for people that have enjoyed listening to you talk about the work you do, how can they connect with you after the podcast?

Victoria: It will definitely be through LinkedIn. So just look me up on LinkedIn and obviously if you mention this podcast, et cetera, then much more likely to connect!

Helen: Yes, I'm sure you get lots of invitations, so if you're listening and you want to connect, mention the podcast and Victoria will know where your name has popped up from. Wonderful.

Victoria, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's been such a pleasure to talk about your career and about the work that you do and the way you help organizations to evolve successfully. And I'm just feeling totally enthused by your love of learning and new experiences and openness to learning new stuff that we don't know. So thank you for sharing that with us all today. You've been a brilliant guest.

Victoria: Oh, you're welcome, Helen. Thanks for inviting me.