What is the best thing about your job?
The greatest satisfaction I get from work is seeing the people we hire grow as they shape the culture of the company.
Our people help to drive the business forward. No matter who you are, where you’ve come from or what your experience is, everyone has a say and every idea is valid.
We don’t have a rigid hierarchy, and everyone chips in to get stuff done. Culture is so important to us that we believe in evaluating it. We’ve gone as far as embedding cultural KPIs into our appraisal process.
What is your biggest source of frustration at work?
My biggest frustration comes from people approaching problems with a closed mindset – but it also provides the biggest opportunity in a competitive context.
When I started up the consultancy, the founding principles were set around being agile and cost effective. I remember seeing a post on social media about how a company offers three services - good, cheap and fast - but that you could only choose two of them.
Thousands of people ‘liked’ the post… but if you have a challenging mindset, you’d ask straight away: why can’t I have all three? So as a business we solved that problem (I’m not going to tell you how!) - it gave us a point of difference, and our clients appreciate it.
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Outside of work, what are you really good at?
Crossfit is a key passion of mine. I’d love to say I was good at it, but in all honesty I’m pretty average.
You hear stories about CEOs getting up at 5am, doing one hour of meditation, followed by two hours of exercise, all before a full jet-set day of high-pressure meetings. I tried doing the 6am Crossfit class and only lasted a few weeks!
I’ve learnt to fit it into my schedule at a more convenient time, and to try and fuel my body a bit better than I used to (but again healthy eating doesn’t come all that easy!). I find that exercise helps to relieve the stresses of daily life, it puts me in a positive frame of mind, and my best business ideas often come after working out.
What is the best advice you’ve been given during your career?
When you work in research you gain a privileged view into other people’s lives.
The headline on our website reads: “Human truths, powerfully told”, and I think the most fascinating insights are the ones you can relate to as a human being.
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I’m the father to two amazing boys, and a work life balance is massively important to me. Bedtimes stories are my chance to switch off and connect with my kids.
We did some in-home ethnography work around the time the Amazon Echo was released. One of the guys we spoke to had an Echo in his child’s bedroom, and she (the voice of Alexa) read the boy his bedtime story. I found the idea of ‘nanny Alexa’ both scary and fascinating.
I think some of the things you find out at work help to shape your personal life, and vice versa, much more than an off-the-cuff piece of career advice from a colleague.
What is your proudest achievement?
In 2019, Differentology won the MRS (our industry body’s) Breakthrough Business of the Year award, which was the culmination of a lot of hard work.
Winning the award on the night was amazing, and clearly there were some sore heads the next day… but we’ve celebrated it, and now it’s down to business. We’ve got some big ambitions, and we’re really just getting started on the journey to where we want to go.