For most companies today, competitive differentiation depends on enabling a culture of continuous modernization and digital transformation. The technology projects that support these crucial business initiatives require the cooperation of multiple, best-in-class technology partners to succeed. Listen in as experts from Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft and Kyndryl discuss the value of co-creation and best practices for turning competitors into exceptional collaborators. Featured experts: Sarah Lucas, Head of Architecture and Product, Lloyds Banking Group Rebecca Egerton, Azure Lead – Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft
For most companies today, competitive differentiation depends on enabling a culture of continuous modernization and digital transformation. The technology projects that support these crucial business initiatives require the cooperation of multiple, best-in-class technology partners to succeed.
But often, the key technology players are also market competitors. How do you foster deep collaboration between partners and your internal IT teams while minimizing the inclination for individuals to hold back the best ideas to ”safeguard” IP? And how can you encourage a true collegial spirit of co-creation among blended teams to optimize business outcomes – especially in highly regulated industries?
Listen in as experts from Lloyds Banking Group, Microsoft and Kyndryl discuss the value of co-creation and best practices for turning competitors into exceptional collaborators.
Sarah B. Nelson 00:03
Welcome back to another episode of The Progress Report. I'm Sarah B. Nelson, Chief Design Officer for Kyndryl Vital. So today we're gonna talk about really one of my favorite topics, which is collaboration. Great collaboration, it can be really elusive. And it's one of those things that when it's working, all kinds of things become possible. And when it's not, yikes. So, we're going to do a deep dive into collaboration. Today we're going to talk about team collaboration. We're going to talk about culture and we're really going to focus on company partnerships and how to turn competitors into exceptional collaborators. Joining me today are two awesome women in technology. We have Sarah Lucas, who is the Head of Architecture and Product at Lloyds Banking Group. She has focused on building and transforming the platforms of the future. She looks at ways technology change is introduced, new technology services, how to redesign for automation, data driven decision making, and really to make the route to live simpler and more resilient. She has been recognized as one of the UK's most dynamic and influential leaders, and has received both the 22 HPE Future CIO 100 award, and named 'Hero of the Year' at Computing's Women in Tech Excellence Awards 2020. Very exciting. And then we have Rebecca Egerton, who is the Azure lead for Lloyds Banking Group at Microsoft. Rebecca has expertise in assisting global and strategic customers enable change while focusing on innovation and driving positive business impact. Her work has spanned a lot of industries from media and telco, financial, legal, retail, and manufacturing. So welcome, Sarah and Rebecca.
Rebecca Egerton 01:51
Thank you. Good to be here.
Sarah Lucas 01:52
Thank you very much.
Sarah B. Nelson 01:54
So first off, I always love this African proverb, "If you want to go fast, go alone. And if you want to go far, go together." I think it's just such a really beautiful way to describe the power of working together, being side by side working towards something in common. So right now, I see this really interesting contradiction. There is the need for competitive differentiation, which really depends on enabling cultures of continuous modernization, digital transformation. And those projects require the cooperation of a lot of different best-in-class technology partners in order to be successful. And then while these partners need each other, they can also find themselves as market competitors, too, which can lead to all kinds of consequences, like people holding back to protect IP, just being cautious when they're having conversations. And that's right when you need the spirit of high functioning co-creation. Because innovation and creativity, they really require this safe environment and trusted relationships. But before we really get into it, let's just talk about collaboration. And this is a question for both of you. What does good collaboration between partners look like?
Sarah Lucas 03:07
So for me, I think it means that whole thing that you just outlined, you know, everybody's in the room together, the trust is there, we're not holding back. Whatever you need to say with everybody in the room as if you'd say if you're just in a room with with one of the vendor partners. It's really, you know, being that open and honest and saying, you know, "What's going really well? What's actually possible? What are we looking at?" But as well as being able to say, "You know what, guys, we've got a problem with this. This isn't working for us, we've had an issue." And really getting that out early and having everyone join in to help.
Sarah B. Nelson 03:40
How about you, Rebecca?
Rebecca Egerton 03:42
I'd say if we think about the journey that we've been on, trust is absolutely at the center of that. Making sure that, we at Microsoft as the provider of the technology, but also the bankers, the consumer and Kyndryl as the delivery execution arm. I'd also say a huge emphasis on empowerment. And what I mean by that is empowerment for each person to have an opinion. And for that opinion, to be listened to.
Sarah B. Nelson 04:12
Okay, so I'm curious in this area, where we're talking about collaboration and competition, Sarah, what kinds of projects are you seeing that bring competitors together as collaborators?
Sarah Lucas 04:23
I think it can apply to anything, everywhere. I think if you want, like you said, if you want to get something done, then let's just, you know, look across the market. Let's see who's offering services. And then let's get everybody together in the room to talk about what the art of the possible is. And I think certainly in the case of the things that we're doing right now, we've made a real effort to sort of build or foster that trust and have everybody together. We've made a point of having everybody in the same place at the same time. And I think that can apply to whatever you're doing wherever you're doing it.
Sarah B. Nelson 04:56
Yeah, I think like you were saying, getting getting people into the same place and building this trust over time and over actions is often how I see that. It's like there's a consistent actions over time that starts to build some of that trust.
Sarah Lucas 05:12
And then when we hit a problem, let's get around it as a team. We win or lose together, and then work out how we're going to fix that. And I think at the start, people were a little bit reserved, maybe not quite leaning in. And by, sort of three months in, everyone was like, "Oh, I've seen this happen before, you might want to look at this particular case, we had one of our customers that did this, we had one of this other person that did this." If you came into one of our project meetings now, you wouldn't know from the conversation who worked for which vendor, and I think that's the real sign of being successful.
Sarah B. Nelson 05:51
Okay, so Rebecca, I think about the model of forming, storming, norming, and performing. And that sort of beginning part of the forming is really kind of important. So when you're starting out a large project, and you've got multiple technology providers and vendors, how are you setting the conditions for success and sort of building toward that kind of ideal that Sarah was mentioning?
Rebecca Egerton 06:18
Yeah so if I sort of reflect back, I think one of the things that we did is we met frequently. And that was a cadence that, you know, both Microsoft, the customer and the partner all adhered to, you know, that was conditional. We have to meet three times a week, and we have to be open and honest about the direction that we're going. And I think it's quite interesting with obviously COVID, and people not necessarily wanting to meet face-to-face, we actually encouraged that monthly cadence in a face-to-face format. And actually, we saw a lot more individuals open up, be more honest, be more opinionated. And that rhythm is something that we have continued and executed on a regular cadence. We would meet at least monthly. When I think about performing, and what that means in its entirety, but as a team, that whole brainstorming mechanism, was really about bringing everybody in the room to think about the possibilities of what could go wrong, rather than actually what has gone wrong, and how do we fix it. So we've continued with that regular rhythm, with that regular structure. And I think that's really important, when you are driving collaboration, that you have those regular touch points. But also you have that opportunity to meet fac-to-face and actually see each other and look at each other's whites in the eyes and say, to Sarah's point, "Is this really working? And actually, what could we do differently? But what do we think could happen that may not necessarily has happened previously?" So, yeah.
Sarah Lucas 08:07
Yeah, I think one thing that we've really found that sort of bound the teams together is having a little bit of fun with it as well. A little bit of fun to get people thinking, you know, will a meteor land on the data center, that type of thing. And then we actually get into the sort of sensibilities of what really will go wrong, but just sort of being able to play around with things like that with each other. When you're sort of laughing and having a bit of a joke with people it does, it does build that sort of camaraderie quicker as well. And just being able to sort of enjoy the work that we're doing and not worry about too much of where's the company line on this.
Rebecca Egerton 08:41
We've definitely had fun. We've definitely had fun along the way. We've had bumps, we've had trials and tribulations, we've always shed tears together, but I'll tell you what, we've had a lot of fun along the way. And it's great to see the team strength filled.
Sarah B. Nelson 08:56
That sounds like a really great collaboration that you all had in this work. So I'm kind of envious, because those can be rare sometimes. So I'm thinking, Sarah, I'm thinking about Lloyds. And I'm thinking about specifically culture change. So a lot of times, getting into working in this way can be kind of a big shift, culturally. So I'm curious about how you went around working with some of the culture?
Sarah Lucas 09:25
I would say, and I'm relatively new to the bank, so it's been really great to experience the culture of where it is now and where it's going. And you know, we have got a big drive towards working together, bringing people of all backgrounds in to enable our journey towards helping Britain prosper. But that extends out to how we work with all of our vendor partners as well. So I think we've definitely seen a shift towards greater collaboration both internally between all our teams and externally with our vendor partners as well.
Sarah B. Nelson 10:00
Banking is highly regulated. Is that something that gets in the way of collaboration? Or even how does that function in terms of innovation and creativity?
Sarah Lucas 10:10
It's obviously something that plays into everything that we do. One of our key objectives is to make sure everything we do meets the regulatory rules, keeps our customers safe, keep the data safe. But all of our partners understand that, you know, they used to work across this whole industry. It's something that we all acknowledge, but it's a bit like the rules of any game, you know, what they are, what will happen if you break them. So we just define the space that we can operate in, and then we operate in that space together.
Sarah B. Nelson 10:39
Rebecca, you've worked across many sectors, and you've you've been working with Lloyds, but I'm also curious what you see in other regulated environments. I'm just curious how maybe working with banking is similar or different than working with some of the other industries.
Rebecca Egerton 10:55
I'd say, you know, since I've been working with Lloyds and being part of the FSI team at Microsoft, obviously, there is a huge amount of emphasis and focus on the regulations and ensuring that we follow best standards, best practice, when we're sort of engaging with our customers. But each industry has their own set of guardrails that they have to operate by. Obviously, being a bank, it's slightly different. Because obviously there's a lot more emphasis and focus on that, because of the penalties and the fines, but also keeping customers safe is is top priority. When we thought about things that could go wrong, would go wrong, may go wrong, actually being privy to the process that the bank needs to follow, and being mindful and respectful of that, but also building that into, well, what does that look like? And essentially, what do we need to prepare for to make sure that when we come to the review of whether it be architecture, or even the patents that we've put forward and making sure that they meet the relevant standards, etc, that we are addressing that absolutely. Front and center. But thinking ahead of ahead of that journey. You know, if I think about how different it is, it absolutely is. But then it is kind of no different from the type of challenges that you see across any other customer. How you approach it, how you deal with it, is fundamentally the difference.
Sarah B. Nelson 12:41
So I wanted to ground this a little bit in technology. Here's what I'm curious about. So you're working on maybe digital transformation problems, migration problems, or combinations of security. There's all of the technical infrastructure. When you're putting these teams together, how are you approaching assembling those teams?
Sarah Lucas 13:03
So I think when we get in the team together, we're looking for people, obviously with the skill to do the job, but also with the aptitude to learn and take on new things. Because it's not always the cleverest person in the room to bring the better solutions. It's having that mindset to say, "What do we need to change? How are we going to change it? And let's look at all of the different avenues that are available to us to make that change." And I think it's that it's always mindset and approach over the technologies that we're choosing that make these things successful.
Rebecca Egerton 13:38
You know, coming from a Microsoft angle, it's also really important that we respect the journey that the banks are on. Whether that be multi-cloud, whether that be private cloud, we absolutely have to respect the journey that they're on and almost lean into that. So you know, when we started this project together, you know, this wasn't Microsoft is the full end-to-end answer. This was about how do we change the narrative in the bank? And how do we do something different? And that comes from really listening to the banks problems, to the where the bank wanted to go, what they needed to do. And it takes an army, but making sure that we set the bank up for success, I think is the ultimate key to this. So really listening to the customer, but also listening to the partner as well, because they're the ones that, you know, hold the keys to the kingdom.
Sarah Lucas 14:40
From a team perspective, it's been really great that everybody's been really invested in making their component of the overall solution as successful as possible so that in the round, we get a really successful overall solution. It didn't land like that on day one, but I think all the things that we've done that we've talked about meant that, you know, very quickly we were all engaged in just trying to get to the best outcome.
Sarah B. Nelson 15:07
I'm having this sense there's something that I think you're both pointing to, which just suddenly caught my imagination, is that you really have two different cultures coming together too. So we talk about the culture of Lloyds and then the culture of Microsoft, and anytime that you have two partnerships coming together, you can have sometimes wildly different views. One could be more hierarchical, and one could be more kind of collective, and one could be very risk averse, and the other one loves to challenge ideas and push the envelope more. So I'm curious how you also negotiated any sort of differences that arose from some of these sort of fundamental ways of working.
Rebecca Egerton 15:49
I think, if I take some sort of Microsoft point of view, when we first started engaging on this particular project, awareness across my organization was fundamentally key. I needed to make sure that I had the support, and I absolutely had the support of all my senior stakeholders within Microsoft, and I'm sure Sarah will echo the same sentiment within the bank. But all that aside, we were focused on an end result and that was all that mattered, embracing people's opinion. And we really did welcome that and I think a lot of the exercises that we've done, particularly face-to-face, have really have enabled people to have more of a voice when it comes to their input into this project. But ultimately, all that mattered to us, to Kyndryl, to the bank, was focusing on what is the end result we're looking to achieve.
Sarah Lucas 16:52
Yeah, I think when you come into these things, whilst you bring that sort of element of a reflection of the culture from which you operate on a day-to-day basis, you also build your own team culture. And I think it was the culture of the team in that openness, willing to challenge, and ability to speak your mind on whatever is top of mind at the time, really started to play into effect. So we had as well as backing off to our own individual business cultures, we also brought a team culture. And people who have joined the team really sort of seemed to embrace the culture and move to our ways of working really quickly.
Rebecca Egerton 17:34
Actually, what we've seen work really well, is bringing senior leadership from all three organizations into our forum where they've actually got to see for themselves the team spirit and culture that we have built. And the fact that we are, when we show up, we're all united, and we're all singing from the same hymn sheet. You know, I've had commentary from my execs that said, "You're a very tight team." And we have been. And it's been really positive to sort of broaden that out and to let others across all three organizations see the hard work and the collaboration and the spirit that we've built over time.
Sarah B. Nelson 18:21
I think everybody wants collaboration, and everybody wants to be part of a team like you're describing. I mean, I know that I do, like when you have those moments, it's like they're magical, you remember them throughout your whole career. Because you get to those outcomes, and you do it in ways you weren't imagining. It can be hard to imagine what good collaboration looks like from the outside if you haven't experienced it. And a lot of people have really negative experiences. I mean, I always think about school, growing up in school, and it's like, "Oh, no group projects. It's the worst." So there's something about giving people the direct experience of it, that becomes almost like a virus out of the organization and a good positive virus that just starts to have an impact that more people want that. "How do I get that? How do I do that with my team?" I think there's just a big appetite. So you guys are doing something that has these ripple effects all over the place that is beyond the walls of the project. I love it. I love it because it's so positive. I want to pivot just a little bit thinking about partnerships. What are the considerations you make in determining who are the right partners to power your innovation?
Sarah Lucas 19:32
Well, I guess it all comes down to sort of our overarching strategy. Which direction do we go in? Who do we see and have the experience of working in that? And who has really partnered with us and been successful in the past? Initially, it's driven by the technology. Where we go and what solutions do we need? I guess the success then comes back to all the things that we've talked about in bringing those to wherever we choose or whoever we work with into that way of working to get the best outcome.
Sarah B. Nelson 20:02
I've been thinking about end users. So obviously, as a designer, I care a lot about what the human experience is. I'm curious how you actually develop experiences that are seamless for the user.
Sarah Lucas 20:16
This is a really interesting one. Because in this particular piece of work, one of our sort of success criteria was nobody noticed that we've done anything.
Sarah B. Nelson 20:26
I love that one. In design, we always say we're successful if no one notices. Which is why everyone's like, "What do you do?" We make it so you don't notice.
Rebecca Egerton 20:37
Yeah, no noise is good news for us. That's the way we like to see it. Yeah.
Sarah Lucas 20:40
You know, when we're doing upgrades, when anybody is doing upgrades to any other system, and you're the end customer, you wake up and use the service as it was before and you sort of think, "That's working a little bit better today." But what you don't appreciate is that people have been working on that "just a little bit better today" for, you know, months behind the scene.
Rebecca Egerton 20:59
Yeah, we might start a new term of "success by stealth".
Sarah B. Nelson 21:03
I like it. "Success by stealth". So as we're kind of moving towards the end of our conversation, I'm wondering what advice would you offer our listeners as they're thinking about setting up these kinds of initiatives in their own places.
Sarah Lucas 21:21
I'd say just go in with an open mind, be yourself, don't hold back, and welcome everybody.
Rebecca Egerton 21:30
100%. Having that regular structure, as well, and making sure that we do have a forum where everybody can come be their selves. Whether that be three times a week, over a call, but monthly face-to-face. Because the difference we've seen in just having that structure, working towards that, and making sure that we replicate that, as we enter more projects and phases, that is something that has worked extremely well. And we want to take into our lessons learned. That is definitely something that we'll continue to promote.
Sarah Lucas 22:14
Just a for little bit of fun at the end, whenever you're having any meeting, the magic words at the end of the meeting to get to really what you want to know is, "Anymore for anymore".
Rebecca Egerton 22:28
We always close the meeting with, "anymore for anymore." Yeah.
Sarah Lucas 22:32
Yeah. And that's when we really find out what people are holding and want to talk about.
Sarah B. Nelson 22:37
I love it. Well, this has been a really wonderful conversation. I've thoroughly enjoyed spending this time with you, Rebecca and Sarah. So again, thank you so much for joining us. And the folks that are listening, I think collaboration, as you can hear from what they're saying, collaboration can be just a wonderful experience and do so much for your business. So I really encourage you to look at how you can create and get inspiration from what the two of these folks have done.
Rebecca Egerton 23:04
Thank you to my co-pilot Sarah, a partner in crime.
Sarah Lucas 23:08
I was going to say partner in crime.
Sarah B. Nelson 23:09
Thank you for joining us again on The Progress Report. We'll be back in two weeks with more in-depth conversations. Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and if you really liked this podcast, be sure to tell your friends.