Garci Inigo
Imagine walking into a room of 200 people. People you’ve never met. People who don’t know you from anyone. Now imagine you have to figure out how to get them all to work together. And not just work together, but work together effectively. Because your job depends on it. Where do you start? How do you know who’s a team player and who’s a problem? And how do you answer questions from your boss like, “how long is this going to take?” and “how will we know if it’s working?” Well, that’s exactly what Garci Inigo did when he accepted a job with the National Bank of Canada. Listen in to learn firsthand about the power of empowering teams.
Carl Smith:
Hello everyone and welcome back to the bureau briefing. It's Carl, and with me today, I have a very good friend, Garci Inigo and Garci, I think we first at operations camp in Dallas, way back in Deep Elm is that right?
Garci Inigo:
No we met even before in PM Summit in Digital PM Summit.
Carl Smith:
Oh that's right!
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
Even before and then you came back later and spoke at the summit.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah that's true. Yeah.
Carl Smith:
And I got you an NBA jersey for it, I still don't know what that was.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, because I was looking for some NBA socks to wear on the summit and you got a shirt. I'm still wearing it here.
Carl Smith:
Right. Hey, you would have had a crazy run of career changes over the last several years.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, that's true.
Carl Smith:
And when we first met, now you're in Montreal, when we first met you were part of a shop there. You're very heavy in operations, I know you were at the first three operations camps, and just tell everyone kind of what you did there and kind of the evolution all the way up to where you are today.
Garci Inigo:
Okay. So, I arrived from Europe four years ago in Montreal. I was living in Barcelona and I decided that the sunny weather of Barcelona was enough for me so I got to the cold weather of Montreal. I've been working in agencies all my life. I started on the creative part so I've been art director, and then creative director, and always in digital shops. So, but with the time I found it more funny to be more on the operational side of the agency. Mainly because I was really interested in how to make people work better together. Especially if you take the creatives, how they can talk to the daft team and how could the daft team can talk to creatives and understand each other.
So, that's what I had been involving to. So, when I came here to Canada to get your first job is quite hard at the beginning. To get it at the same level that I had it in Europe, because nobody knows you and even if you drop some big names of agencies in Europe, they say "Yeah, that's not North America so start over." So, I joined a real small company that's over 10 people, a digital shop of 10 people, and I started as a project manager there. Something I hadn't done never in my life actually, but if you have a run an agency for a while and stuff like that, it's part of the job. And I did that for three months, and then I had the chance that Cossette. Cossette is one of the largest agencies in Canada to run the operations on the digital side. And with that came also the war in transformation to go into a more lean shop or more an agile way of doing stuff. And that's the things that I've been interested in for the last 10 years.
So, I start to do both at the same time. So, doing an agile transition in the agency and running agencies. That can cause a little bit of madness because you must make decisions from the times that doesn't make much sense in one way and the other way. So, I did that for three years, that was a lot of fun, a lot of challenges, a lot of stress also. So, the first step of the transition was really dumb, I was like say a little tired of all that, because there was a lot of politics involved in all changements and stuff like that. So, I decided to go to a smaller shop like on holidays where I took over the operations, helped them to grow better because they started real small. There were three founders and in the last three years they came up to 25 people. So, with a lot of challenges and stuff like that. So, I did that for during 2017. And at the end of last year I had an offer in the National Bank of Canada to be the coach of the TI shop here in the bank, where we are over 200 people working on everything related to digital on the client side.
Carl Smith:
Wow.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
So, you started off at a shop with 10 people. Then you go to Cossette and that's when we met I think. What size was Cossette?
Garci Inigo:
Cosette is in Montreal, it's near 300. And in whole Canada, little bit less than thousand.
Carl Smith:
Okay. So, that was quite the move. And then you go to the small shop and help them grow. And now you're right back into a large team.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, so the bank is 22,000 people in Canada.
Carl Smith:
Wow, and you know I've heard great things about the National Bank of Canada from other that have worked there.
Garci Inigo:
Okay.
Carl Smith:
I had some friends in Vancouver I think, that had worked there for while and I know they've moved on and they're doing other things. But they really loved their time there. So, I'm curious how is it to come in from the outside?
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, so.
Carl Smith:
And start coaching a team or group of 200 who don't know you.
Garci Inigo:
So, it's a real good question. It puts you real in a place where you must be observing what's going around. I didn't want to come over in first place and say "Hey, this is how things gonna go", because they have been doing their stuff for a while and it's working. The bank also has started a real transformation for the last four years. So, only to say I'm wearing a tie, I have my X-Men t-shirt on today in a bank. And that was one of the things that told me I was in the good place. They have been working in an agile way for the last three years. And they also have grown a lot because they started to redo completely their website from front and back end. It had evolved but hadn't changed mainly for the last 10 years.
Carl Smith:
Wow.
Garci Inigo:
So, as you can imagine it's a huge job. They have been on it for more than a year now. And so, the team has grown a lot. With new stack of technology, new people coming in, so we have quite of challenges now to how can we handle the culture? How can we be better with so fast growing team?
Carl Smith:
And I don't know what the banking environment is like in Canada. In America, if you're online banking, let alone you're marketing stuff hasn't changed, you get devoured. It used to be the banks were selected based on convenience, is this bank down the street from me? Now it's based on, how convenient is the online presence?
Garci Inigo:
Yep, and that's one of the real interesting things here in Banque Nationale, it's that they are aware of that a long time now ago. And they have started a real big and fast transformation knowing that the industry is changing. So, they're giving them all the tools and the needs that can have. And it's a bank, so they have resources for that. To change the technical stack that we have here, it's amazing. So, you will bring a desk in and he will be like thrilled with the technology that we're working on. So, that was also one of the things that I feel a little bit at home, even if it's a bank. And even to be fair, if I meet my 20 year old self in the street, and I tell him "Hey, now I'm 45 and I'm working in a bank." I think I will slap myself and say, "What have you done wrong?" It's a real good opportunity and I'm real happy here.
Carl Smith:
And why wouldn't you take the things that you've learned and help an industry that's falling behind?
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
Right? It's great because you want to keep riding in the same place when you've already gotten on the right path. You wanna help others get on the right path. So, I appreciate the 20 year old you slapping you, and I actually really wanna see that. But I also think if you can just calm down for a minute to listen to why.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, that's a fair point.
Carl Smith:
So, this is really interesting. How do you, now I know you said observing, you come in and you observe. But not only are you coming into an established team, you're coming into an established team that is constantly getting new players because you have to have new people that manage that new technology. The old people aren't necessarily gonna know the new stack. So, just take me through how long have you been there now?
Garci Inigo:
It's been now 10 days.
Carl Smith:
10 days, okay well this is perfect then. What is your plan?
Garci Inigo:
Okay, so what I have done, I've met in one on one session over 40 people in the last 10 days. So, mainly I've talking to people and taking notes, and then doing my favorite thing, asking questions. And 80% of those questions is just asking why and ask again why and a third time why, and that gives a lot of information. And I've been sitting also in the time that I have over and I'm sitting in meetings, or sitting with the teams and just observing for a moment. And started to move some small moves that can what I call be quick wins, just also to show that I have some value to being here. But that's just to give me more confidence. And so, that's mainly the thing I've been done until today. I have some one on one's left for the beginning of next week, and then I'm gonna start doing the same things but with larger groups. So, they were hearing in little bit like Spotify has squads you know, so teams. And we have like right now 10 squads, so I've been squads. I've been going to the standoffs, I'm going to a Spring planning this afternoon to see how they work.
But, I wanna observe now, I've been talking to the individuals, now I wanna observe how they behave together. And in order to help me with that, I'm also observing a lot how the scrum masters work inside the teams, and also how they work outside with organizations. So, that's because I need people to help me on the day to day, because when you're over 200 you cannot be in all places.
Carl Smith:
No, you've gotta have a strong infrastructure to help execute and be able to hear. So, how have you been received? I mean it's only 10 days, but you have to have some sort of a sense of, "They looking at me like their world is falling apart", or "Everything is gonna be better." So, where in that spectrum are you feeling that they're accepting you?
Garci Inigo:
I feel that they're accepting me in the sense of the, "Oh, the bank brought someone into listen to us, and to someone who seems to know what he's doing."
Carl Smith:
He knows that words that we use.
Garci Inigo:
So, I think the fact that you sit down with like 20% of the staff in the first 10 days, that's a lot of people to meet and lot of personalities.
Carl Smith:
Oh yeah.
Garci Inigo:
And I say, "Okay, I'm sitting here even if it's a bank so that you still have rules and titles, and I came in with a manager title." Even I'm not managing no one because I think it's better for my job for the moment not to manage a team directly. So, that I can more wherever I want to move, makes work easier. But say "Okay, we're here to talk in a transparent way and in a trustful way. So what's said in this room stays in this room." But I need that information. So, even if people were like having trouble with some other people in the team, and they didn't feel eager to say a name, I tried to put them in that position that they feel trustful even to share that name, because it's real hard to work on something if there is a person and then I need three months to figure out who that person is. That's three months that I have lost in my job.
Carl Smith:
Right. How do you go about selecting the 40?
Garci Inigo:
Oh yeah, that's a good question. So, I asked my manage to give me like a few names out, that the people she thinks I should meet. And then when I meet people, I ask them to give me names of people they think I should meet.
Carl Smith:
Smart.
Garci Inigo:
And so, at the end of the day you have like a 40 people list.
Carl Smith:
That's amazing, so what are, and obviously without violating any of the confidentiality, but what are the questions that you're getting versus the things they're sharing. But what are the questions you're being asked?
Garci Inigo:
It's always things that are the same problems that you see a lot coming around in big structures with real huge projects like that. It's how can we get more visibility on what's going on, because the teams are working real hard on a delivery. And so, they're focusing on a short term what they must deliver. And what they saw the strategic stuff going around and all the pieces that come in and out, they don't have a view on that. And you see that there's a real need on teams to understand that at least or even not understand, but at least being formed on what's going outside their world, to better understanding what's going inside with their project.
Carl Smith:
I mean, that's it right? So, if you're looking at this large group and you're trying to figure out how to facilitate any level of change, these 200 people have to buy in. They have to believe and to your point, it's about establishing trust, and I think it was Jack Walsh who said "Two of the pillars of a great organization are trust and transparency, and the two cannot exist without each other."
Garci Inigo:
I agree.
Carl Smith:
So, when you're going through this, and obviously you're just 10 days in, you don't necessarily know 10% of what's really going on. So, you can be transparent about who you are, transparent about what your goals are, and then over the next several months you're gonna find where the bodies are.
Garci Inigo:
Yep.
Carl Smith:
So, how do you plan for that knowing that you're going to be in a constant state of change, but you're trying to make sure that you're communicating with everybody about the things you're finding.
Garci Inigo:
So, that's what I like of this part of the job when you come in. It's that you have a real, in my case, naïve point of view on everything because you don't know nothing. So, you listen to people and then with time you also know that sometimes people overreact or otherwise some people don't share all the information because they don't feel comfortable to do it, or they're not used to do it. So, you must like Sherlock Holmes, put all the pieces together to see the big picture. But the main pinpoints, they come out real quickly. What's harder to see in such short time is who to fix them, and even where they're there. The pinpoints, because it's too easy to make a quick assumption saying "Oh, this is because of that", especially after a week or so. So, but you have real quick a good picture on what's going on, not why's going on, and that's what as a coach I need to start helping the team to fix the pinpoint is to understand the why, and that takes time.
Carl Smith:
Absolutely. So, when you first take the job, and obviously you have people you're reporting into, when they ask you how long, because there has to be some sort of an established I don't even wanna say timeline, but a goal. Do you share with them where you think in the future you'll see progress, and what that'll look like?
Garci Inigo:
So, that's a good question.
Carl Smith:
And if not, I'll delete this from this just in case they leak this of something.
Garci Inigo:
No, I share everything mainly on a daily basis. So, I ask my manage how she's gonna be sure I have done a good job after a year for example. And she gave me an answer that I was okay with. But we're gonna dig more in that because we need information that you say. If the people are feeling and are doing better job in a year, that you have done a good job. So, but I think to gain trust that we're talking about earlier, you need to show quick winds real in the first part of my work. So, you must really carefully choose something that you know is gonna be a quick fix. And I try because I'm maybe a little bit lazy to find something I really understand and I have already done in other places. To say "Okay, I know if I do this, if I put this little trigger, it will have a good response inside the team." And so, you gain trust.
Carl Smith:
Yeah, and that makes perfect sense because what you need, you need trust but you also need credibility.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, absolutely.
Carl Smith:
Right, and not just for the team but for yourself because you're coming into kind of a crazy situation. And you need that reinforcement that "Yes I can do this."
Garci Inigo:
Yeah, absolutely. I know I'm a big guy etc, and I have a strong voice but I also doubting myself every second. So, it's really important to see that you're getting response of the people, even negative response but you think that things are changing. And what I have starting to do more of that I have did less before is also getting like you do a peer review when you coding for example, is fine some other people saying "Okay, I've done this because what do you think? Would you do it differently than the way I did it." And then, so you can have like a talk and be challenged. So, I have a circle of other coaches and we meet time to time just to do a peer review on our daily work, and see where we can improve ourselves. And that's something I love, like operations camp because that's also what we do in operations camps. Is sit for two three days and talk about our stuff and see "Okay, what do you do, because at the end of day what I have learned after three operations camps I think, is we all have the same problems. We just handle differently and we have them on a more or less weight those problems. But, the problems are always the same.
Carl Smith:
Yeah, no they are and it's interesting because even though you have to dig deeper into what your manager said, I think this idea of looking at it from a quality and velocity and culture as kind of three key metrics rights?
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
That's gonna be really interesting to see, it's gonna be more than just a feel. It can't just be "Hey, this was launched and it was fairly well received and we did it in a good time frame, and everybody seems happy." You have to have something a little more measurable. So, how are you thinking about that?
Garci Inigo:
I think I did at Cosette for example for the first time. So, Cosette at that time was really, all the yearly evaluation stuff was real a little bit oldish, and you had like a review by your manager and he said "Okay he did well here, not well there." And I didn't really agree on that way of doing things, so I asked my team to do my review for the year. And so, they sat in a room for one hour, thirty minutes with me telling me what has gone well, what I didn't do well, what things that I could improve. And then, they did a review by themselves for thirty minutes and they send that directly to my manager without me seeing that.
Carl Smith:
Wow.
Garci Inigo:
And so that you must really trust your team.
Carl Smith:
I'm so glad that I work an all team, and for the most part we work independently, because I would not be well in that situation.
Garci Inigo:
For me it was real good because there was some things there that I knew about myself that I need to improve, but seeing that people suffer from that, that was like a wake up call for me saying "Oh Garci, you really need to get better on that." And dumb things, but I had one on one meetings with all my staff and life in the agency's crazy, so I canceled time to times those meetings with people.
Carl Smith:
Right.
Garci Inigo:
And that was a real problem with people because they felt less important
Carl Smith:
Right.
Garci Inigo:
And I was aware it wasn't good to do it, but I was completely blind on the way that people had real bad time with that.
Carl Smith:
Yeah.
Garci Inigo:
So, it's not much but the effect that it comes back like real transparent even in a candle way by your team, was a "Okay Garci, you need to change this." And my manager would never had seen that or even tell me to do it.
Carl Smith:
Yeah. No, it would've gotten stuck and it would've festered and somebody would've left, right?
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
So, to be able to address it helps tremendously. So, we have a little bit of time left and I'm really curious, and I know you're just 10 days in you're still figuring it out. But say we get to the end of your first year there, and from a structure perspective, and you know I'm a big fan of flat-ish, how do you put in place a structure within a bank that allows you both flexibility and the ability to move and listen fairly quickly?
Garci Inigo:
To be truly sincere, I'm still trying to figure that out.
Carl Smith:
Yeah.
Garci Inigo: But what I've seen already because I have friends that already work at the bank. I even have some people that we were in my team at Cosette that came to the bank, so I already had conversations with them and there is ... If you think of a bank, you see real like pyramid and that's really shifting so you have more access directly to the big shots in here in the shop.
Carl Smith:
Right.
Garci Inigo:
And I've seen that even when I talk to my manger who has a real good high position here in the bank, I had my interview in the middle of the team. So, it was an access if people wanted to listen what was going on, they could see that they were hiring someone.
Carl Smith:
Wow.
Garci Inigo:
And so, to be sincerely true I felt a little bit awkward at the five first minutes of the interview.
Carl Smith:
Yeah.
Garci Inigo:
But after that, I was like "Okay, let's do this." And so, it's gonna be a challenge because it's easier for the managers to say "Okay we're changing and we're gonna be more in a lean way of doing things, a more flat way. And it's easier to say to them than for the teams saying, "Is it real or is it just a way that we say we're gonna do it?" So, again it's a work of trust and see if they eat their own dog food as I often say, then it's gonna be real quick and help the teams. But they must show the path that "Yeah, that's where we're going."
Carl Smith:
Well, Garci I'm going to put in my calendar to check back in with you in six months. So, that we can record again and see how things are going, and then maybe again in a year because I think this is a fascinating endeavor that you've taken on.
Garci Inigo:
Yeah.
Carl Smith:
I've always questioned your sanity a little bit but now I definitely know. But what an amazing opportunity and what a great person for them to have gotten in that role. So, congratulations and thank you so much for being on the show today.
Garci Inigo:
Merci beaucoup. That's a kind call, this is real pleasure talking with you.
Carl Smith:
Alright, everybody else we'll be back soon and we will talk to you then. Have a great week.