Product Agility

Is Bureaucracy Killing Your Innovation? (With Rani Al Hajji, Ex Colgate)

• Ben Maynard & Rani Al Hajji • Season 2 • Episode 28

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When you get Rani Al Hajji, you gain insights from a global executive with a wealth of experience in fast-moving consumer goods, converted into practical, actionable strategies. His journey: from key roles at L’Oreal and Colgate to leading innovation and commercial strategies across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Drawing from over 25 years of experience with iconic brands and leading markets, Rani authored numerous successful business turnarounds and innovative product launches. In this episode, we dive DEEP into the interplay between agility and innovation, and how to leverage both for market success.

Introduction and Background:

  • Rani’s journey from a global executive in consumer goods to an advocate for agile and innovative practices.
  • The realisation of the challenges and opportunities in traditional product management.

The Concept of Innovation in Agile:

  • How agility can drive product innovation.
  • The importance of creating a belief system and movement around agile methodologies.

Challenges of Traditional Product Management:

  • The inefficiencies and costs associated with rigid management practices.
  • How traditional practices can stifle innovation and productivity.

The Role of Leaders in Modern Organizations:

  • Redefining leadership roles to support agile transformations.
  • The importance of developing and empowering teams rather than micromanaging.

Cultural Change and Organisational Dynamics:

  • Engaging leadership to support new agile and innovative philosophies.
  • Practical steps for leaders to initiate and sustain change within their organisations.

Practical Tools and Techniques:

  • Actionable advice from Rani’s extensive experience to help leaders and managers adopt agile principles.
  • The significance of aligning product vision with agile methodologies to achieve sustainable success.

Links and Resources:

Host Bio

Ben is a seasoned expert in product agility coaching, unleashing the potential of people and products. With over a decade of experience, his focus now is product-led growth & agility in organisations of all sizes.

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So one thing that I've learned in my 25 years of navigating, you know, big organizations, but trying to be as as nimble and as as quick as agile as possible, I think you need to play to your strengths. So if I think that the specific example of AUS multinational competing in China against locals, you need to play to your strengths. And in this particular case, your strengths are the the incredible amount of highly talented researchers in your R&D, amazing firepower that this can give you in terms of coming up with cutting edge technologies, best in class innovation and so on. Welcome to the product Agility podcast, the missing link between agile and product. The purpose of this podcast is to share practical tips, strategies and stories for world class thought leaders and practitioners. Why I hear you ask? Well, I want to increase your knowledge and your motivation to experiment so that together we can create ever more successful products. My name is Ben Maynard and I'm your host. What has driven me for the last decade to bridge the gap between agility and product is a deep rooted belief that people and products evolving together can achieve mutual excellence. Hello and welcome to the Product Agility podcast. Today I am super excited to welcome Rani Alhaji to the podcast. A gentleman who I met a few weeks ago. We were introduced and I thought that his perspectives and his experience was really actually quite unique to the podcast. So I've been really looking forward to this conversation before I hand over to Rani to give him the opportunity to speak to you all a little bit around our topic of the day, which is going to be focusing on agile and innovation. Let me tell you just a little bit about him. Bradley is a global executive with over 25 years of experience in fast moving consumer goods. Over the years, he's held key roles at L'Oreal and Colgate, where he's at innovation and commercial strategies across Europe, North America and Asia, including for recently three years in China. A key driver of his career has been to turn cutting edge R&D and tech innovations into consumer friendly, marketable solutions that most importantly, actually improve people's lives and drive some revenue out of it, which is no bad thing. Welcome to the Project Disney podcast. It is great to have you here. Thank you, Ben, I'm, I'm, I'm delighted to be to be with you. Thank you for having me. It's a it's a very exciting opportunity to talk about agility and innovation to topics that are very close to my heart. Fantastic. Well, let's see what avenues we end up going down. I mean, regular listeners of the podcast will know that this is a very much unscripted and who knows where we'll end up. There was a starting point though, for the conversation. And as I look down here at my notes and in the warm up first, yeah, we were running, you were sharing with me some great ideas and some thoughts and something that really hit me. And this may sound like an odd thing to say, but I think that there is a certain, in your words, sacrosanct dogmatism that's happened with agile and agility over the years. And they think that many organisations have kind of embraced it. It may have worked, may not have worked. But at the same time, I think innovation has always been a hot, hot topic. So what I'm wondering, right, is in your, in your opinion and your experience is agile particularly where agile ended up like today, like is it really compatible with innovation? Yeah, Well, I would say that there's no reason why why agile and innovation would be incompatible. But I think I think we have to keep in mind the fact that not all innovation has to be agile and not everything that is agile ends up being an innovation or a successful innovation. So the notion of of agility as as you know has become a very important and talked about topic in, in in other spheres, innovation and marketing and fast moving consumer goods being one of them. And as, as with any important trend, there is a tendency sometimes that it becomes a hype and that people kind of lose a little bit the, the focus on the impact and just get kind of fall in love with, with the trend. And, and I think, you know, and it's at its worst, it can, it can bring up projects where the end point becomes the agility. Whereas in reality, agility is a means for, for projects to maybe see the, the light of day faster, be a little bit quicker, be a little bit more edgy in the way they're executed. So I think when people keep the focus on the end point, and I think for me it's always about. Serving or servicing the consumer in the best possible way, in the most efficient way. If you lose that focus, then then your your agility will end up being 1/2 baked innovation, so to speak. But I think if you're very, very much focused on your consumer, servicing them, trying to add value to their life, improve their lives. And if you know your consumer extremely well, then you will be agile in AI would say in a successful way or you will increase your chance, your chances of being successful with your innovation. I think this is one of the thing that really frustrates me with where I would use the term agile as over agility in this respect. Is that what I thought was always one of the biggest selling points or one of the most effective parts of the whole movement was about getting the people that are creating the thing very close to the people that are receiving the thing. And I thought that was fantastic. And then what that does for understanding of your customers, understanding of the market, building empathy, being able to make decisions as if they were the person receiving it. I think that that's where a lot of the innovative ideas I've experienced or being part of over the years have come from. Was that close proximity? I said, I'm curious if we're going to kind of dissect this and we'll take a few avenues around this. In your experience, really what has been one of the biggest, I suppose biggest, say one of the most rewarding innovation kind of experiences that you had? And did it have anything to do with the proximity to the customer and the people that are creating it? Yes. And I think you're hitting a very, very important point, which is agility, in my opinion, really comes from this proximity with your end consumer and your, your, your end customer. And I think if you spend the the right amount of time empathizing with with this end user, living their lives, getting out of your office, following them on their journey, whether it's when they're purchasing your product or maybe when they're not purchasing your product and they're inquiring about your product or they're they're they're researching solutions related to this product category. If you spend that amount of time and it's really, you can't kind of wing it, you can't shortcut your way through it. You have to spend that time, You have to go and, and spend those hours. If you do that, then this will help you significantly on your, on your paths toward being more agile because you will see an idea and immediately, I would say organically, you will start, you know, connecting the dots and seeing, you know, avenues or, or ways by which you can use that innovation to solve a problem. So I think I think this is a fundamental element of doing this and, and and it takes an organization. So, you know, one product person alone will not be able to do that. So you need a diverse group of people. When I say diverse, it's, you know, functionally it's in terms of age groups, in terms of socio economics, in terms of backgrounds. You need multiple pairs of eyes and brains to look at the consumer together and then may make sense of what they're seeing and then try to to bring solutions. There's, there's one going back to your question that there's one very, I would say a very strong example that comes to my mind for my years in China where the Chinese, so I was in charge of of marketing for Colgate in. In the market that is extremely dynamic. So I think, you know, the topic of agility is, is extremely important in a market like China, you're facing thousands of, of brands competing, but competing with you in various provinces, regional brands, local brands, global brands, you name it. And and, and of course, the risk of being a global US multinational is that you have processes and you know, rightfully so, you have to go certain steps and you know, you will not compromise and you never should on things like quality and you know how good the formulas are, etc. So that is that is something that you will never compromise. But there's also, I would say legacy historical processes that you have to follow, testing and pre testing and developing concepts and validating concepts, which, which kind of get in the way of being quick and fast in a market like as dynamic as, as China and steps that local brands don't necessarily follow because they're, they're embedded in the market. They're, they're kind of managed by, by locals, for locals. And you kind of have to find ways to reset a little bit that, that dynamic so that you are not at a disadvantage. We started developing a product which we wanted to, to, to use with a younger demographic. So the Colgate brand has been around in China for 25 plus years, is one of the oldest brand and the most trusted actually brands in China, but also comes with with an image of a, you know, reliable but not very exciting brand. And of course, with the younger generations being extremely dynamic and looking for, you know, the latest news in the market. And and toothpaste is not immune of this. We were we were losing market share and we were kind of underused and under consumed in the younger demographics, particularly those doing most of their purchases and their interactions with brands in in the social ecosystem. So in China, it's Alibaba, it's Jing Dong, its team all where most of the the market. And I would say the hype was again and we had a real kind of challenge in front of us, which is beyond the business challenge, which is, you know, we, we wanted to. I guess improve our market share and improve our business with the younger demographics. There's a more, I would say, fundamental issue, which is how do you make, you know, a traditional brand like Colgate relevant and sexy to the younger demographics who, who are buying, you know, all sorts of products, but, but aren't really excited, but by, by, you know, their, their, their parents or their grandparents Colgate brand. And, and, and, and it got back to, to what we were talking about earlier, which is spend time with this, with this consumer, empathize with them, use their codes, understand how they think and how they perceive things and kind of break a little bit the, the paradigm that you have in terms of how you think about things, how you develop new ideas, how you validate new ideas. And we set up a, a, a multifunctional cross functional group of very diverse people and somewhere as as young as 1819 years old, clearly very different for me, but they, they spoke the language of the people we wanted to reach. And, and they looked at things in a very, very different way from, you know, my European 25 years of experience lens. But it was very refreshing for me. And, and, and they came up with ideas that were great. And this is where, you know, you start with this empathy, you start with that, that very thorough knowledge of who you're talking to and, and who you're trying to service. And then you look at what you have available. And they actually sat with our who who brought to them super cool ideas in terms of what you could do with a fairly simple, you know, tube of toothpaste and, you know, 11 idea leading to the other one. They realized that they could put little heart-shaped, you know, pink heart-shaped stripes inside a a very nice red toothpaste gel and you know the prototype and they they ended up coming up with a super nice, super appealing, very cool toothpaste with little pink heart strips in inside of it. And then from there. They kind of showed it to a couple of young consumers who got super excited about it and they started kind of coming up with names, coming up with ideas. Can we go with concepts and all of this without testing anything. So, you know, just kind of get the product in front of people, you know, whatever prototype you're able to come up with and then go with it. And you know, from one idea to another one, a product that was called Colgate Dare to love was, was created and it was a toothpaste that you would actually buy an action and gift to your loved ones as a gesture of, Hey, I'm thinking about you. And this is my, my token of love, my, my proof of love for you. And we launched it at the Chinese Valentine's Day and people got super excited, super excited. So we couldn't follow any of the usual kind of development processes that a typical fast moving consumer goods brand would, would do you know, a concept, a pre concept, a testing, a pre testing, a validation. Because the there was no concept, so to speak, in the, in the traditional way of doing this. There was just a solution for people who were trying to find new ways of showing their love to each other. It could be to my mother, to my father, to my grandmother. The concept of love is, is very universal. It's it, it, it's obvious and, and finding ways for people in a very pressured world, in a, in a very competitive world, in a world where, you know, people are, are stressed and are kind of overworked and burnt out and everything. Find finding simple, light hearted ways of getting out of that churn to, to take a pause and, and, and, and go and, and show, demonstrate your love to, to people around you was amazing. And who thought that a toothpaste could do that? But we ended up doing it. So this whole notion of to to maybe sum it up, this, this whole notion of being very connected to your end consumer, being able to understand very quickly how a particular innovation or particular product could address a need, whatever that need can be. And then going very quickly with a prototype to get it in front of people and then play around with it a little bit was a great lesson for me. And you know, as we did this, we had to make decisions very quickly. So everything was done on our phones through an app in, in, in China called WeChat, which is a bit of a, a blend of a Facebook or Twitter and Instagram and and a WhatsApp. It ended up being a, a great success. So, so that was one particular idea that was a, a really good example of how things can when they work out well, OK, nice, nice drive. So there's two

things and 1:

00. One request. So the, the statement is, I have a feeling that if you release that kind of product in the UK, because a lot of UK people have AI, don't know a funny sense of humour, maybe they're more easily offended. My guess is the message would be, I love you, but your breath stinks. Can you please brush your teeth? It could be, it could be, I mean, but you know, if it's, if things, you know, cultures differ wildly and it's, it's, it's a great story, but that was just a silly throwaway comment. The thing I really wanted to pick up on is that you mentioned that there's, you know, with a big American company, lots of bureaucracy, lots of process and it's difficult to then compete with the local opposition because they are much more dynamic and can change direction more quickly, can maybe test more things though the market better. You know, what tips could you provide to people? Because this is a situation that's really familiar. You get lots of big organizations that are modern bureaucracy where things are slow and they don't see that they can be faster or compete with people who are smaller and more nimble. And maybe, you know, less less designed for a particular context, right? Colgate was designed for, I mean, an American context in that respect, not for the the Chinese context. What tips could you provide to people to help overcome some of that bureaucracy and actually make make an impact rather than just get mired in all the bureaucratic nonsense? Yes. So one thing that I've learned in my 25 years of navigating, you know, big organizations, but trying to be as as nimble and as as quick as agile as possible. I think you need to play to your strengths. So if I think that that the the specific example of AUS multinational competing in China against locals, you need to play to your strengths. And in this particular case, your strengths are the infrastructure, the incredible amount of highly talented researchers in your R&D, in your labs and the amazing firepower that this can give you in terms of coming up with cutting edge technologies, best in class innovation and so on. So this is something that the locals will never have access to. And you need to marry this with a, a nimble organization on the ground that is able to understand the cultural nuances that that you need to be in your commercialization and how you position your product and how you sell your product so that you don't waste time in that last step of, of commercializing the the innovation. And, and I think global organization are at their best when they're able to marry those two things. So a super competitive, best in class innovation, a capability on one hand, but also that local connection, cultural connection, understanding of the market, the customers, the commercial setup and and and the consumer. And when you're able to and the there's no set formula for this, I mean, you need to go and and figure it out, you know, on a case by case basis where where you put that cursor between what is centralized and global on one hand and what is nimble and local and, and, and closer to the consumer on the other hand. But it all goes down to I think at the end of the day, it's human humans figuring figurated out together. You know, you have to figure it out together. Your example about, you know, taking that heart-shaped love product in the UK is a very good example because at the end of the day, it's our role to figure out, you know, how one solution or innovation can be relevant in different settings and different cultures. And specifically in the case of the UK, and I worked a lot on, on Europe and Europe is a mixed bag of a lot of cultures and, and, and the nuances are very different in terms of how you want to position something and interact with someone in the UK versus someone in Italy or in Poland or France or, or Germany. But of course, you can't have solutions, you know, that are radically different from 1 market to the other. And sometimes it comes really down to cultural nuances. So there is a wittiness in the UK that you need to take into account. And it's sometimes just you know, how you talk about your product and how you you insert your product in the local. And I've seen example, for instance, we were selling shower gels in Europe. We got really successful in the UK when we changed a little bit the wording and the semantics on the label because UK customers want you to kind of connect with them at a much more local, local level. So they, they like a little bit of a sense of humor. They like little puns on the, on the labels. And it's amazing when you go and, and, and, you know, navigate a shower gel or a shampoo shelf in the UK, there are puns, there are little kind of, you know, twists of humor, which we were missing at a time. Because, you know, we were of the opinion that everyone gets the same product, the same labels, the same copy. And it was copy that was very boring in the in, in, in, in auk shelf context. And, you know, it puts you at a disadvantage. The moment you we, we realized that, hey, there was actually an added value in terms of giving the UK, our UK team the possibility of rewording the, the labels, rewording, you know, the how they were presenting and talking about the product all of a sudden. You, you, you take a significant step forward in terms of connecting with the, with the UK consumer in Italy and are the same thing in France. So I think at the end of the day, there's no magic formula that applies, you know, in a, in a, in a distinct way across the board. You need to, it's a bunch of humans that have to figure it out together. But back to your earlier question, you have to play on your strengths. Really, really interesting. I was sitting, I was listening to you talking. I was like, I've this is a couple of minutes ago. I thought, what question am I going to ask next? I was like, I'll ask that question next. And then you started talking one more like, Oh no, I'll ask that question next. And then you kept on talking and then I'll ask that question next. Now I've got too many questions. Am I going too far in my questions? No, no, not at all. It's perfect. It's perfect. I mean, I really like it. I think it's good because I mean, what I was wondering was you were talking about the, was it shampoo shower example, shower JAL example that I suppose when you're trying to please such a diverse cultural market such as Europe, right? Is it that you can draw a parallel to creating a digital product and trying to serve like a diverse kind of space of users? They may all have similar needs and get the same value from what you're providing, But actually there's certain things that may work in one country that work on others and messaging that works. And so I was going to say that how do you avoid that kind of mass homogenization of what you're doing so that actually by trying to focus on everyone, you end up focusing on no one. And you said that, you know, you gave a certain degree of freedom and space to local, the, the UK local team to tailor the message, but not necessarily the, the recipe for the product. So even though it was it, it's the same. Here's a question and it's a bit left filled. So if you want to skip it, that's fine. But product still or is it different products per market? So we have shallow gel X which has different messaging in some different locations. From your perspective, would you see that as the same product across all of Europe or would you say that there's a a French version of the product and there's an Italian version of the product? For me, it's the same. It's just a matter of how do you talk about it in a way that makes it more relevant for customer A versus customer B versus customer C. And I think, you know, for me, the underlying point behind your question is actually a fundamental 1, which is if you want to be agile, you need to also make tough choices on, on where you draw the line in terms of what changes and what doesn't change and where you are willing to make adjustments because it serves the higher purpose of being more relevant for a sizeable consumer group. So it has to make sense from a business standpoint. You cannot, you cannot, you know, customize everything for everyone because it creates chaos, it creates chaos, it creates a business that is very hard to manage in the, I would say in the back from a supply chain standpoint, from a manufacturing standpoint, etcetera, etcetera. So a little bit of I would say thinking and pondering the choices that you're making in this particular example, the backbone of the product doesn't change, the formula doesn't change, the technology doesn't change, the fragrances for a shower gel fragrances are extremely important. The fragrances don't change. But how we talk about it and this is easily manageable I would say at the at the back end of of the process, how you talk about it has nuances and that's, that is totally fine. Now, again, you make choices. You have to make choices that are sound from a business standpoint. So in the case of Europe, the UK is a sizeable market and you can justify having a different language and different labels and different whatever for, for a market the size of the UK, other markets maybe will have a more difficult case to to be made. So it's not about choices. But fundamentally, I think you need to be very clear that the backbone of what you're selling doesn't change. Otherwise you create something that is the exact opposite of of agile, which is chaos. Yeah. So what we're saying here is that in order for us to be innovative and embrace agility, we have to focus on one that proximity of the teams who are creating the thing or messaging the thing to a particular user base, customer base have a certain degree of empowerment and freedom, but not but not over empowerment. There has to be very clear. Lines as to what they can't over, they can't step over, such as changing the fragrance or changing the viscosity of something. So what we're talking about here is it may be a team who's making a digital product can make certain aesthetic changes for certain users or tweak the journey. But the core product, the core backbone of what we're doing remains the same. And I think that's really important then to say that we want agility within constraints in order to enable innovation in the right way at the right time, given our context. And that by then having our teams and our people who are facing by creating the thing, message or product or otherwise, the closer we get them to the people receiving it, the more empathy they can build. And more empathy they can build, the more great ideas they can generate and the more we can begin to then carve out our specific niche. Correct. Now I'll give you another, another answer, which is slightly different to the same question, but you can also create by design the conditions for a, how would I say a certain organized chaos, so to speak. And I'll go back to the example of of shower gels. Shower gel is all about formulas and fragrances and then what you do with them and within a fragrance. I mean, fragrances are a complex organization of sub fragrances and you have, you know, different tones and, you know, a head fragrance and, and, and a core fragrance, etcetera, etcetera. So within, you know, one defined fragrance, you have lots of nuances that you can emphasize and decide to emphasize depending on on what you want to talk about. You, you can very well and, and, and actually did it at at some point, you can create a portfolio of available fragrances that you can offer to, to your to, to your local teams for them to play with them. In the, in the world of fast moving consumer goods, in some categories, the notion of limited editions is something that can be, that can be extremely powerful. And here you can connect with local trends, local local events and, and come up with very localized limited editions. Now what you've done? In the back, in the backstage, you've creates the conditions for people to be able to with this within a certain organized framework, put a little bit of chaos in the system, but with the purpose of being quicker, faster. And you know, there may be a cultural event or a cultural trend happening in France that is not existing in, in Italy and you give your team the the, the ability to go and run with it. So, but again, I mean, it's another, I would say, dimension of how you try to better navigate a big organization that wants a little bit more quick and agile and how it does things at the local level. So if we have an organization and maybe some people who are listening, this will mean something to you as well. But you have an organization that doesn't seem to be able to innovate, has spoken a good game on agile and agility, but nothing really seems to be that different to how things were before. And they're looking around and they can't quite put their finger on patterns or things that are happening, behaviours that are getting in the way from your experience. I mean, and your your deep experience across some massive organizations and in fields, which may be a different, but I think really comparable to the types of environments where our listeners are, are based. What are some of the things that people can look out for that might be hindering innovation, hindering agility and getting in the way of really making that impact? I would look at two, maybe three things that are critical. One is from a cultural standpoint, are you really, and it goes back to the first, first topic that we were discussing, how connected are you to your end consumer and your end customer? And I think being, being very honest about this point is extremely important because the more removed you are and the more bureaucracy just kicks in and, and sometimes, sometimes, you know, over validating, over testing is just a, a proxy or a manifestation of the fact that you're not connected well enough to your, to your customer. So that is one point which is a cultural 1. I think the second one is in mid size to large organizations in particular, there is a certain tendency for process mushrooming, so to speak. So you people tend to add meetings more than they tend to remove meetings. They they tend to add steps more than they tend to remove steps. With people becoming more and more risk averse, there's a lot of testing and validation and revalidation that happens. And this this also gets in the way because and, and you have to ask yourself every once in a while, looking at all the processes that you know, lead you to launching something, commercializing something is everything really needed? And for some big things they may be, but I would argue that not every single innovation requires a very, very thorough pre and post validation. And I would say all the steps that that typically lead to, to launching a big innovation. So you have to kind of maybe segment a little bit the type of innovation that you have and just maybe be be ready to to be a bit more flexible. And some of them, why not? Why not compromising and the bigger ones? And then I think there's a third one that I would suggest, and it's something that I also learned in China from, from one of my previous bosses is sometimes you just, you know, need to create the conditions for being, for being agile. And one case in point is sometimes when you're agile, you have to take risks. And, you know, the notion of risk is kind of embedded in the notion of innovation and being agile. You, you're making choices. You have to follow a little bit maybe your instinct and, and you may be wrong. And I think sometimes in big organization or, or, or, or innovations that are organizations that are mid sized organizations, there is a sense of, I don't want to take risks. I don't want to end up, you know, launching something that doesn't work or works maybe is less successful than what I thought it would be and end up having within a couple of weeks to stand up in front of my management justifying. For financials that are not as as good as they, they used to be and, and maybe you end up with a stock of a product that don't sell and you have to scrap it and there's a financial cost. And then this, this alone kind of gets in the way of people wanting to take risks. You don't want to risk your career, you don't want to, to risk the, the financials of the company, etcetera, etcetera. So what that person actually told me was, hey, we're launching this product. It may work. It may work extremely well, but it may be also half a success or even a flop. Build in your profit and loss statement in your P&L. Build a certain amount of scrap of products that will not be sold and that we will have to give away for free or get rid of in one way or another. But put this right away in your assumptions so that you don't have to find yourself 234 weeks after the launch in this very uncomfortable situation of having to justify in front of people. Of course you'll try to avoid this, but build it in so that you know this risk factor is already embedded in all your assumptions and it just releases a certain amount of pressure from people to just go and do it. It's funny. Not that I would ever propose this as an alternative phrase, but it's almost as if that scrap products is innovation tax. Almost. It's acknowledging the fact that you're going to try some things and some things won't pay off. And we want to make sure we have money to, to do that so we can find that one or two things that really does make an impact. So it is, and I hate the word tax, but it is a innovation budget almost worth some sort of overhead or you, or you could call it a contingency built in your in your in your now, now it all. It also goes back to something which is, you know, if you're innovating, your innovation has to make sense from a financial standpoint. So it has to be worth it. So you build all to all those contingencies and this is fine, but you have to the flip side of this is you have to make sure that if your product is successful, it's super damn successful. You know, it sells a lot at a really attractive price and there's a win, win situation for the consumer who sees something that really improves their life on one hand. And it's, it's a win for you because you you're building a a sustainable business over time out of this. So, so I think in this perspective and in this context, this contingency or or text as you call it makes a lot of sense because it gives you an incentive, but the the reward is much higher than the potential risk. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. OK, that makes perfect sense. So there's three things you said. One was the more removed you become from the customer, the more bureaucracy you get. So if we've got to play on that as a look at the inverse of that for less removed you are from the customer. Hopefully for less bureaucracy we can get, you've got processed mushrooming and segmenting innovation and then creating the conditions to be agile, except in fact you can be risky and that you may be wrong, but putting some contingency, putting some overhead in your PNR so that you can, you can afford to do that and all those things are great tips. But what I'm wondering is in order to kind of create the conditions for those things, there needs to be some kind of vision, some kind of motivation which everyone really buys into so they can say we're doing this for this greater purpose. And yeah, you in your experience of being a leader and, you know, having to articulate and communicate like visions for change or visions for products, like what can you pass on from your wisdom when it comes to kind of setting a strong vision and rallying people behind it and then creating the right conditions so that people can kind of take on those tips? Can you give me just one second? Yeah, no worries. I have a a cat. That is fine. OK, No worries. So I think really you're absolutely right in the sense that the the vision has to come from the top. So. So rally, could you move your mic up? Oh, so a little bit. Perfect. Is that better now? Oh, lovely. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Yes, you're absolutely right that the vision has to come from the top. And I think the the vision, the vision has to be again. And I'm sorry, I keep going back to it because I think it's fundamental. It has to be about servicing your end consumer in the best, most efficient possible way. And I think, you know, if that that is the cornerstone of what you're trying to do. And and of course you link it to your product category, you link it to your organization, you link it to your specific organizational culture and so on. So you have to kind of personalize it to, to your own context. But I think this is, this is a very, if you do that, it's a very good starting point. And I think in this, in this context, then innovation will play a key role in terms of creating value again, not only to yourself as an organization, but creating value and adding value to your end consumer. And then agility becomes one of the ways that you will by which you will do this in a better way, in a more dynamic way as well. And, and, and this is how, how I think the chemistry will work and, and, and will happen. I think very often I've seen people misinterpret the concept of agility and make it the endpoint of everything. I've, I've seen things as crazy as people calling a, a project or a product agile just to demonstrate how much, you know, they had embedded agility in, in their way of thinking. But I think this is, this is maybe going a little bit too far in the process. I think agility is a tool. Agility is a mindset. Agility is one way of doing things better, quicker, in a more dynamic. It doesn't replace fully understanding who you are, who you're who you're working for and and what you're trying to do. I think that's a challenge, isn't it? For many organisations, I think that the way that they're structured means that they, the reality for many teams, they didn't actually know who that end consumer is. And as far as they're concerned, they they cannot make an impact from the customer because I have to wait for somebody else to do some work which contributes towards that. Or they may see the next team in the process as their customer. So they may be focusing on serving their customer, but all they're doing is just optimizing their cogs to serve the thing that's next in the line. But then there's no guarantee that's really going to make a significant impact. So if I think back to your example with the the toothpaste for loved ones. Who was the end customer? Was it the person who was purchasing the toothpaste or was it the person that was being gifted the toothpaste? Not a delineation between the two. No, no. For for me it was very, very clear that the end consumer or customer was the person purchasing the products. And, but of course, the, the act of gifting was part of the whole service that we were providing or the solution that we were providing. So it was, it was fundamental to the, to the proposition, but the people we were talking to were the people who were buying the product and then using it. And then of course, the beauty of it is if I am gifted this product and I, and I truly love it, chances are I'll become a, a consumer very quickly after because I love it and I will spread the word. So I think that that's part of a challenge is I don't think people often really know who they're trying to improve their lives of. I think it's really easy to focus on like fake customers for what have a better phrase with this where they're not the ones who are actually giving up their time or their money to use it. They are just a step on the way to helping those people. So for example, if you only focused on the retailer rather than the person who was purchasing it, focused on the channel rather than consumer. And I say this because when I when agile is just done very, very poorly in my perspective, because of the way that the organization is structured is that you have small teams that think they can innovate and, and, and can be quite nimble with it, but they're not doing it with the right motivation, with the right vision. So what we end up with is lots of small teams going off in lots of different directions trying to appease various different people on the chain to the end customer with. But then as a consequence, no one really makes a difference. Everything gets out of sync and you end up in a whole world of pain. Then what people do then is that then they put this kind of huge bureaucratic layer over it because guess what? They're not making an impact in the market and now they're feeling in some way to control it. And what they were lacking was that real vision and clear communication as to who it is they're doing this for. So this is a super important point in my view that that you are raising which is and I think it's probably another dimension of agility which is very important to keep in mind, which is you have to be. Super clear in terms of not only who you're servicing, but also the role of each of the stakeholders within your organization in service servicing that customer. And if there's any ambiguity. So for instance, if you have a sales department that think that the most important thing is to service the customer and, and, and don't get me wrong, it's extremely important to serve the, the customer, but this is a means to an end. You're servicing a customer who is then selling to a consumer. So you have to kind of like keep that North Star in mind. And if you miss that, if you're, if you let confusion kind of creep into your organization with different departments thinking different and maybe sometimes conflicting things, then it becomes very counterproductive. Because instead of agility, you, you get, you're getting another dimension of possible chaos because not everyone is kind of shooting in the same direction. And you and you get unnecessary silos or conflicts that that get in the way of being other. I think this is an important thing that that you have to have as an organization. And as you know, leaders in the organization, you need to have absolute clarity in terms of who you're servicing and what each one's mission within the organization is towards this end goal. Perfect rally. I'm looking at the time and I can't quite believe that we've been talking for so long. I mean, the time has just flown by it. So some amazing stories and so many awesome little Nuggets, right? To take away from this. I think we're kind of a hard job picking which which which wants to get out on social media to promote the episode because there's just a lot there. And just to kind of maybe make my job even harder before we begin to wrap up, I think the what you've got is a hugely deep experience over many decades. And I think it's an experience that this podcast, your experience should I say is something that on this podcast, we haven't had somebody or many people who have come from a slightly different world, right? And share some really interesting stories. And in your years of leadership and this and the apologies if this is a bit of a challenge, but is there any particular tip that you could pass on to aspiring leaders? Like when it comes to your leadership being a successful leader, let's say, like is there anything you could pass on to our listeners? So there, there could be many, I think related to the topic that we are discussing today. For me, I would say agility is not the, the, the, the end point that you're looking for. I think you have to be extremely clear in terms of what you're trying to do. And from that clarity, from that understanding of who you're talking to and what you, what your products or your technology or, or your products can do for that. And consumer agility will come naturally as a, as a facilitator, as an accelerator, as a enhancer of everything that you're doing. So in other words, don't look for agility per SE. Look for other things that will create the environment and the framework for agility. And this is clarity, this is consumer understanding, etcetera. Those are, I would say, fertilizers for agility. Don't get distracted by by the hype of agility. Get inspired and excited and obsessed with the impact that agility can bring to what you're doing. I made a note down here saying agility should come naturally. And I think it, yeah, should come naturally if you've got the right fertilizer, if you can get those, get the right conditions in there. I think this is one of those things where people always say, oh, you know, Agile's just common sense. Agility is common sense. So if you're, if it's common, then everyone will be doing it. So we can't say it's common sense. But I think you're absolutely right. If we put those right conditions in place, then it should come naturally and it shouldn't be something that we are trying to do. It's just something which we are doing because we want to do the right thing. And absolutely. And I would say, you know, if I flip it around a little bit and you know, I'm not trying to be cheeky or anything, but I would say if you're not agile, then I think it's a really, it's a really good moment to actually pause and figure out, you know, what exactly in your organization. It could be cultural, it can be structural, it can be in the way you're working, what exactly in your organization is getting in the way of agility? And actually it could, the lack of agility per SE can be a really good litmus test to understanding maybe things that are going wrong in your organization. And I think that's another way of looking at it, which could also be quite interesting. And linking back to one of your earlier questions this morning and if you're listening and you can think of one of those things and if you're not? Too adverse to doing so why not share it on social media, tag me and Ronnie and maybe we can come on and offer you some advice or get the conversation going via LinkedIn is probably the best Ave. for that. So our time is at an end. Ronnie Alhaji, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a it's been a joy and so refreshing to have some of them are completely different industry. I don't think we've had anyone with your particular experience before and you know, fast moving consumer goods and your experience at Colgate and L'Oreal. It's just been inspiring. I think it's not not unfair of me to say. So thank you so much for taking this time to come on and share your insights and your stories of our listeners. And hopefully they give people some rocket fuel for their innovation and the way that their perceiving agility. Now, if people wanted to find out more about you or contact you for any reason, what's the best way for them to do that? The the best way would be through LinkedIn. Just ping me and we will we'll take it from them. Thank you very much, Ben. It was like was a a true pleasure. Thank you for your time. Thank you and thank you everyone for listening. Do stay tuned to the productivity podcast because we'll be back again next week. And in the interim, Dean, feel free to go on social media and let us know what you think of this or other episodes. And your feedback is very, very important to us because then it gives us an opportunity to get to know you and dare I say, be more innovative with some of the episodes that we put out there. So thank you, Ronnie, again for coming on and thank you, everyone for listening. This has been the Product Agility Podcast.

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Ben Maynard

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