The Company Road Podcast E78 Ask better, lead smarter: Applying the consultant’s mindset inside your company
"I think there are three things that are really valued in organizations from consultants. The first is consultants come without a legacy bias. So the challenges, the roadblocks, the cultural norms within an organization, consultants are able to sidestep those. So are able to kind of come in and observe those with a bit of a neutral gaze." - Steph Foxworthy
Steph Foxworthy brings over 25 years of experience spanning customer experience, digital strategy, product innovation, sales, and marketing. He was recently managing director at Accenture Song in Melbourne and has driven results for major organisations including Coles and Telstra.
If you've ever wondered how consultants drive change or how to apply that mindset from within this episode is for you.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- The differences between employee, agency, and consultant mindsets
- How consultants build trust and get repeat business through expertise
- The role of pattern recognition in consultant success
- Why consultants can ask "dumb questions" that employees cannot
- How AI is changing the consulting landscape and democratising expertise
- The importance of asking the right questions in an AI-powered world
- Three key things consultants bring: no legacy bias, pattern recognition, storytelling
- The relationship between consultants and organisational politics
- How to know when to be directive versus exploratory as an intrapreneur
- The therapeutic role consultants often play in organisations
- Why design education teaches valuable enquiry skills
- The changing pathways for learning consulting skills
- How AI agents might change business negotiations in the future
Key links
About our guest
Steph is a customer experience, digital strategy and marketing professional with over 25 years' experience.
He’s an advocate for the power of technology to augment human creativity and to help drive growth and impact for customers, businesses and society.
After many years working in digital agencies and consulting, Steph is now Director of Managed Services at Our Community, a social enterprise dedicated to building stronger communities through software, education and services for the not-for-profit and grant-making sector.
Steph is also a non-executive director at Minus18 Foundation, a queer youth charity with a mission to improve the lives of LGBTQIA+ youth.
Steph is married with three high-school aged kids and lives bayside on Boonwurrung country in Naarm, Melbourne.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors man
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