Teaching Is The Key To Success: Talent Talks with Kolja Heskamp

Julian Buschmaas: You told me that when you used to run a character assessment, if learning showed up in someone's top five traits, they almost did well at Falkland partners. If you can't get a thrill out of learning something new every third day, and it is more like, ⁓ I wish I would have done this to perfection, you're gonna be very unhappy changing clients a lot of times. Well it was quite a strong opinion, but it is you said you would not wanna join the workforce right now. Why I said I wouldn't want to join the workforce right now is because Welcome to Talent Talks by The Impact, the podcast where we speak with leaders across professional services, technology and consulting about what it really takes to attract, grow and retain top talent. I'm your host, Julian Bushmas, CEO and co founder at The Impact, where we believe that teaching others is not only the best way to learn, but also the best way to stay or to be Impact. And in each episode, we explore how firms are rethinking development, leadership and culture. And what it takes to build teams that stay and thrive. And today I'm very delighted to welcome Kolya Heskamp. And Kolya is a founding and managing partner of Talk Partners, the firm where fast growing European companies turn to when their finance, people, and operations need to catch up with their ambition. And since two thousand twenty, they have worked with more than six hundred and fifty companies, helped to raise over seven hundred and fifty million euros and supported to IPOs. The line that stayed with me from our first conversation was not about any of that. You told me that one of the founding credos of talk was that you wanted to build the company of the overlooked. The people who, for some reason, a flaw, a name, an unconventional CV, a child that came too early, had been written off by everyone else. And you said the thing you are most interested is not the position on someone's CV, but the gap in between the lines. And Why they made each move and what the transition says about them. And I think that is a a very particular way to see talent and it comes from a particular place. ⁓ you started close to finance private equity and investment banking. ⁓ and you have been open about how much you came to dislike what those cultures did to people, ⁓ even as you respected the pressure and the accountability. And you then helped to scale a clean tech business, ⁓ Termondo, ⁓ from around twenty-five people to over three hundred. You raised serious money. You burned out twice along the way doing it. And out of all of that, ⁓ you build torque partners, ⁓ where you now own the people and culture side as well, and cheerfully call yourself the wildcard. And your film even says it's ambition to be the best company for the world, not just in it. And here's what I find interesting, though. Publicly, so you are the finest person, fractional CFO, fundraising, due diligence. the one founder's call when the numbers have to hold up, I guess. And But the thing you got most animated about when we first spoke was none of that. It was the people's side of things and how you find them and how you ⁓ back them, ⁓ the overlooked. So and how you then grow them. And I think that's the side today that I want to spend more time on. ⁓ and so ⁓ I guess we get it into how that world view actually runs, a hundred and twenty person firm, how you hire for the gaps, how you build a learning culture that survives ⁓ utilization pressure. And ⁓ what you're doing about the problem I think is keeping a lot of leaders up at night right now, which is what artificial ⁓ what AI is doing to the bottom ⁓ of the pyramid. And yeah, we will finish at the end, as always, in our episodes with a quick ⁓ quick fire. So yeah, let's go. Kolya, in your own words, who are you and how did you get to where we are right now? Who am I? Well, I am Colya. ⁓ as you mentioned before, I'm a founder. I I would say myself I identify also as a father, as a family man, as as a little bit more than just sort of the commercial work side of things. But other than that, how I came to be, I think, is the is the more interesting thing. And I'm a child that has been moved around ⁓ quite a lot in my life, ⁓ through the career of my of my parents and ⁓ I experienced since you mentioned the idea of being overlooked, I experienced being overlooked quite a lot because I was the new guy. People didn't know what to do with me and he'd come into new environments and you know, just my accent wouldn't fit. ⁓ when I moved to Bavaria as a little kid, ⁓ I was the outcast to a degree because I spoke sort of I would say proper German. The Bavarian's gonna be insulted now, but either way. It is part of that identity having to move through phases, having to continually arrive again and sort of prove yourself that I think has very much ingrained in me that I try not to put labels on people too much. I think we all do to a degree, ⁓ whether it's fair or not. But I try to look why things have changed, what the motivations were, and that is, I think, something that has fascinated me ⁓ throughout. And that has to be fair, fascinated me a lot more than high polished. CVs along the way. And anything, any habits that you try to create or have, I mean, falls with the people that you meet along the way. And I'm very fortunate that I have met a lot of people that have proven me correct in my assumptions. Fantastic. Well, I want to start this conversation looking a little bit in in the inside of the business and your in your journey to that. So your firm's whole metaphor is like a gyroscope. The faster it spins, the more stable it gets and stability in in motion. And Yet you call yourself the wildcard, the one who breaks the old rhythms. ⁓ how do you personally hold those two things together? Being the source of stability for six hundred clients and the source of disruption inside your own house? Well, I think first of all, it's it's good to have people around you that are maybe a little bit better at the stability end than you are. ⁓ I think ⁓ founding as a team and we are a team and we were a team ⁓ when we started, sort of allowed us to to spread that to a degree, but ⁓ a lot of the entrepreneurs that I think are inspirational and ⁓ they have something in common which I feel is that they consistently step into a zone where they don't necessarily feel comfortable anymore. And that is something that I've been thrown in since I was a kid. And I love environments in in which I have to well figure things out to learn, essentially. And I do believe and I think that's why we vibed in our first call as well, is that Teaching others, teaching yourself, teaching others is is an incredible way of learning. And I think that would be my strongest skill in the end is coming into environments when people don't know what to do anymore. And that does open doors if you are teaching people in the background and taking them along. And I think specifically for a consultancy, for an interromistic business, ⁓ dragging people along with you sort of in your slipstream really, really helps to go a long way and establish a business. So Yeah, it's not the most stabilizing thing and and my co-managing partners have to ⁓ make sure that things are operationalized. But hey, someone needs to make the first step. You also ⁓ as a business talk publicly about working with clients at eye level and your people ⁓ site is built around the idea of of the stability fruit through culture. So when somebody walks in your offices on a normal Tuesday, what does that culture actually feel like and what is the energy like? What are people doing? And How much of that is shaped by you and the and the founding team? ⁓ I'd love to say that the office is full, but it really isn't since we are remote first. But I think that goes to answer the question. We typically interact with our people where they are at. We don't force them to come to a special environment. We don't force them to be someone that they aren't. And maybe it's just some anecdotes. I mean, I don't really care whether you have a rat sitting on your shoulder during an interview, something that has happened, and a very dear colleague, I have to admit, absolute superstar of that one. But Either way, we pick up where people are and we work with them because that's also part of our strength is taking the puzzle pieces and and making a beautiful picture out of it. Sometimes with force, ⁓ mostly by just being smart about putting the pieces together. But either way, so walking into a typical office ⁓ on a Tuesday, well, would be fairly empty, we need to be honest. But if you were, you would immediately have a more A culture that tries to engage with you, a culture that tries to well greet you, offer you a drink, offer you a coffee, and not in a sterile way, but you step in and you're right where it happens. And having that sort of even open plan, we don't have single offices. Yes, we have our phone booths and so on, but it is about, you know, taking in what's happening, having that sort of openness, transparency, people approaching you. And I do think that that comes down to how we as founders started shaping the business from the start, which is An extreme high level of transparency to begin with. Whether it's good or bad, whether we are doing good or bad, people will know and if they want to or not to a degree. Let's go back to some of the examples you already just made, which is the company of the overlooked. You just said you had somebody interviewing with a red on their shoulder, but also ⁓ that you're drawn to people that others have written off, right? And and that you read the gaps in a CD more ⁓ than the roles. Tell me about one person. You backed that maybe almost nobody else would have, and what have you become? ⁓ I'm gonna take one of the big losses of my life, which is ⁓ my co-founder ⁓ Roman. ⁓ I think he has one of the most unusual CDs that I have seen. He has been a trained car mechanic, he has worked himself through opening ⁓ sort of a Toys or Us equivalent, a little bit smaller sort of. he has been through different studies, he has been always moving up. In the world. And if you would look at him and he would look at his CD, you wouldn't think that he is within sort of startup Berlin an extremely accomplished CFO on the infrastructure side and so on. You would never think that from looking at his CD, but he's an absolute machine and what he is doing and and so kind-hearted at it. And so from that point of view, I think backing these people, I met him when he was my employee in my in my first company. And I decided and I loved his spirit and I loved his engagement and everything. And yeah, there were people with better CDs or more track record or that were younger, or you know, that didn't really make a difference because it was someone with so much integrity and so much passion and so much drive that that is someone that I really wanted to found a company with. And for me, that's always the the epitome because I I would argue my CD is pretty straightforward in comparison. ⁓ but I found that fascinating, someone that really had to go through adversity in many ways, but fought through it. So that is an example, another example, very dear colleague, ⁓ Christoph on our principal level, who studied Koreanistic. And that is not something where it's Korean studies, apologies, that way they were German came through there for a second. But ⁓ he's self-taught, he's out to deduct in a way, and and he's nowadays filling interim roles for for stock traded companies as well as VC funds. It's absolutely mind-boggling. I think if someone would have told him a long time ago, but It's these kind of people that have been overlooked in a way because they have a flaw in their C V a bit of a German perspective on on that because if you if you look here in in England, at at some of the C Vs, it's fairly normal that people study languages or historic economy and and and then turn into finance and and topics. But I do feel it's especially in Germany or also I think more towards Eastern Europe, we have a bit more of a ⁓ yeah, you study finance, then you go into finance. You study law, you become a lawyer. the ⁓ approach to those things. So yeah, I love I love hearing those those stories. you described a kind of matrix to me as well to where you drive or willingness is on one axis and then where skill is on the other. And you said you will take the drive even when the formal skill is not there yet. And the badges of honor as you called them. And in a in a finance advisory business where clients are paying for the expertise, how do you make that bet pay off without It ever costing the client? Clients don't don't look a lot at the C Vs necessarily. A kind of there are clients that obviously do, but they are more driven by having the word of mouth. ⁓ they are having the references, they are having immediate results. And we are aware that we're not a consultancy that can demand people to lock in for a year or two or three. That's not what we are, but We very openly go in there and saying we're gonna deliver and we're gonna deliver extremely well because we have and we have the reference, we have the people. And if you don't like it, we're gone tomorrow again without tying you in. So we make the hurdle to work with us extremely low. And that does help to get along because I would not sacrifice looking at drive for the pure skill of it, because everything in our customer group is evolving so quickly. It's much more important for a person to sit down and try and figure it out. ⁓ however they do it, through conversation with other experts, through, you know, employing AI solutions, whatever it is, just gaining knowledge and putting the pieces together is so much more important than book knowledge. So if I'm equating skill with pure book knowledge, that's not fair and we know that's not, but drive has gotten people where they are. And it's I think is similar to startups where you look at the traction to sort of imply future traction. That is what I'm also looking at at people. And if you have maybe started not at the very top and then you need university and so on and you've proven great traction on the way, I think that's a that's a good indicator. You've been very honest about what banking and private equity did to you. ⁓ the ninety hour weeks, the moment ⁓ at two in the morning when somebody asked if you were doing anything other than wasting air. And ⁓ you did not mind the pressure or the accountability, right? You what you minded was the disregard for the person sitting on the opposite. And what's the one rule then you set for yourself at talk partners because of that? The thing that you will never let happen to your to your people? I would never let anyone degrade any of our employees. Whether that is I that doesn't mean you don't get criticism, that doesn't mean you don't get feedback, that doesn't mean you don't get direct feedback. And it's also okay if a customer isn't happy. I mean, that happens in a service business. I mean, you you mentioned it. Six hundred and fifty companies, I think it's more than that by now, actually. But either way, there's gonna be unhappy people, and as part of it's a numbers game after all, right? But you don't ever degrade anyone. And if you do, I don't care how big you are as a customer and so on, we will have at least a conversation. Again, I'm a realist. I'm not gonna sit there and say, ⁓ yeah, you make twenty five percent of our revenue. I will cut you from from one day to the other. But if I can afford it, I will. And I will restaff teams and I will protect the people because I think nobody deserves to be degraded. And that's a culture that I've run into. It's not fair to say that is everyone in that environment is like that, but I've had these run ins and it was something that was way more systemic. And I never wanted to have a business like that. I wanted to have a business where people could come to me when they're pregnant and tell me and I can congratulate them and be be happy for them. And then not being afraid of ⁓ my God, what is my boss gonna say? ⁓ or my career is over. Those are I think things I want to see people as the humans that they are, with all the great things that they have, but also with the flaws that they have. And I think that's a much more kinder and more interesting way of working. Maybe not always the most profitable, but ⁓ generally speaking, not abusing people feels incredibly right. Yeah. Do do you have a mentor? Do you have a do you have somebody that you've been looking up to for the career that shaped who you are that you still look up to or I mean it might be one, it might be several. It might be somebody it is I would say it's three people. ⁓ the first one and the most prominent one is my is my father. He was a CFO himself. He was he certainly came from a working family, had to work himself through the army to afford his studies and so on. So one would say a very alternative ⁓ C V again, but he he's managed to to rise quite high and ⁓ I always appreciated that and at some point where he could have certainly chose money, he chose adventure and being more into restructuring and being more entrepreneurial. And I absolutely adored that and it's and still do. I mean he's still alive, ⁓ which is a good thing. But ⁓ so no, that's certainly someone I I look look up to. And the other two is I was fortunate enough in in a certain stint in Singapore during my bachelor's studies that I matched ⁓ met a sort of hedge fund slash family office manager ⁓ or owner of a family office management company that I happened to live at. That is the honest story was before Airbnb. But ⁓ Peter, ⁓ who was just utterly amazing in his thought structures and he was very kind and care. He didn't have to care. He didn't have to be kind. He didn't have to teach me anything. But whenever I was there, ⁓ my internship cancelled on me and he was like, you know what, just come work at my place and I give you the rent for free. And I was sitting with him in the car in the morning and he would give me a piece of the newspaper. And I was sitting in his office and he would give me interesting things to do. And he would call his sort of hedge fund buddy friends to go lunch with me and just be like, Hey, this is a young dude, just tell him what your business is. I was absolutely outstanding. I think he just gave so much kindness, ⁓ and so much trust without game anything in return. I love that. And I was ⁓ supposed to do an internship there for for three months and I was living at his place and he just took me randomly in on on day one when my ⁓ internship cancelled on me and it was a bit of a catastrophe. Well he was like, you know what, just just come along. That was great. And even helped me secure another internship in that time said, amazing dude. He's now running ⁓ a a couple of hotels in ⁓ in a Japanese town ⁓ in the middle of the Alps, ⁓ the Japanese Alps is ⁓ kind of awesome. Pretty cool dude. And the third is the CEO of ⁓ of Termondo, ⁓ Philip Paulster, ⁓ who is I mean, just in terms of charismatic, ⁓ yet tactical, strategical. ⁓ he is extremely good at ⁓ delivering a message. And I was his right I would assume that I was his right side man when it came to fundraising throughout Tem Mondo times, and and part of the reason why I could raise that money is because he was there with me and and alongside and he was that visionary. ⁓ took a lot away from that relationship. I have to say it was two years absolute absolute escalator in in terms of what it did for my career and also within Startup Berlin for me. These were your mentors and you learned from them. And and obviously today we also want to talk about learning at work in this. And ⁓ you told me that when you used to run a character assessment, ⁓ if learning showed up in someone's top five traits, ⁓ they almost always did well at talking partners. ⁓ Yes. Why is it the appetite to learn such a strong predictor in your world more than the knowledge someone already walks in with? A lot of our costs and it has it, I mean our our ICP has changed to an agre to a degree. And I mean a private equity run business is is different than a startup with twenty people. however, why it was so important to have that skill is you are going to be presented with a lot of challenges that are just unusual to a degree. I mean, I I can go down the the route of the ridiculous, like, okay, in a mobile game, how long or how many months do you have to defer a digital palm tree that you're putting on your digital farm next to your digital pig? And it's these sort of little humorous sort of ideas and questions and trying to figure out how legacy has changed certain decisions and being stepped for cash has led to certain decisions. And legacy And how does that write itself forward? How can we fix things? How can we move things from one path and sort of edge it towards the, let's say, more desirable or at least more scalable path? And you're never gonna be cr confronted with a situation that looks the same twice. I mean, yeah, obviously if receipts are missing, receipts are missing. I guess the most basic thing ⁓ there to be finance, but you always are presented with a with a unique With unique item, unique culture, a unique idea. It's typically from a business model point of view, it's just novel. Like, okay, hey, we have a four sided platform which works on NFTs and our own token. And ⁓ we're trying to sell fashion for the metaverse. And by the way, we're trying to raise money from Snoop Dogg. So yeah, that ⁓ is exactly the kind of skill set that you're gonna learn. And ⁓ that's why learning is or the ability to learn is a great indicator. for performance and for retention, because you have a lot of, you know, run through insurance and consultancies because you're being on the one side you have a very steep learning curve and the offers that you're getting from the outside are getting bigger. So there's an external attraction. But also in terms of of internal motivation, if you can't get a thrill out of learning something new every third day and it is more like, ⁓ I wish I would have done this to perfection or I wish I would have done this to a hundred percent. You're gonna be very unhappy changing clients a lot of times. And that is again one of the bigger churn reasons for us, next to the external incentives, which is just someone pays you a lot of money. I mean, we talked already quite a bit about how you look at an unusual C V, but what's the tet what's the question you ask? What's the what's how how do I know this person likes that? ⁓ You have a favorite go to question for that or something? I really I really don't and I get criticized for that a lot by my HR department. I look at your C V that you're sending me and I usually look and I start next to hey, this is who I am and and this is what my intention is. And please be aware this might be a weird interview for you compared to what you used to, because other people have assessed your skill, other people have assessed your hard skill and and you know decided which level they think you are and so on. I'm gonna make up my mind on that too, but I'm gonna focus on whether you would find joy in this job or not. And this is what I'm gonna ask. And I'm also gonna focus on things that might seem ridiculous to you. And I say that internally, it's like if you write bakery as a hobby on your CV, I am gonna ask you about it. Because you need to be really good at baking to put baker on our or baking on there. ⁓ I'm gonna ask you and I'm gonna ask you why you like it, and I'm gonna ask you why it brings you joy and why you are you know brave enough to put it on your C. And how does that compare? And I'm gonna ask about different stations and what the issues were. When felt did you feel stressed the last time? When did you feel what gets you up in the morning? Those are not I mean, I have repetitive questions, that'd be fine, but that's what interests me, motivation. I had another partner here on on the podcast and we talked about, he always starts with, What did you do last weekend? ⁓ that's good, I like that. You know, just like for following that. But for your baking comment, I think we should normalize people being bad in their hobbies. And being okay with that. So make maybe their baking is really bad, but they have fun doing it. And then it's Okay with it. And that's good. And if someone would ask me sort of ⁓ what's part of your hobby, I said, ⁓ I'm I'm golfing and they asked what's your handicap and I'm saying, I don't know. I'm got awful at it, but what I love about it is I'm standing there and it's the only thing I can focus ⁓ on in that moment and it's almost meditative to that effect. And I know I'm bad and no one needs to tell me that. I'm very aware. But again, if someone answers that way if for a baking question I'd be like, ⁓ that's great self awareness. Like, hey, when I do this, you know, my girlfriend is running away screaming because she can't see another macaron of mine, but I just love it. And I just try to fair enough. Like that's great, right? I see. Something I did a bit of research and something you seem to have said publicly. I don't know if that is still relevant, but you were talking about building a data culture and you said being data driven is not really about the tools. It's ultimately about mindset, ⁓ process and how you involve people. So and you also told me that you prefer to give people perspective rather than technique. does the same thing hold for how people learn at talk partners? And is the tooling actually the easy part and the mindset the hard part? And I guess Part of that so we we discussed because you're hiring for that initially. But yeah. Can you share a bit more about this? I I think I know which context I said that in, and and that is fair because it is about how does your culture need to need to evolve over time also throughout the different series and stages in a in the company. And first of all I think when it comes to it being data driven, ⁓ it is I do think it's it's very cultural. It's one thing of ⁓ yeah, there's data flying around but nobody's looking at it. But another part of the culture is to just constantly hold it and share it and hold it in the camera and discuss it and make it available and let people also discuss it independently of you being in the room. ⁓ whether that is our we have a daily dashboard where everything is in. Everyone knows how profitable we are that works at our company. Everyone knows how much revenue we're making ⁓ they know the big cost blocks. Yeah, they can't drill down into every single line. I mean we'd be fair, but Other than that, it's it's about that transparency because it invites to talk and to also address critical things. And I do think that that is again one thing is having a fancy, you know, power BI, this and that dashboard, but you know, three people in the company have it and not everyone. It's not just anywhere. And so for me, it is a cultural element to allowing criticism and someone to sit in an all hands and be like, you know, those numbers look shit. Like, what are we gonna do about it? And also as management to be capable of having to answer. To the people and being held accountable in a degree and and accountability above, ⁓ I'm this sort of king like figure because I have shares here. But to be challenge me, this is your future, this is your company, this is your salary. ⁓ we always assume factor three responsibility. So if I have a hundred twenty people, factor three means they have a partner, children, parents that they need to take care of. I mean, even if it's just a dog, I mean who am I to judge? ⁓ It is it is that responsibility and I want people to also assume that. So that is why I think data is so important is that continuity of yeah being able to challenge and be held accountable and so on. And you even need that when you're trying to be brave and you try to walk forward and you need to be able to say, like, okay, this just didn't work out. I mean, from a wildcard perspective. But if you are transparent and you have a data driven culture that that does that and looks at it, it also creates fair is always hard as a word, but it gives It gives you a certain sense of equity in what you're doing. ⁓ even though not everything is always fair. No, and I guess it it it can't, but I I really like this ⁓ aspect of bringing everyone in into that and not having the two specialists on ⁓ that know how to use the dashboard and and look at that. which brings us to the next thing, which was you you mentioned one of your criteria for moving up in your firm is whether you whether whether somebody actively shares the knowledge, right? Whether they make themselves available to help others grow. And you you clearly believe in this yourself. ⁓ y I I saw you also sometimes teach in front of MBA students and ⁓ and you're teaching startups, finance. ⁓ why did you decide to make teaching a condition of progression in your firm? And what changes in a person when they have to teach what they know rather than just to our on each hierarchy level, ⁓ with the exception for partner, we have three levels. So it's L1, L2, L3. And in our ⁓ competency matrix, they're actually called ⁓ learning, mastery and teaching. And teaching is the highest form that you can reach in a level. And even just by naming it, it's sort of clear for us you can move on up. And the idea is always in a consultancy obviously you have a win-win-win in a way of if someone moves up in a level, then the company as in we as a company can charge them for a higher fee. They can earn more and the customer gets better service. So that's what we try to create. What we're against is if we try to charge them at a higher rate, they can't fulfill the skill, then we need to give a discount. The customer is unhappy and you are so stressed as an individual that you stop learning. That's where the counterbalance is. So you always try to have them at the highest possible level. How do we try to teach our people? First of all, you can make it to the next level if you are showing hints of providing, of fulfilling that level. Sort of the level standard. You don't need to have it all, you don't need to have 100%, but you need to show us glimpses of it. We need to believe that you can do that through individual projects, through feedback that we're getting from our customers or your team. But you're not gonna move on up to the next level if you don't take an active approach of handing your knowledge over to the next generation. Because that is the price that you pay, that we trust you, that you have internalized it and they have reached mastery, is hey. On my project, I have taught these and these people, this and that. And the people that usually get promoted, the in the 360 degree ⁓ peer review that we do, it really says like, ⁓ they've really sat down with me and taught me how to do that or how to deal better with a client. They really helped me to understand it. And this is what we're looking for, and that is a requirement. And if you don't fulfill that, and we're sitting there thinking, yeah, you're making great money for us, and you certainly know your you know, you know your stuff, but what do you bring to the organization? Are you there culturally? Are you getting us forward? That will make the difference between you having a really fast paced career here or not. Teaching is part of it. We are human business and that needs to translate also from human to human and not just sort of I'm this single minded optimizer on my on my own sort of project and my own return. But you need to have a broader view. Here's the part that I I find brave. You said your people roughly double their market value within two years. And that somebody can join on, I don't know. forty five thousand and have ⁓ a hundred and ten thousand offer fairly quickly afterwards elsewhere. And you will not be able to match it, maybe, no? So you make people more valuable knowing some of them will walk. How do you make peace with that? And and what do you get back that makes it worth it? I am 100% sure that different people in my organization would w would answer that differently, but I'm gonna stick with my answer here. When I look at LinkedIn and I see what positions they have, And the kind of companies that they are driving forward and the kind of entrepreneurial ideas that they are pushing forward. And even if we have finance people, don't get me wrong, finance is not the most important thing in a company. And I'm very clear on that always. But to see what they support and what they do and in which environments they grow, that makes me incredibly happy. So that is very intrinsic motivation. I I love that idea of them having learned here. And I also really enjoy when they're touching back in and So something that has been a bit of a network effect for us is they do think of us. If they have an issue somewhere or they meet someone else, it's this email is this call off in like, hey, Colia, I have an issue here. I need your help. I need your people's help. I need Torque help. And that is how it pays back itself in a way as well. It's not just sort of the margin that we're losing and so on, because we don't really want to be like, ⁓ okay, you have a higher offer. We're just gonna, you push you up in the hierarchy. That's gonna upset people. That's gonna do way more damage than saying, Hey, there was Amazing that you were here and I'm really happy for the offer. And if you want to take it, then take it. But we're not gonna accelerate you unless you sort of fit the program, however that ⁓ the programmer's nice. But ⁓ either way, either way, it's I make peace with with seeing what they accomplish and it gives me personal pride. It's not my accomplishment, but I feel I think there's something cool about having a very strong alumni network, right? and and what what that maybe helps you with winning new clients in the future as well, wherever they go. No, absolutely. And that and that effect we see and ⁓ and I think keeping that relationship brings a lot of joy. So that is how it's compensated. How can I not be happy with you? You're coming into our company and you're in your twenties and you're hustling and you're doing it and you're doing an amazing job, and one of your customers just looks at and it's like, ⁓ my god, you're just really, really great. And I can't imagine working with anyone else. And here I'm gonna make an offer that is really gonna accelerate you in your career. How can I not be happy for you? I mean that's really that's really awesome. But I don't think everyone has it. So now we're coming to a topic where I guess most of people that I'm sitting with here haven't corrected yet. Most of people I'm speaking on a day to day haven't haven't found out the answer. But it I'm just curious to hear what you've tried and on what has failed and maybe what has worked. And but it's the real enemy of learning in in most professional services companies is is time. And especially project based work. And in in finance, I guess you have quarters and quarterly reviews and I guess annual reports. And then that's usually towards the beginning of the year. when the pressure is highest, learning is the first thing that that people s let slip, right? ⁓ even though the intent is high. You said yeah, even yourself what we just talked about there there's no easy answer to this, but is there anything you you guys have tried that didn't work? That seems to work a little bit. Anything you have seen somewhere? ⁓ is is it does hurt the company to a degree. So I think first of all, having having an establishing a margin structure that helps you also I mean in the end, it's first of all it's a question of How willing are you to pay for it? And understand that that paying for learning and paying in a in a case of a consultancy like ours is obviously allowing people to take hours away from a customer and being okay with that and not filling them to, you know, hundred plus X utilization ⁓ in certain phases, that does help. However, when the customer is calling, that is what pace all of our lives and and people understand that. So we are trying to reserve academy schedules. We are offering them frequently. We are not looking at their time spending, ⁓ my God, why did you go to an academy? But it's more like, hey, you should go to more academies. So we are trying always to encourage it and encourage it. But let's be fair, there is crunch time and in finance crunch time is specifically between November and sort of March when end reports are coming, when budgets are being being discussed. It does fall down to a degree. However, since it is learning and teaching is a very clear element and being promoted, people try to keep it up and people try to at least make sure that we see that they focused on it because they know that might tip it over the edge for them in a in a positive decision. It's like, hey, okay, the numbers weren't, you know, among the top ten percent here, but and again, we don't do percent based whatever, but the point being Hey, they really tried. They really did hard. And probably three of our senior associates are better because that person was here. And so we are gonna push them forward. And ⁓ so that's how you can make it happen. But let's be realistic. When it's crunch time, crunch time difficult. People will let it slide. But but I really like that idea. And I think this is some what some of the guests had shared is tying learning really to promotion. ⁓ and if it's not, then it's then it's even less happening, right? So that that was one thing. And I think a few other examples we we learned and one that we recently established in our own company is having one day a month where the whole company is ⁓ is blocked. And it's just like this is the and it's a Monday, it's not a Friday. It's it's a Monday, w which means we're fresh from the weekend and we set the target and ideally there's no internal meetings, no external meetings, and then let's go. But again, it there's different concepts to that to to to have ⁓ to have a think about this. But yeah. Tying it to compensations, I think, or promotion is already really good stuff. We we do those individual days with ⁓ hackathons, getting our people a little bit into vibe coding and and with our with our Automation task force. ⁓ I don't necessarily like the name, but I like what they do. ⁓ but we're trying to do these things as well for for learning culture. And we do have also external learning days where we go and really focus just today on let's let's look at how sales works from someone else's perspective, how project management works for our leadership. We have certain levels and we're now building again also on that. ⁓ I think you're right, that really helps have dedicated days of doing it, but it's this little interactions with a customer where you're like sitting down, it's like, hey, this is what they said, like explain that to me. How does that work? How does it go about? And it's these little little instances of learning which I think are gonna accelerate you quite a bit in your career is is really asking the next question and digging a little bit deeper. And that sadly I think is very individually driven. So I try or we try to reward that behavior as much as we can observe it obviously. Wanna talk a little bit about the big elephant in the room and currently all sources based businesses. and it's I guess it is AI. And you you you said something also again in on the our pre-conversation before this recording today. ⁓ that is quite well it was quite a strong opinion but it it is you said you would not want to join the workforce right now. And and that ⁓ the associate level is is quite a challenging time at the moment. And and you said your lowest level used to be your biggest the classic pyramid and now you're going belly heavy. and ⁓ we people start calling I guess this new shape a diamond shape. lay that a bit out for people that have not lifted. What what has actually changed at the bottom ⁓ right now and yeah and where is this going? Even we we might not have the answers, but you know we we can have we can have our theories. ⁓ that's always always a good start I find. But what why I said I wouldn't want to join the workforce right now is because I think that through studies and internships and so on you can you can gain the basic hard skills to perform your job and you can learn how to work and and how to hustle and so on. But a lot of these interactions that will help you later on in your career, which I feel are a lot more soft skill driven. How good am I at reading the room? How good am I at steering a conversation, you know, moving later on as a CFO, how am I in Shaping a board agenda while I'm sitting there live and you know, runway is running out. Those are things that you need to grow in. And you can't you can't simulate that. You can teach to a degree, but it's it's hard to really feel that pressure on your chest and be like, okay, if I mess this up and things don't go their way, I'm gonna have to fire 300 people like the week before Christmas. Like that ain't fun. And I don't want a junior to have that responsibility from the start. So what I find is that. A lot of these learning opportunities because a lot of the repetitive tasks that unit juniors used to do are replaceable by AI to a degree. It's a it ain't great, but not always great. ⁓ but a couple of things are just really, really good. ⁓ we have to say that. And how do you teach them? Is it just a pure expense that you're willing to take? Or are you trying to sort of and that's what we are trying maybe now is hire a little earlier, try to teach them better when the margin pressure is not that big, see it almost as as an apprenticeship program. I am not sure that the three people that are in there see it that way. So I'm a little bit careful. But we're trying to skip the level that we can't fulfill or that we can't sort of where there is no demand for anymore. Because there is no demand for. And in accounting, interestingly enough, specifically these like fuzzy tasks of, ⁓ I need to, you know, ga go after invoices and preparatory accounting, that still works to a degree because machines aren't incredibly good at just complete chaos and mess. but what we would call the more generalist task, so process management and so on, it it can be replaced. Tools have gotten better too. I mean that's part is not just AI, but just generally tools that have gotten better. And that is that is part of the challenge that I see. You don't have you didn't have the chance to acquire the soft skills which are gonna accelerate sort of your mid to to higher stage positions. ⁓ And and you couldn't prove yourself through the competitive sort of or the repetitive tasks at the beginning that you would have to show that you can be trusted with other things. And I think that's the conundrum. And if you're talking about a diamond shape, I mean fair enough. That's that's how we started to transition as well. We we do we do see that. And yeah. And if I may add a point to that, and because we have we started with the company of the overlooked, what I'm incredibly interested in is okay, so. If I'm looking more for the soft skills and I'm looking more for the things that, you know, good project management, can I teach someone finance in a mid-level to a degree that? And then I'm looking at it from an accounting point of view, more difficult. But from a generalist point of view, how do I negotiate? How do I, you know, deal with things? And in the end, it's it's a lot of puzzling and we do have the knowledge internal on how to do, you know, more sophisticated analysis. But then I think it's again an argument of what skills will really matter in the future. And I think the human skills are gonna matter a lot more than they used to in between. I think we're moving away more and more from the pure technical hard skills, more towards people, soft skills, deal design, understanding desires, understanding motivations, and not just, you know, solving math questions. I couldn't agree more, hence probably why I started building a business around digital. Fair enough. But ⁓ I think the the question arises there, right? Is it gonna be the responsibility of the businesses to to take up that and what you call apprenticeship level again and and and adding this extra education outside university to these first two years until they are billable properly? Is there a way to accelerate it so they they just jump those things? And and how would that look like? or I I like this point which I haven't thought about that much, is is can we Can we get are there other professions that maybe are even more under pressure and we re educate them to finance? ⁓ I I would almost imagine, but again, that is just me having this generalist point of view that probably people could learn the finance bits with with AI also. ⁓ in it it's in it it is will be more the mindset of creativity of maybe some other form of consulting that did in the past. that that could could help shaping them. But yeah. ⁓ We will see the answers in the in the coming months and and and and years ⁓ years to come. Zoom let's zoom out from this situation then. If if the bottom of the pyramid stays hollow and the top eventually retires and there is no one who came up the old way to replace them. You said it yourself that you're still living off people who already had the relevant experience, right? ⁓ and in that, this is an in between solution. So what does talk partners look like for you in five years or in ten years if this falls? Who are Who are the senior people of the future and where do they come from? What that company is gonna look like is gonna have less to do with what my personal vision is and more of the people that we allow to go through the system. Because what we've discussed obviously is that I am I am in a position where external incentive and external pay goes higher and higher and higher. And to be fair, our top two levels and that applies to us as partners as well. ⁓ we could probably earn more outside of torque than in torque at the top level. But then it's the question why do people stay in the first place? And I think that goes to the answer to to what we're gonna do in in five or ten years from now, how we're gonna look like. And I believe that we have incredibly capable people and it's it's my biggest wish to put them on a platform where we we always in our summer offside speeches describe it as a stage, but I think it's my biggest job to build a stage where other people can make their music and art on, whatever that might be. And it's odd to speak of music and art as a finance business, obviously. But either way, I I want people to decide where things are gonna go. And I believe that organic constructs and enabling incentives and and incentivizing them to Find their own niche, their own home. I mean, we have two businesses that were already founded out of us. ⁓ next to our, I mean, we have the the Dutch entity and we have the people business and we have the RevOps business and so on. But we also have two startups which have started out of us, which are still early stage, no questions about it. And one of them, the the the founders have returned back to us because it it worked okay, it wasn't great, it wasn't a unicorn, but you know, they're making a little bit of side money and we're invested, so it's okay. The other ones are currently starting out. And I think that's the biggest wish that I that I truly have is that people can use this and sort of the idea that we have built and what our idea of learning and mastery is and of hustle is, can take that to a certain level. I mean, yes, we have the ones that want to go a more straightforward way and and you know grow bigger and become more interested, but our mission is to support founders living their dream in the end. I mean, I'm working with people building spacecrafts and and fusion reactors. Why not do the same in your own company, not building fusion reactors and a shitty physicists, but other than that, ⁓ giving people, you know, something to to hustle for. I think that's what we're gonna look like in in five or ten years from now. At least that's what I'm trying to work towards. A quick word on why we run this podcast in the first place. ⁓ at the impact, we help companies to turn their own people into teachers. And the idea is very simple. People learn a skill far more deeply when they have to teach it to someone who genuinely needs it. So we pair employees with nonprofits and early stage teams who need that skill and we give them a structured way to teach it. And so for your people, that means reinforcing a hard skill, AI being the obvious one right now, but building the human skills that decide whether AI actually creates value, the way they frame a problem, communicate it, exercise judgment and lead, and experiencing real purpose at work at the same time is all in a safe what we call maybe sandbox with real stakes, but no commercial risk. For the firm, it means then a higher return on the training you already pay for because learning sticks and it's taught, more knowledge shared across teams, powerful impact stories for clients and stakeholders, and a stronger reason for good people to stay. And if that is interesting, ⁓ you can reach me directly at Julian at bimpact.co.uk or visit bimpact.co and on our website. ⁓ now back to Askel, yeah. I I'm going to shift gears now a bit. So we're gonna do short and sharp answers. ⁓ first thing that comes to mind, so to say, what is one leaderships lesson you wish you had learned early on your career? Don't apply your own ambitions to the people that you're leading. What is the most common mistake companies make when developing their people? I think it starts at hiring. ⁓ when senior leadership or founders stop being involved in the hiring process, I think that is already the biggest mistake that you can make. One thing professional services firms should stop doing when it comes to talent. And one thing they should double down on straight after I think they should stop hiring for C V mostly and for sort of virtue signaling companies and logos. ⁓ what they should double down on is trying to really sit in a boat with their people and try to make them as valuable as possible to the to the outside world. And ⁓ I think there's some hesitation there, but I think that is something that people should double down on. The rewards are outstripping the the negative sides. What's the single most valuable skill for employees in the professional services right now? Being human and being willing to listen to the teams and customers that you're working with. So let's bring it down to listening. Okay. And if you had a magic wand and could change one thing about how how organizations road at people, what would it be? If I had a magic wand and I could change one thing about what they're doing, is railroading too much. I think too many people are putting their people on a railway and just say this is it. And I think a lot more people need to learn how to sandbox and developing rather than railroading. ⁓ yeah. Thank you so much. ⁓ it's been a real pleasure ⁓ having you today as a guest on TalentBox. And what I will take from this is I guess the picture that you build a firm deliberately for the people everyone else overlooked, where learning is not a perk but a condition of getting on. And where you're willing to stay out the hard things as well, as long as it's based on yeah. human prospective trust and and transparency for everyone. ⁓ and I think that is rare and it matters and I'm very happy that we shared that today ⁓ for the audience. So for anyone that is listening and who wants to follow your work or reach you, ⁓ where's the best place to find you and get in touch? I mean obviously you can find us on LinkedIn. We have a website and everything, but I always invite people, call your dot hascome bettork partners, to drop me a message. I mean I'm gonna ignore a lot of sales requests ⁓ as everyone is but other than that ⁓ happy, happy to engage, happy to meet up and happy to see what we can also learn from each other. So from that point of view, anyone who is interested. We also have an Instagram page for people that are interested. My mark seems to be happy about that. But either way, no. ⁓ I think it's always easiest to to see what events we are on and not just me, but also my wonderful colleagues ⁓ and their specialities. ⁓ I ⁓ just one aspect of the company and not all of it. Fantastic. And then if you enjoyed this conversation. ⁓ as much as I did recording it, then ⁓ please do follow ⁓ talent talks by the impact. Important add to that. ⁓ wherever you get your podcast, ⁓ leave a rating if you can, and most importantly, share the episode with ⁓ a colleague that you think that could be useful for or another leader that you think that can ⁓ take something from this. And yeah, ⁓ that is how this show could help ⁓ us grow. ⁓ this is how we can reach more people and yeah. Thank you so much, ⁓ Claudia. yeah, I had a really good time. ⁓ and until next time at Teleton