“The three most important things” is the title of this week’s episode of the Putting the Human back into Technology podcast. In episode eleven we speak with Tim Golborun, we’ve again broken the interview into two parts and will release each part separately. This is part one.

The three most important things – Key Takeaways

• The 3 most important things…
• It is about clarity of purpose, customer service, people management
• The lessons learned are just the heightened  importance of those core business skills and core business objectives
• “Show me…”
• Work the problem
• Problems don’t go away, they tend to get worse

We have made a tweak to our questions too. You can find the questions asked in part one below, along with a transcript of the answers.

This week’s Guest on “Putting the Human Back into Technology Podcast” is Tim Golbourn, Interim Finance Director of The Royal College of Physicians. Tim offers such simple practical advice, that we all know will work…we should all take note!

The three most important things – The Links

• You can view it on YouTube here
• You can listen on Anchor here

The three most important things – The Questions

We asked Tim the following questions.

1. Tell me a little about what you do, your business, job/role?
2. Thinking about the people/technology impacts of the last year, what lessons will you take forward, and how do you see these being delivered?
3. Do you think users have grown in their confidence in using technology since lockdown?
4. What’s the best piece of business or career advice you’ve been given?

Previous Episodes

• Episode 1 – Special Guest Mark Williams
• Episode 2 – Special Guest Simon Jones
• Episode 3 – Special Guest David Rawle
• Episode 4 – Special Guest Ben Kite
• Episode 5 – Microsoft Build Edition
• Episode 6 – Special Guests Simon Grosse and Liz Rogers
• Episode 7 – Special Guest Ben Morris
• Episode 8 – Special Guest Edwin Sarmiento
• Episode 9 – Special Guest David Richards
• Episode 10 – Special Guest John Stenton Part 1 and Part 2

Tim’s Answers – The Transcript

You can read Tim’s answers our questions below, in a transcript for his “The three most important things”  interview

Question 1 – Tell me a little about what you do, your business, job/role?

Tim Golbourn

Yeah, thanks, thanks, Gethyn. Thanks, Mark. And, as I said, so pleased to be here. So yeah, I’m currently the interim Director of Finance at the Royal College of Physicians. I took a bit of a career break earlier in the year and decided, to do interim work. Finance is my background you know and actually, interestingly, although I never designed it this way, I’ve worked in Health all of my career. So, you know, started in the NHS, I worked at the Royal College of Nursing, I’ve been involved in in charities, they’ve been involved in health, particularly mental health. And, yeah, just just now I’m doing an interim role at the Royal College of Physicians.

So I think I think what’s interesting actually is, is that as a finance director, and I found this increasingly during my career, is it’s always finance plus plus, and the plus plus gets more and more. So you know, it’s never everything together, but any combination of IT, Estates Governance, some form of Operational service, Marketing, or whatever. And what’s interesting, though, actually is, currently, I am just Finance, although I have to say there’s nothing “just” about Finance. Because you have to get engaged in every part of the business. So it’s actually feels like a bit like going back to my roots, really, and you know, where it all started. But yeah, so that’s a bit of background about, about me and my career to date.

Question 2 – Thinking about the people/technology impacts of the last year, what lessons will you take forward, and how do you see these being delivered?

Tim Golbourn

Great question. I’ve, you know, something I’ve been reflecting on, but in some ways, I think you can, can possibly overthink this one, as far as what’s been clear to me is that I tend to think things very simply. And for me whether, you know, as I said at the outset, you know, my backgrounds been in statutory sector, the not for profit sector, but I think whatever sector you’re in, I think it probably boils down to three key things really.

One is about clarity of purpose, you know. And the other one, I think, is about customer service. And I think the third one is, is about people management and engagement of staff. And they’re not in any particular order. And I think they all jostle for positions, but I guess, my reflection is that those three things, you know, certainly have not gone away, or don’t necessarily think new things have come on with the, you know, the really difficult conditions that we’ve all had to operate in over the last sort of sort of more getting on for 18 months, I guess.

I just think they’ve become really heightened. And I guess, I mean, at a macro level, you know, you know, organizations have, some successful organizations have had strong business models, they might have had been very strong in all of those three areas, you know, good clarity of purpose, good people skills, good customer service, and they’ve, you know, suffered. So I think, in a way, what it’s done is to heighten the importance of those business areas.

I think what’s happened is, is actually achieving those becomes much more difficult, you know, the whole engagement, how do you engage with your workforce? How do you engage with your customers? You know, how do how do boards engage, and duly do that important strategic work? Because, you know, even at a very basic level, you know, sitting around a room, flip charts, whiteboards, overall I think it is, it’s those things. I don’t think there’s necessarily anything new. But I think what it does is, it means that those things can very quickly diminished when you’re, you know, as people are working at home, you know, your front room, your bedroom, your you know, converted bedroom, into a study or wherever, wherever you’re working from, and you don’t get that face to face people connection, and I think you have to work really hard at it. And so I guess some of the lessons are just the height and importance of those core business skills, those core business objectives, you know, and how, how you can successfully deploy those working in a remote way?

I mean, it is hard though, starting in a new organization remotely is hard. I mean, I saw it in my old role where, you know, new people came in, and it’s that thing about how do you, not just how do you understand the business of the organization, because, you know, in the past, you drop into team meetings, you meet people, you have those corridor conversations, all of those things, I’m sure, you know, we all discuss. But it’s also about how you make an impact, how people get to know you, help people get to know your values, and, what you what you bring to the to the table. I think, for me, it is it is my thing, my overriding message is I don’t think anything fundamentally has changed in terms of what we need to do. I think it’s just become a lot, a lot harder. And we have to work, work at it a lot harder in order to make it and make it happen. But yeah, it is, it is it is hard, I think coming into an organization where, you know, day one, you’re not you’re not walking down the corridor, or trying to find out where to get the tea and coffee and who sits where, it is, you know, you’re on a remote call, you know, like, you know, like this, trying to make connections. And…it just means you have to work really hard at it. Yeah.

Question 3 – Have your users grown in confidence using technology?

Tim Golbourn

I think they have I mean, there’s nothing, there’s nothing like being thrown in the deep end. I mean, I’m all for that, you know, doing things properly. I mean, that comes, I guess, partly to the sort of the finance discipline, but I mean, I know, it’s a value that many of us share. But if you think you know, very rapidly, you know, we had to deploy, staff to work at home, get them using Teams, Zoom, you know, whatever.

I think, staff, and customers actually, I think, have adapted really well, to new technology. It’s not been for everyone, but I’ve actually, I mean, I’ve been really impressed actually, I think, I think in in the certainly the roles I’ve been in, just how well, you know, organizations have adapted to that, to that remote way of working and technology has helped with that. I think there are, there are challenges, undoubtedly, and not just the obvious ones we talked about earlier, in terms of, you know, making that connection and everything being a bit more remote. But, but I think some very practical things. I mean, you know, boring things like signing documents, you know, so, it’s not just Teams and Zoom, it’s about, you know, documents that used to be signed, how do you do that? I mean, one of the things, you know, with my sort of FD hat on, you know, I always like the, sort of, the show me, you know, I learned very early on in my career, you know, after some, quite challenging audits, you know, about how it’s really important to stay close to things like reconciliations and so, you know, show me the year end file, show me the reconciliations, show me this, and, of course, all those things become much harder, in this remote way of working. And, and so, I think, I think that’s a challenge and, you know, not to dampen the mood too much, but things like fraud, you know, I think the susceptibility to, you know, those sort of, you know, things we’ve all seen where, where it’s very easy to be susceptible to something that isn’t genuine, where someone’s looking to. So I think, at a very mechanical level, I think, you know, I think people got used to it but uh, but I do think there were some real challenges in those areas that I’ve kind of mentioned.

So…why is it so hard for certain users groups to get things done remotely?

Tim Golbourn

Yeah, I mean, look screen shares are great. I mean, but, I mean, I suppose it’s the, it’s the discipline of having things in one place, you know that that concept, for example of annual accounts time of year and file, you know, that you I mean, in days gone by, physically handing it over to the, to the auditors and, and having everything in one place. And so, you get you get a sense of, of, you know, you turn the pages, you can see the numbers, you can see, you know, you can flip backwards and forwards. I mean, yes, it is possible on the screen. I mean, it, I suppose I suppose there’s an underlying theme here in my sort of responses is that, of course, those things are there, I just think they are much harder, they are much, much harder. And I, you know, one of the things I’ve struggled with, well, I suppose we all do is, is understanding other people’s spreadsheets. I think I, and I don’t know what it is, but somehow you have to get yourself in the mindset of the person who’s created the spreadsheet. So you’re absolutely right, Mark, I mean, you can you can share the screen and someone shows you a number here and then and then tracks back to another tab or something else and shows you where it is. But I don’t know. I mean, maybe it’s me, but I, I’m a very sort of visual person.

I think I think one of the great things actually about I mean, I’ve mentioned it, but I’m sure others have is actually, you know, what your organisation’s have been to paper-based, I mean, some organizations anyway, and I think one of the great things is, is actually, you know, we’ve learned to live without having to print everything can but again, by just looking at that flip chart behind your head, I mean, some things just work better visually.

And yes, you can create some of it on the screen, and you can, you know, create PDFs, but there are just some things and of course, there are ways around it, you can always do it. Absolutely. So your point earlier about, yes, you can show on a spreadsheet and something else. But I think so maybe it’s one of the learning things we just have to get used to, which is, which is…Look, this is a new world and, you know, you’re not going to be able to have flip charts whiteboards, you know, lever arch files full of things, you’re going to have to find a different, a different way to it. But it is, I guess it is maybe it’s my age, you know, and I’ve been sort of, that’s the way I was, you know, brought up really is, you know, the physical file and turning a page and cross-referencing things. And I think it has been difficult for auditors as well, I think in terms of, you know, even that physical show me thing, you know, I think it’s part of the, you know, part of the bread and butter work, really. And so I think shifting, that that mindset shift in that practice, I think is something we’re going to have to do.

Question 4 What’s the best piece of advice, business or career advice you’ve even been given?

Tim  Golbourn

An old boss of mine had this saying “work the problem”. And, and it’s something that stuck with me, I think for a long time. And people use different phrases or different ways of expressing it. But I think I think you know what I mean, which is, which is… “Look, if there’s a problem, you’ve really got to tackle it, you’ve only got to face it head on”.

I think wherever you are in an organization, you know, you’re going to come across problems. It’s a fact, it’s a fact of life. It’s a fact of organizational life, you know, things don’t run, always easily, they don’t run always to plan, and you will encounter issues, you will encounter, you know, problems and, and it’s a very, unless it sounds so obvious, but actually, it’s really important. And, in fact, this concurs with what I suppose one of my first bosses said, I mean, this is this predates, you know, email and everything else, because he, he physically used a bit of paper, and I was in his office once and he said…“Look, Tim, Look, I’ve got a bit of paper here,and you know, it’s a problem. And he said, you know, it’d be very easy to me, and he opened his desk drawer to put it in his bottom drawer and say, to shove it away in there, but he said, Look, that’s the worst thing I could do, you know, very easy now. But he says what I’ve got to do now is to tackle it”. And so it’s been a recurring theme, really, and it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t necessarily come easy or naturally, but so, but I do think, but it’s a really good bit of advice, because problems don’t go away, they tend to get worse. And, and therefore, you know, tackling them and people will tackle them in different ways. I mean, you know, my style might be different to yours and different to Gethyn’s. But the important thing is, you know, you sit down, sometimes you do it alone, sometimes you might do with other people, but the important thing is to work at it, you know, to tackle it to address it. And that that would that I think has as really stuck with me really throughout my throughout my career.