Fostering a Purpose & People-Led Culture with Sat Sanghera #79

After all, all art is experience. Hello and a very warm welcome to The Company Doctor, where today Gary is joined by Sat Sanghera, CEO of call centre specialist IP Integration and guest lecturer at UCL, to name just two of his many impressive positions and pursuits. Sat and Gary explore the ways in which companies and leaders can successfully foster a purpose and people-led culture. And why this practice matters beyond just business growth. It's a really interesting episode with some fascinating insights and revelations from Sat. So let's get down to it. Gary, over to you.

Please don't let me presume yourself.

Hey Sat, thank you for joining the Company Dog Podcast. Welcome.

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Gary.

It's so nice to have you on because the topic today is fostering a purpose and people-led culture. And you've got a great background for that that we're going to dig into, and a really interesting career and experience. So maybe a best way to start is if you could give us a quick intro to you and your business and a bit about you as a person.

It'd be really great. Sure. So I'm the CEO of a company called IP Integration. So we're a tech and services company specializing in the area of customer experience and contact centers and The way that I would describe us as a company is we're a systems integrator with innovation hubs. We sort of make our own stuff and take it to market. In terms of myself, I do have two jobs, as I call it. I have my main job, which is running the company. But outside of that, not many people know, but I will share it on this podcast. I'm also a meditation teacher, and I've been teaching meditation for over over 25 years, so that'll probably give you some indication into why people, culture, and all those things are really important.

Well, it's great to know. You've caught me out because normally I can find out about people. I didn't see that one. So really good to know. Thank you. It's interesting, actually, because as part of the research, I was looking at your company and I kind of dared to go to Glassdoor, which is always a bad thing to go and do. But even on Glassdoor, which no one gets a good review, you had some really good reviews. And a 3-star rating for Best Company. So well done. That was amazing. Thank you. I guess, you know, I know you were keen to share your thoughts about fostering purpose-led culture. Why was that? And why does it matter?

Do you think? I think, I mean, anything in life, whether it's company-related, family-related, or hobby-related, it involves people. And, you know, to build anything, whether it's relationships or companies, you need people to turn up and be able to express themselves freely. I think the moment they can express themselves freely, they unleash things such as confidence, they unleash creativity. And when you sort of have a number of people doing that consistently over a period of time, you can achieve great things. And something that stuck with me for years and years, and as I sort of mentioned, I've worked with a lot of people outside of corporate life, so to speak, have a deep interest and understanding of the human mind and psychology. And I just think whether you're in an environment doing your hobby or whether you're in an environment doing your work, ultimately, to be the best at whatever you're doing requires you to be free to express yourself and therefore fostering a company with a culture or with an environment that allows people to do that is critical.

I think it's great to hear. I mean, we're going to dig in a bit later because I'm interested to know how it manifests itself in the business because it's not an easy thing to do, you know, when you've got numbers to do and, you know, business to drive. And Sat, do you think it's changed over the last 5 to 10 years, you know, in business and that kind of link to, you know, building relationships and purpose?

I think so. I mean, there's always been companies that have done it very well. And then I think there's been companies that have done it very badly. If we look back over the last 3 or 4 years, there was this thing called the pandemic that probably forced a lot of companies and people and leaders to think very differently. And some of the offshoots that came out of that were things like wellness. I mean, 15 or 20 years, 25 years ago when we started in this industry, I don't think we would have found wellness written in any onboarding or company pack, whereas now it's probably the most prominent most prominent thing. So I think the pandemic has probably been a catalyst for that in terms of as a first phase to help people to feel better about themselves. I think either by design or either by mistake, companies have worked out that if they do care about their people, there's a fair balance of trade in that people feel careful, they're probably going to give the company more back in that process. So I think in the last 5 years, definitely there's been more of a focus.

And do you think, have you seen that throughout your industry, or is it more of a differentiator for what you guys are doing? A lot of people, have a lot of people ridden that wave?

I mean, most of our competition and most, I mean, there's tech companies that are a lot bigger than us that are doing it. You know, they publicize it on their websites. They probably have bigger budgets to throw at things, but at the end of the day, the success of these sort of programs really based on, I think, the purpose and the values a company has. And, you know, if you have a leadership team that believes in it, lives and breathes it every day, it becomes real. So I have seen, like, you know, lots of programs that are running, but are they being successful? I don't know. I mean, I've spoken to people in the industry, no, no, I won't mention any names, have said they've thrown hundreds of thousands of dollars at stuff and, you know, the net result of it has been not much.

No, that's right. I understand. Yeah, it's interesting actually, because we've had— this is, we're in the 70s in our episodes and we've spoken to a lot of people about, you know, culture and changing behaviors. And a lot of people put things down to, you know, you've got to reinforce behaviors. What's your thoughts about that? How do you bring it to life? Because it's easy to say, right? But not easy to do, especially when the market's difficult.

Yeah, I think reinforcing behaviors is an interesting one. The way that I would describe it is we remind people of our values and what we stand for as a company. So, so for us, for example, you know, we have our purpose, which is exceptional customer contact, and then we have, you know, 4 key values. So one is owning it, the second is succeeding together, the third is aiming higher, and the fourth is always evolving. Now, for us, of course, we haven't written, written in the office walls, but It's more than that. So every other week, I'll tell you how we bring it alive. Every other week, I'll host an all hands company call, which is for 30 minutes, and I probably spend 20 minutes of that call recognizing our colleagues for displaying those behaviors. And it's not the leadership team that decides who's going to get called out every week. It's the people. So it's people recognizing their colleagues for doing an amazing job in a certain area or going above and beyond their day-to-day role. And what happens is, when you're reading that out, in our case, we may have an engineer that's never in the office because they're out on site on the weekends whilst we're at home watching Netflix and enjoying a bit of family time. There's some people that are out on the weekend away from their families. When they get called out and recognized, it means a lot to them. And I think because we're so focused on the aspect of our values and what they stand for, and it's not something we talk about at the kickoff every year, it's something we talk about, you know, daily and weekly, it just comes alive because people are always mindful and conscious of those values. And because they're mindful and conscious of those values, they're also mindful of the behaviors that are associated to those values. It almost becomes self-policing and self-promoting internally, so I don't really have to walk around the building. So I said, we must stay higher. You know, I think people do it themselves because it just lifts the energy and the vibe of the organization is such that the values are real to everybody.

And does that affect your, you know, when you hire into your business and the leadership that you bring on, is that something you're looking for, that kind of attribute when you're hiring?

Totally. So, I mean, I personally, our people team used to think I was bonkers when they first met me 4 years ago because they used to hand me a stack of CVs and then put them to one side. I never used to read CVs because my view was, well, you've read the CVs and I just want to get to know the person. And the reason I used to follow that approach is I just wanted to get to know the person and see whether or not their attributes were synonymous with ours. And it's exactly the same now. Of course, if people are getting an interview, it means they have the skills. Otherwise, I wouldn't make the interview stage in the first place. But we have 4 or 5 people interviewing a particular individual, and a lot of what gets them over the line at times is whether or not they display the same attributes and the same values that our other people do. I mean, there's been cases where somebody may have been absolutely qualified for the role, but they've just been wrong for the company and said no.

Yeah, it's good. It's brave in a way, but I can imagine that it pays back quickly.

Totally.

Yeah, do you think you can measure the return on investment for doing this?

It's a difficult one. I think you can have all the metrics in the world, but my, in my real simplistic way of thinking, I think the real measure is what our people think of the company, what our clients say about the company, and what our partners say about the company. I mean, the awards and stuff that we pick up outside of that is a nice recognition, but I think, you know, the The actual pulse is what our people are saying week to week, you know, what our clients are saying. And what's really interesting is when I read any comments that are coming from our clients around work that has been done, they never refer to the technology or the amazing project. They refer to the people that were involved in implementing and driving the project. And if you really read between the lines, what they're really appreciating is that it's are those values. You know, we hear it all the time. I mean, you know, we've had clients and we've had partners spend a lot of time with us, and I wish we could come and work for you, which is, which is quite nice. So I think that's the, the real measure. I mean, outside of that, we do have a weekly survey that we do for our people using a special tool and a platform, and that has engagement scores and all of those things. And the one thing I have seen is that when we picked up our 3 stars, for example, with best companies, our engagement score tends to be really high, uh, in the years that we sort of picked up those 3 stars. So, so there, there is a correlation, but again, it comes down to what our people are saying.

Yeah, it's hard to measure it financially, I guess.

Yeah.

But you know, I've got a difficult question coming. You ready for a difficult one?

Sure.

Yeah, if the ROI, you know, it feels like it's the right thing to do, I think we all would all agree with you. So therefore, should you be Customer-led or people-led?

I'd say the starting point to be people-led, and the reason being is because if you're people-led, the beneficiaries of that will be your clients and your customers. You know, because if you recruit, retain, and develop and have a set of amazing people, how can your clients not benefit? You know, whereas, you know, you could go the other way and say, well, we're going to be absolutely focused on doing stuff for our clients, let's not worry about the development of our people. But then over the long term, your clients will suffer because if you don't look after your people, how do you expect them to look after your clients? And that's my, in my simple view of it, really.

Yeah, no, it makes sense. I used to work for AT&T, and basically, you know, they felt strongly that if you look after your people, they look after your customers. And actually, they put that in your objectives. And, you know, just, just to help people listening, so there's a lot of people listening that were business-to-business, uh, podcasts, and there's quite a lot of managers on there. And so if I, if I'm a manager listening to this episode If you think back over your career, what can I do to foster better purpose?

Where do I go?

How do I start? What do I do?

I think the starting point is, you know, if you're in a managerial role or a leadership role, you've got to really think very hard about where you're trying to take your business. You know, so what's your current point of departure and what's the desired point of arrival? Take years and timelines out of it. But, you know, What does good look like in the future? And once you've sort of described that, you want to try and sum up a purpose in very simple words that become meaningful. So in our case, it's exceptional customer contact. Now, if I sort of said that to you, Gary, you'll think, well, what does that mean? And I love being asked what it means because it gives me the opportunity to sort of describe it. So I think the first thing you need to do is describe and work out as a team what that purpose is, and then underpin that with a set of values that brings the purpose to life. And I think the moment you do that, you achieve two things. You've identified where you are, your point of departure, and you've identified where you want to go. And the business plan basically sits in the middle of that. That is the— what's the yellow brick road to get there? Yeah. And a lot of people don't do that. It sounds really logical, doesn't it? But, well, every company should have a purpose. I know lots of companies that don't. I mean, when I do some coaching stuff outside of this job, one of the first questions I do ask leaders is, what's your purpose? And when they look at you blankly for 3 seconds, you sort of say, you haven't thought about it.

You know, they don't have one.

You don't have one. And that's the why. I know it sounds a bit cliché, but The why is very important because without understanding what your why is as a company, you might have a business plan that eloquently talks about numbers and propositions and how you're going to look after your people and clients. But the why should be more audacious than a business plan. It should be something you're never able to achieve, I think.

But one of the things that comes up a lot, you know, I work with our leadership teams around the world. A lot of people are trying to do the Simon Sinek why session. And they get a bit stuck because of what you said earlier, that you put up the locker room slogans up on the wall. And that's why I'm interested, because you've clearly got lots of experience. How do you bring it to life beyond being a locker room slogan?

It starts as a locker room flip chart session, and bringing it alive is spending a lot of time with your leadership team and the people talking about it. So that's why I've sort of mentioned earlier, a lot of leaders tend to get up at kick off and say, here's our purpose, here's our values, you know, get on with it and I'll see you again in 12 months' time. But then they've probably not mentioned it. So, you know, we talk about it all the time, you know, on a daily basis, on company calls. We recognize people for it every quarter, every 6 months, and even at the kickoffs. You know, the best part of my after-dinner talk isn't about the numbers that we've done, it's about recognizing people for living and breathing our values and the purpose. And I genuinely believe, you know, if you have a group of people running around the building, running around with our clients, talking about the company purpose, talking about our values before the thing that we do, which is provide technology and services, you create this genuine buzz around it being more than a job, it being more than a piece of technology. It sort of becomes a brand of the company. It's a bit like, how do you describe a brand? Well, you don't, you sort of feel it.

It's part of your DNA, basically.

It's part of our DNA. And I always say to people, the moment you try to describe your culture, you've failed. That's why there's tons of books on it. I say, because you've failed, because a culture should be felt and experienced. And that's why I come back to our people, our clients, and our partners. I can never describe it, but what they say is, every time we come into any of your offices or we come to one of your events, we just leave feeling good. You know, there's an energy, there's a transfer of knowledge, there's a great degree of collaboration. You know, so I think, yeah, I just, sorry, Gary, you can't, right? I mean, I get asked this a lot and I just think the simplest way to bring it alive is if you care about it as a leader, live it and breathe it every day, even on your crap days, because there are days, you know, we all go into the abyss once a month or once a quarter. And I love that though. I love it when we go into a challenge or the abyss because then you're able to test how strong the culture of the company is in terms of how anchored it is within your values and purpose. And I let lockdown prove that for us as a company. You know, I think as a company, we really demonstrated that, you know, in something that was not just difficult for the company, it was something that hit the, the world. It's the biggest thing humanity's had in a long, long time. And just to witness how everybody was picking each other up was amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Yeah, I can imagine. And yeah, where did you get it from? So was there someone in your career, if you look back, there's someone you worked for that was really good at this and it gave you ideas, or you built on it? Where did it come from? Did you wake up one morning with a vision?

Yeah, I would say there's probably 2 or 3 areas, Gary. So I would say to start with, I always thank my parents. So to the hardest working people that I know, they built a very successful business themselves in the world of textiles, but they've always had this view of serving others and really talking about good values. And the serving others piece is is really about leadership. You know, I'll say that was one area. The first company that I was at post-university was a company called Touchbase. And again, you know, not really understanding the tech business, I ended up in a tech business, but there was a lot of focus on people, culture, and serving clients. So I sort of picked it up there within a working environment. But then I would say in the work that I do outside of the world of technology, with the meditation and wellness and helping people, you really get to know people very well because I've talked hundreds and hundreds of people around the world from different cultures, different backgrounds, and you get tuned into what makes people tick. Ultimately, the thing that really makes people tick is I'm here to do something, whether I know what I want to do or I don't know what I want to do in life. I just want to be able to express myself. Every human being wants to be able to express themselves in the way that they can, which means they've got to find a degree of confidence, which means they've got to find a degree of self-belief, which means they've got to feel safe in any environment to be able to express themselves. I think taking all of that stuff, what I've worked out is Firstly, you've got to state what it is you want to achieve. What do good values feel like within the company? Then you've got to work out how you build an environment that's safe for everybody. Because there's going to be some people that are more expressive in nature, there's going to be others that are probably more introverted in nature. So how do you build an environment that caters for everybody? And we all know, you know, the world of tech and sales and all of those things, you've got a pack of people that are going to be more vocal., but then you also have a pack of people that are very smart, very intelligent, very thoughtful, but may not be as vocal. And what I've worked out is if you create an environment that is safe for people to give things a go, everybody contributes. And quite often, you know, I always say that some of the best contribution that we've had over the last 5 years, 4 or 5 years in our growth has come from the people that usually need quietest. Because we've created an environment where they, where they're safe to put their hands up and it's safe for them to put ideas forward.

That is good.

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Tell me about the other side, because people person, you might think we're just, you know, it's Happy Valley and we love everybody. What happens when you've got someone who's differing in an opinion, is a bit annoying? How do you, how do you deal with that to get the most out of them and also not to disenfranchise them? But sometimes you need to be dealt with differently. From a performance perspective, either performance or effect on the rest of the team or where the company's going, they might be disrupted.

Yeah, I mean, we are, we're very decisive in, in that respect. So we do the usual stuff, which is, you know, we coach people to get to a better place. But if it gets to a point where it's impacting the team or the performance is off, they're usually exited from business. So the way that I would describe it is we have a performance and culture-led business. So performance is absolutely key. You can't be happy clappy and demonstrate the values and wear the t-shirt and yet within your role, you're not being effective.

I was thinking more about, uh, yeah, performance is one important area, but I was thinking about more diverse opinion where someone's a bit maverick in their character. They might just think in a different way and that they can be argumentative sometimes but may have good ideas. So they're not poor performers, but they're kind of different personalities. How do you deal with those in your—

we embrace them and we've got a few of them within the business. I'm probably one of those, quite frankly, you know, um, as well. And we embrace that because I would put that in the bucket of, you know, people being able to express themselves. And we always say, you know, I have a saying that, you know, we don't mind a difference of opinion, that's fine, just never disrespect. Yeah. And there's a distinction between the two. So we encourage very healthy debate and dialogue. We see it all the time within the leadership meeting, you know, and I always say consensus wins the order of the day. And if you don't win one this time round, you know, when you've left, make sure you've left knowing that it's been a team decision and we see that. So yeah, I love it. I mean, I absolutely love characters within the business because they're the ones that, well, they challenge us. They challenge the status quo.

But I think it keeps us all, you know, diverse thought is always helpful. Let me switch tracks just a little bit, Sat, because I know your business is around contact centres, amongst other things. And I remember visiting a contact centre where they wouldn't let the contact centre workers have a cappuccino because it took too long to make it. They only had a 2-minute break. And then I read your article, How to Unlock the Hidden Power of Contact Centres, and it was talking about how you untapped potential within. Tell us about how do you make— you know, because as a volume player, there's lots of people, you need productivity. How do you kind of measure up that customer experience with the way you wanted to foster and treat people?

So from a, from a client perspective, What we care deeply about and a lot of what I've been speaking about is there's just under a million contact centre agents in the UK. That's a huge part of our population at work within contact centres. But it's also the industry that probably has the highest attrition rate, which says a lot. What it says is you have a lot of companies with contact centres on one hand, they're sort of saying we want to provide our consumers with amazing services. And on the other hand, the attrition rate's really, really high. And what I'm sort of saying is there's a massive opportunity within the economy for a lot of these brands to back what they're saying on their Chairman's Report. So if you want to provide your consumers with amazing services, why don't you start with the agents that you've got? And why don't we think about their lives slightly differently? I.e., don't see them as a contact centre agent, why don't you create careers for them? An example of that would be the insurance sector, right? Why couldn't a young 16-year-old who decides not to go through the usual course of, you know, an academic route to a job, get an apprenticeship, start off working, you know, in the contact centre, but then somebody show them the yellow brick road to becoming a broker, perhaps. And having a career. And I think if it's thought about that deeply, you're thinking about people's careers, you probably retain people, but it also then gives you the opportunity to embed some of the stuff that we've spoken about, Gary, which is the values and all the things that the company stands for. And what that should result in is amazing experiences for foreign consumers. So when I think about it, I think about You know, how do you take those million people, make them 10% better? Because if you make them 10% better, the impact on the economy is going to be amazing because you have happy consumers that probably want to buy from you. You've created a whole lot of careers. So, you know, with this world of remote working, why can't you have a single parent that's able to work in a contact centre on a shift-type basis but feel like it's a career rather than 3 hours of consumers calling up and having a moan about bad services?

Yeah, no, sure. But what about— but what about if you think about the future of work? You know, our last episode was about AI. What's your thoughts on like chatbots and AI, you know, in respect to your own business? Is it a blessing or curse?

Both, but depending on how you use it. So, you know, we deploy a lot of this technology into client environments, and, and, you know, I, I would say the technology is only as good as the process that you thought about, you know. So If it's there to help provide a better and more seamless service, it's good. If it's being deployed with the thought around, well, we just want to remove overheads and nothing else, then it's bad. And it's a bit, look, we've both been around technology for years and years. How many times have we seen a business case that says, if you put in this piece of machinery, you know, we're going to reduce our overheads. They go and do that, and a year later they're bringing all those overheads back into the business. Because I haven't thought about the process. So I think all these new technologies, especially when it comes to AI, understand the process that you're looking to fix. If it can be used to automate stuff, that's mundane tasks, do it. It absolutely makes sense. But I think a combination, what I'm sort of saying to people is a combination of technology and AI with people bodes well for a much better service.

What does the future look like in call centres? Do you think it will affect the future of work in your area in a good way or bad way?

I think in a good way. So, you know, we have this whole concept of sort of the assisted agent, as they used to call it. I mean, we term it the super agent, which is why wouldn't you use the access to all these wonderful bits of technology to present real-time data to agents that are there serving us? And it's about providing an agent with everything they need to give the consumer the best possible experience. And therefore, let's talk about creating a super agent, but you still need that human there doing that work because there are going to be times— I mean, my grandma's in her 90s. She doesn't want to use chatbot. She's going to want to speak to somebody. And if she's going to call a call center, I'm going to hope that there's somebody on the other end of the line that's going to be super polite, that's going to probably know about the issue before she's called in and guided through it as quickly as possible so she doesn't have a stressful day. And there are millions of people out there that probably need and want the same experience.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, you should see me at McDonald's. I don't like punching in the codes into the—

I go to the front and say, I'm old, can you get me an order, please?

Listen, one more question, then we're going to go to your musical taste. Yeah, I looked into you and you care a lot about young people getting started in their careers. I think you're a guest lecturer at UCL School of Management. If you were looking back in your career, you know, knowing what you know now, would you have done anything differently? And just thinking in terms of someone starting out now.

Yes, I think as a, as a, you know, in my younger days, I was probably, I I wouldn't say an introvert, but I was probably very shy in terms of networking and probably going out and talking to people. And I've experienced the merits of doing that later on in life. And I was talking to my nephews actually the other day, just finished college and trying to work out what he wants to do next. And I sort of said, now how about getting on LinkedIn and just writing to execs? Because Personally speaking, if I got a lovely note from a youngster saying, can I have a 2-minute chat, or how would I go about getting into sales or whatever, I probably would respond. So I think networking is a big one. I think I wish I heard during my college and uni days, probably got out of it and spoke to people that were in the field.

Brilliant advice. You're probably going to get lots of people sending you letters now.

I don't mind. I don't mind. It's a lot better than people trying to sell me stuff.

That's true, it is a bit lame sometimes, isn't it, on LinkedIn? Okay, um, it will go to musical days. But actually, if you could just give us quick— 3 quickfire tips on fostering purpose in a people-led culture, what would they be?

Only 3. Define your purpose with your leadership team and make sure everybody means it. Have a set of values that are more than things on the wall, things you can talk about every day. And think about very intently the environment that you need to build so people can turn up every day and be the best version of themselves.

Wow, what a great way to finish. Sat, thank you so much. Before we get to a musical taste, thanks so much for coming on. I tell you what, you've got so much passion and I found it really inspirational. And having looked you up beforehand, you know, the responses from people that work with you are the same. So it's really authentic. So thanks for coming.

Really appreciate it. Thank you. I've really enjoyed it. I can't believe how quickly it's gone. I've been sitting here talking to you really quickly.

We're having fun, but we need the music taste now. So we've got a playlist on Spotify. We always collect from our guests 1 or 2 tracks that either inspire you, motivate you, or just like. Okay, what would they be for you?

So the first one is quite poignant actually, because I've been all over the news. It's Live Forever by Oasis. Um, that was a massive song for me during my college days, sort of helped me get through a lot about that point in time in life. And the other one is, uh, Start Me Up by the Rolling Stones, because it took me back to the time when I was in California as a 17-year-old, and I listened to that song, had some amazing experiences while I was out there, and that sort of stuck with me. So every time I hear that, every time I hear those two songs, I mean rest assured, I probably don't need the second cup of coffee in the morning. I'm ready to go.

Yeah, we're adding both. We've got no stones or erasers. We add those in straight away. Thanks so much. Listen, thanks so much for coming on, Sat, and really great talking to you, and hopefully see you again soon.

Thank you very much.

Thank you for listening, and many, many thanks again to Sat Sanghera of IP Integration for taking the time to join us today. If you enjoyed the episode, the good news is there are plenty more to be enjoyed over at thecompanydoctor.com, where you'll also find show notes and various episode extras. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.