What does world-class consulting work look like? In this episode, Randy Shumway, the founder and chairman of Cicero Group, shares how Cicero Group delivers world-class consulting work to its clients. The company seeks to provide meaningful and durable solutions. The collaborative approach with their clients, the true partnership, and their focus on execution drive real impact within their organization. The high-quality work allows the consulting business to grow and market itself. Join Randy Shumway as he brings his passion for his work in this episode.
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I am joined by Randy Shumway. Randy, welcome.
Thank you for having me.
I’m very excited about this conversation. For those that aren’t familiar with you and your company, Randy, you are the Founder and Chairman of the Cicero Group, a management consulting firm with about 200 team members that work with organizations around the world. In 2017, you were recognized as CEO of the Year in Utah. You are in Salt Lake City, and you have also received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
There are some other awards and recognition that Cicero has received, which is very noteworthy. We are going to talk about that, mainly being the rink is one of the top places to work. We talk about people, talent, and that whole side of things, it’s so critical to making an impact. I want to get into that.
Before we hit on all that stuff, you got your MBA from Harvard Business School. Some people feel education is overrated, and it’s just all about real-world experience. Others think otherwise and that education, especially from a school like Harvard, is very valuable. I’m wondering for you, what has been your experience? The stuff you learned in Harvard Business School, was that directly applicable to you in running and growing Cicero, or do you feel like it was just nice and networking? Walk me through your stance and your experience when it comes to education and entrepreneurship.
My experience at Harvard Business School was extraordinary. I have studied more humanities-focused in undergraduate. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned how to critically think, how to write, and how to solve problems. I didn’t necessarily have the business knowledge and skills needed in order to help large organizations solve their most complex problems.
HBS, it’s tremendous two years. I sat alongside some of the smartest, most capable people I have ever met. We pour over these case studies and the foundation from leadership to marketing, to entrepreneurship, and to legal components that you need to take into consideration. I didn’t get very good at accounting or finance, but I got even a little bit of foundation in that as well. I think I have leaned heavily on the Harvard Business School Foundation.
Now, I’d be on the far right of the spectrum in terms of my advocacy for education. I think it opens one’s eyes. It gives you building blocks by which you are able to go into any situation. You might not know the answer, but you know how to get to the answer. It creates an inquisitive nature that propels lifetime learning. Frankly, in management consulting, it gives a degree of credibility that you have a degree of training that’s prepared you to give clients accurate answers.
You started the company in 2001. What made you start your own consulting firm? I know you had an internship at another large consulting firm and spent some time in different organizations. Why not climb the corporate ladder or work for a private equity firm, hedge fund, or something else? Why go out and start your firm?
Often, I’m asked to speak at business schools. One of the questions I’m always asked is, what was my business plan? The second question I’m always asked is, what’s my exit strategy? We can come back to the exit strategy in a second. My business plan, I wanted to pay my mortgage, so I have worked at Bain & Company, but both my wife and I had more humble upbringings than the majority of my classmates.
I remember an orientation sitting by Brian Vowinkel, who was a West Point cadet and had been an Army officer. He and I were both there for financial aid. The financial aid officer walked into this group and said, “I want to put your hearts at ease. A full 40% of you are requiring some degree of financial aid or another.”
If we deliver high-quality work to our clients, they retain us to work subsequently and refer us to other organizations. Click To TweetBrian and I looked at each other with our jaws dropped because it had the opposite effect on us. We have said to each other, “60% of our classmates can afford this?” It was a new world for us. I worked full-time. It was 31 hours a week all through graduate school. Both my wife and I were in graduate school simultaneously, and we were terrified by the student debt.
My dad calls me before we start and said, “Are you nuts? You will borrow six times as much money in two years as your mom and I have struggled for 30 years to pay off in terms of our mortgage.” It was an unseemingly high amount of money that we were borrowing, so I worked 31 hours a week. That was what was required to get health insurance at this great company called Think New Ideas.
It was an integrated marketing company. This is the late-’90s. Organizations are discovering the internet. I was lucky enough to be hired as their Director of Strategy, and I would go in and help these organizations think about what technology could enable, in terms of strengthening their relationship with customers.
I had worked there. Think New Ideas was acquired in 1999 by a KPMG spinoff, called Answerthink. I remained at Answerthink. They sent me to San Francisco after graduate school in order to lead the integration of three of their operations in San Francisco. It was an extraordinary learning experience. A year into it, at the beginning of 2001, we were experiencing the dot-com bust.
Answerthink decided to consolidate operations East of the Mississippi. They offered me to move to New York City and work in their New York City office as they would be closing each of their West Coast offices. It so happened that during this period of time, my wife and I had unexpectedly become foster parents to a fourteen-year-old young man.
Fast forward, we subsequently adopted him. He’s every bit a full-fledged member of our family. Now, here we are, foster parents to this sweet fourteen-year-old who had just experienced the real vicissitudes of life for the first thirteen years of his life. Maureen, my wife said, “I don’t care what you do. You can be a clerk down the street at Walmart, but we are not moving him out of his high school until he graduates. He can’t have that type of disruption in his life. If anything, he needs continuity at the stage.”
I called my boss and I said, “I can’t move to New York City, so I’m going to have to leave. Here’s the reason why. I love Answerthink, I’d love to continue, but I can’t move.” I’m going to go look for a real job. In the interim, I’m going to consult. I had in my head that if I called it Cicero Group, rather than Randy Shumway subcontractor, I could charge $25 more an hour.
We started at a Cicero Group rubbing nickels together. I will tell you, each of my three former employers: Dow Chemical, Answerthink, and Bain & Company were our three first clients. My boss at Answerthink said, “If that’s what you are going to do, then we will hire you.” Suddenly, I had three clients, and it’s a nice lesson to be learned that you never burn bridges with past employers.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I’m interviewing for what I thought was my dream job. I was to be the chief marketing officer of a company. Five-minute commute from my home in San Francisco. Great people with whom I’d be able to work. In my final interview with the CFO, he leans across his desk and says, “Randy, I will be honest, I’m not sure if you want a job or if you want a client.” It caught me off guard. I thought for a moment and I said, “I think you are right. I want a client.” I went home and told my wife, “We are going to make a run at this. This is my fourth client. Let’s see if we can make a go.” We have never looked back. It’s been an incredible ride.
I want to fast forward from that time a little bit because I imagine that in the early days, you were doing almost everything, if not everything inside of the business. Sales business development at minimum. There’s a point where, in many companies, the founder will hold onto sales business development for quite a period of time because of the folks on relationships and their network. I’m wondering for you, at what point and at what level of revenue or a number of employees did you bring on others to do business development to take sales off of your plate?
I guess never. That’s not the answer you are looking for.
No, I’m not looking for any answer. You tell me what.
In Cicero, one of the things that I think has distinguished us is none of our salespeople. We do not have a sales team. Our experience has been that, if we deliver high-quality work to our clients, they retain us to do subsequent work and they refer us to other organizations. Executives at the company leave and go to another company. When they get there, they say, “You ought to hire Cicero Group.” It becomes this positive virtuous cycle.
One of the things that I think is special about Cicero is that everybody, even myself, is billable. We are all working on projects at any given time. I think that keeps our skills sharp. The reality is that management consulting is not sold, it’s bought. When I’m in a meeting with a CEO, CFO, Chief Marketing Officer, or Chief Strategy Officer, and they are navigating an analogous situation where I’m able to tell them the framework that I would utilize to approach this problem if I were in their shoes. They realize, “We know what we are talking about.” That conversation always evolves into something further to say, “How could you help?” We have grown pretty consistently at about a 20% to 25% clip a year without a single new business development person and simply by delivering high-quality work for our clients.
I’d love to dig into that a little bit more. When you talk about really high-quality work, what does that look like for you? How do you define high-quality work? A lot of people say, “We provide high-quality work.” What does that mean to you? I’d love it if maybe you could take that from the perspective of your clients. What do you think distinguishes your high-quality work from other work that another consulting firm might provide?
I’m going to answer that with a story, then I will try to be a little bit more methodical and give you 3 or 4 distinctive characterizations. The story I will use is this. The chief people officer at a Fortune 10 global organization calls me and says, “I can’t wait for your team to come in and help us with this next problem. Can I tell you why? One of the VPs and I were running for the elevator and we said, ‘Hold the elevator.’ They didn’t get held. My colleague puts her arm through the elevator right as it’s closing in order to prevent it from shutting. It opens up. There are a bunch of 26-year-old Ivy League graduates all on their cell phones looking up at us like, ‘Who do you think you are?’”
“We got on the elevator and those consultants from one of the three most well-respected brands in the industry walked out of the elevator. This other VP and I looked at each other and go, ‘Why do we have those folks in here ostensibly trying to help us when they are so condescending toward us? We can’t wait to work with Cicero again.’”
I think we have tried to differentiate ourselves by being nerds with personalities. We roll up our sleeves rather than replacing our clients. We try to build internal capacity. We measure the results of what we recommend. We live by that. A lot of organizations and consulting firms conclude when they deliver the deck. Whether or not it’s a doorstop, we are executed indifferently to them.
In fact, you often hear them say, “The strategy was brilliant. It was the execution that was flawed.” Give me a break. If it’s not executed, it was useless. For us, this collaborative approach that we take with our clients, this true partnership, and our focus on execution and on ensuring the rubber hits the road that drives real impact within their organization. It’s one of them. Not only is it good for our clients, but then we are able to reference, “Here’s what you asked us to do. Here were the results.” That lends itself to clients saying, “If you were able to help us over here, can you help us over there?”
When you talk about the measurement part of measuring results, what does that look like? Is that some benchmarking before? Do you start the engagement partway through at the end at a high-level or as much detail as you could provide without getting too technical? I’m looking for what people might be able to gain from this and go, “Maybe I could do that or I could implement one part of this into our business.”
You just answered it. It’s defining beforehand, “Here’s what we are ultimately trying to accomplish.” Agreeing on a few metrics, and then objectively measuring the degree to which those metrics are being achieved. Not just when we are there, but subsequently. We look to ensure that the trajectory continues so that we have truly inculcated processes of continuous improvement and mechanisms that have sustainability.
I will give you an example. We might look at if you are launching a new product, growth, and market share. You might also look at net promoter score, not just among customers, but among employees. If it’s an operational excellence engagement where we are doing a lien, value stream mapping, and process re-engineering. We can look at the cost savings, the employee net promoter score, the customer net promoter score, and some other metric surrounding product quality or service quality. What you are able to illustrate is that we were able to eliminate waste without hurting quality or experience. Those are the types of things across the spectrum of different types of problems that we are solving for our clients.
Christensen says, “93% of strategies implemented originated from an emergent approach. Where you throw something against the wall, see what sticks, see what doesn't stick, recalibrate, improve upon it.” Click To TweetI love that because you are not just looking at one metric by itself. You are looking at the implications across and how things connect or interact, which is powerful. You talked about, you are providing this high-quality work for your clients, which they may not be getting from other providers. It’s the reason why they are keeping you around and why you are able to build more internally with them and increase your capacity to deliver more with that same client. You also talked about your clients, that they will refer you to others. That’s one way of getting business. Do you actively and proactively have a process for getting referrals from your clients? Are you just sitting back and the referrals come your way?
I wish we were sitting back and the clients were just coming our way. We flew in all of the partners from our various geographical offices. Last time, we spent five hours deliberating how to maintain growth without sacrificing the quality of work, but also the quality of people. Culture matters a lot to us. You referenced the fact that we are ranked one of the top five best consulting firms to work for in the world. We take a lot of pride in that.
The discussion strategy session among all the partners at Cicero was about how we maintain our growth trajectory without diminishing either of those. We are considering a new business development tract within the organization because we are now at a size where you are so big, you need to have new business development mechanisms.
We also talk about what we can do organically to continue to nurture those relationships with clients because so much of the work we do is at the senior-most level of the organization. Oftentimes, those individuals serve on boards of directors. They serve various community responsibilities where they are interacting with others. It’s rare that a client isn’t involved in another organization that is seeking.
It’s rare that they don’t have this, where the other organization with which they are involved isn’t seeking mechanisms to improve where there’s an opportunity for them to say, “I know an organization that delivers McKinsey level or Bain level quality of work, but in a different style of partnership and at a different cost point that may be a little bit more sustainable.”
Correct me if I’m wrong what I’m taking from that is your current approach to referrals is more about connecting with the right people or being with those people on boards or whatever it might be. It’s not so much a script, system, or process that you run with clients at a specific timeline in the engagement to say or do something that triggers something that it’s not that. It’s more of the former.
It’s not very systematized, but I think every one of us when we are at dinner with clients and when we are wrapping projects up, we ask them, “Are there other ways in which we could assist? Are there other organizations with whom you are working that we could be helpful?” I had one client many years ago who say, “Randy, every other consulting firm I work with, before they even start the first project, they are selling me on the second one.” I resent that and Cicero doesn’t do that, and I appreciate that about Cicero.
This particular client had not hired us for a bit of time. I laughed and said, “I don’t know if that’s a positive or a negative commentary, because clearly, you didn’t hire us for that second project.” He laughed and said, “No, we are getting you on something that we need a lot of help on. I don’t feel like I’m ever sold by you. I feel more that your work speaks for itself. That’s what’s in the tip of the spear that has us asking you to come back again to continue to help.”
I’m wondering about the firm owner that might have ten people right now and wants to grow to 30 or the one that’s at 30 that wants to grow to 50 or 100. What do you think they need to be focused on at each stage? Another way to say this is, what should people be paying attention to, or what do you see as the shift in focus or activity as you go through the different stages of growth?
There are variations at each level. We take a great deal of pride in not playing house.
What do you mean by that?
Many years ago during the dot-com boom, I have a friend who has a great idea and asks me to serve on the board. Every quarter when we would meet, they would talk about what they were doing to perfect the business plan and the people that they had added it. There was a board of directors, but there was also a board of advisors.
How thoughtful they had been about the structure from the beginning of the company because everybody had these examples of how they had ignored the structure of the company. It had blown up because when they got big and went public, there was all this confusion, greed, and hurt feelings. They were going to build it right from the get-go.
At every meeting, I would say, “Have you piloted the product with a couple of customers?” They say, “No. Let’s not put the cart before the horse. We have got to get this infrastructure right.” They ran out of funding. I would opine like Christensen says that 93% of strategies that were effectively implemented originated from an emergent approach. Where you throw something against the wall, see what sticks, see what doesn’t stick, recalibrate, and improve upon it. That’s an emergent strategy as compared to a deliberate strategy. The vast majority of successes originate from an emergent strategy approach.
When I say, don’t play house. I mean, roll up your sleeves and get to work. At Cicero even to this day, as large as we become, we do three things. We deliver high-quality work, we develop clients, and we develop people. If you are spending time doing something else, you might be wasting your time. I think a lot of consulting firms spend a lot of time doing the extraneous, more interesting, more firm building and perception, and the nitty-gritty of rolling up your sleeves. Thinking hard about your client’s needs and building the solutions that will maximize success for your clients. If you delegate that to others, no, you lead out.
That’s how you build culture. You lead out on the things that are driving the greatest value for your clients. I would say at every level, the larger you get, the more you need to make sure you have got the legal infrastructure and the financial backbone. For the first few years, I run to AlphaGraphics and print business cards. I had just a local bank account.
Is there a level in your mind that you think people shouldn’t focus too much on all the shiny objects and all the potential improvements? They should be focused on the fundamentals and foundation, like $10 million or $5 million. Is there a number in your mind or a certain number of people? What do you think about that?
I’m a little risk-averse, but we have never taken an outside dollar. We have always made payroll. We have a strong balance sheet. We did it by focusing on the core, and not letting there be subsequent distractions. I will tell you that in 2010, we were looking to acquire a company, and a good friend of mine runs a private equity firm.
I said, “I’m a great operator, but I’m not a great investor because the glass is always half full for me.” I always look at the glass and think, “If we do X, Y, and Z, we can make it improve. I like being an operator. Will you look at this deal and tell me whether or not we should do it?” He says, “Come on in and just share everything with me. Open the book about your organization and about the organization you are acquiring.”
Halfway through our discussion when I came in to do that, he said, “Who’s your banker?” I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “Who’s your bank?” I was like, “I don’t need a banker. I can deposit funds and I withdraw funds.” He goes, “Who do you have your line of credit with?” I said, “Line of credit? I don’t need a line of credit. If we don’t have the money in the bank, we don’t do it. That’s how we prioritize.”
He starts full belly laughing and going, “Come on.” I don’t know. I’m a believer in blocking and tackling. When we first started Cicero, I got a few friends as we started gaining more clients. What I’m saying happened, as we had a room at my house, we had a big desk, and we all sat around it with laptops. We had a couple of whiteboards on the wall. We had a big phone in the middle of the conference room, so we’d all put headphones in and work, and then take them out and collaborate.
The phone would ring. Somebody would pick it up and say, “Cicero Group. This is Daniel. How can I help you?” The person would say, “Can I speak with Monica?” Daniel would say, “One moment. Let me see if Monica’s in her office.” Hit hold and look across the desk and say, “Monica, he’s on the phone for you. Do you want to talk with him?” She’d say, “Absolutely, I have been waiting for that.” He’d go back off hold and say, “Let me transfer you to her now.” Which would be him handing the phone over to her.
Just build something you want to be working at for an extended period. If somebody comes along and wants to acquire it, I think it'll be more valuable. Click To TweetNow, it’s a different environment, so there are lots of analogies that we could apply this to, but we didn’t need a sophisticated phone system. We didn’t need a sophisticated network and a monthly lease. We were probably a dozen people before we secured an office and a legitimate phone system. We were probably 25 people before we hired a law firm to structure and spend $10,000 to get all the corporate documents done correctly because we are pinching pennies to focus on the core.
That’s such a powerful message because I think there are more options and opportunities than ever before. People get distracted by all kinds of software, tools, and new trendy and shiny objects. They shift their concentration away from the things that matter most. It’s a good lesson to have you share. I want to ask you as well. When you look at the lessons learned to this point in growing the business over the last couple of decades. What are some of the lessons learned AKA mistakes that you have made that you still remember, the big ones?
With the benefit of hindsight, if you could go back, maybe you would fix them or maybe you wouldn’t. What is something that you have learned from that you go, “I don’t want somebody else to make this mistake or I think this would be a great opportunity for somebody to adjust knowing what I know?” What stands out for you?
There are so many examples. We learn best from the mistakes we have made. We have made quite a few doozies. The first thing I would say is that we have tried hard to leave room for learning from our mistakes. I have worked at an organization once that came down hard on people when mistakes were made. It made no sense to me at all because it stifled innovation. People were reluctant to take risks and the status quo was rewarded and it’s what they got. I hope one of the things we have effectively done as an organization is to learn how to celebrate mistakes. Instead of sweeping them under the carpet, share them with one another, and collectively learn from them.
Was that not always the case then?
I think it’s always been the case at Cicero to do that. Along with our keys to success, it was inculcating that behavior that allowed people to make mistakes, laugh about them, and learn from them. There are times in which you extend yourself and say, “If we could do the A and we could do B, then we could certainly do C.” There are times in which we have gotten up over our skis, “If we could do A, B, and C, we could do D and E.” We start doing it and realize we didn’t have the core capabilities that were necessary.
In those cases, we scramble, we go get the right people, we bring them in, and we lose money, but we never deliver. There’s been a few of those, but there’s also been a few of those honestly where suddenly we were doing new innovative things that we previously didn’t think we had the capacity to do. We discovered that we were quite good at it.
Given that’s the case that you are going to take some bets, there’s a risk at times they are not going to work out, you have overextended, and money’s been down the drain. Other times, you have taken the same actions where you are trying something new and it does pay off. What’s your belief about that? Do you believe that firms should be taking calculated risks and trying new things knowing that at times there will be a waste? Is it better to stick to your core and keep the focus on it? How do you feel about that?
Consulting is bought, it’s not sold. There’s something to be said for sticking to your core. What are you good at and doing again and again? There’s also something to be said for something that, I hope our organization is particularly good at, adapting. That we have frameworks, skills, and capabilities such that even if it’s a problem that we haven’t previously encountered, we are smart enough that we can figure it out. I think that keeps your tools sharp, but I also think aligning with client needs is something that the best management consulting firms are constantly seeking to do.
For those that are running firms right now and are thinking about an eventual exit at one point down the road. What suggestions would you offer them to increase the value of their firm or things that they should be thinking about now as opposed to waiting for the future?
I so appreciate you asking me that question. I told you that the two questions I always get asked at schools, these MBA students raise their hands and say, “What was your business plan? It didn’t seem like you had much of one.” I’m like, “No, we didn’t.” Another one will raise their hands and say, “I questioned your exit strategy. Wouldn’t you have been smarter to have built a product company in which you made money while you sleep?” I always chuckle. Why is the objective of building something to exit it?
Could you imagine going into a marriage thinking about what your exit strategy should be or going on an incredible vacation or journey and thinking, “What’s my exit strategy?” Enjoy the journey. We started Cicero with a vision of working with people that we loved working with internally as well as with clients. Solving complex problems that made a difference. Being excited to get out of bed every day to go make a difference in the world.
I have never thought about an exit strategy. Why exit something that I love doing? That’s truly having a legitimate impact. I frown at the mechanisms used in order to position an organization to be attractive for a sale or something like that. Just build something that you want to be working at for an extended period of time. If somebody comes along and wants to acquire it, I think it will be more valuable. We divested a subsidiary of Cicero, a company that we had built for over fifteen years. It was a management consulting firm that was doing incredible work.
Was it under the Cicero brand that had the Cicero name or was it a separate name?
It was called Education Direction. It did exactly what we have been talking about, but it did it in K-12 schools’ school turnaround. We would go in and we would do an exhaustive root cause analysis and understand the things that were most obstructing maximum improvements in student learning. We’d overlay evidence-based practices, and then we’d roll up our sleeves. For the next years, we’d work with these schools to build techniques of continuous improvement to drive student learning. It had an 86% success rate. It’s extraordinary. It’s unheard of in public education. We built it to maximize impact.
In the process, a very well-respected organization came along and said, “We can do great things with your company. We are in every school district in every state in the country, and schools all over the country need these services.” Combining the magic that you have created with the relationships, network, and reputation that we have. It will accelerate the opportunities for the employees in that division, but expand the number of schools with which they are able to be working with.”
Did they acquire that company?
They acquired it. It made all the sense in the world in terms of opportunities for the employees. It made all the sense in terms of the network that we would capture in terms of the number of schools we’d be able to expand to. It made sense economically. It isn’t something that we had proactively sought. Frankly, the result of that is that those that were in that division loved working at the organization every day up until we sold it. They are all still there having an extraordinary time because the focus was on building something that had an impact rather than building something that would align our financial pockets.
Your role and your title are Founder and Chairman, yet you mentioned that your work still to a degree is billable. I’m wondering, how do you spend your time on a typical day or week? How involved are you in actual client projects and doing delivery of work? Do you spend the majority of your time on strategy, vision, and team? Just a high-level breakdown of how you structure a typical day?
Probably a third of my time is client billable work where I’m leading an engagement or I’m working to help a client solve problems. Probably, 1/6 of my time is spent on what are we doing and how are we navigating it. Are there some inorganic opportunities that we should be considering? Where should we be expanding geographically? Why is one geographic location doing better than another geographic location? What can we learn from that?
Probably, 1/6 of my time is spent on people development, mentoring, training, and being a thought partner to individuals. Professional development type of things. The remaining 1/3 is probably spent on new business development, evaluating proposals, meeting with prospective clients, and doing community work. I haven’t done many podcasts but speaking at conferences, televised interviews, and things like that. I serve on a few boards, both corporate boards as well as philanthropic boards. That takes a portion of that time in that bucket as well.
With 200 employees or team members, how many direct reports do you have? What does that structure look like? I don’t mean for the whole organization, but just more as you have grown. To me, it sounds like you have a very hands-on direct approach throughout the organization. How many people are you having set weekly meetings with that are direct reports?
Focus on building something that has an impact rather than building something that would align our financial pockets. Click To TweetYou would be so disappointed in our organizational structure. We are very flat. One of the senior partners, Lawrence Cowan had been a partner for many years. I love the guy. I’m constantly learning from him. He’s coming into my office and saying, “What are you doing in my backyard?” It was an area for which he has responsibility. I inadvertently had swam outside of my lanes and was trying to help out in something for which he had responsibility. It was inadvertent.
My motive had been pure, it had been to help, and then just scope and crept in his lanes. I don’t like people swimming in my lanes. I immediately said, “I did not mean to. I apologize.” I shared with them everything that I had learned, what the work I’d done so far, and handed it over to him. I said, “You run with it. This is your department.” One of the things we do is among all the departments and all the partners, we have different responsibilities.
How many partners are across the company?
12 or 15. We call them senior partners and partners, but they are all partners. I guess if you combine partners and senior partners, it’s 15 or 16. Each of us has different responsibilities. We have a weekly leadership meeting that I guess ostensibly I lead, but I don’t facilitate it. Our director of operations facilitates it. He collects all the necessary information and reports out to everybody beforehand so that when we come, we are just discussing solutions rather than coordinating things.
We each pitch in where we are needed. I guess the buck stops with me, but usually, I have a few things for which I have the responsibility and other partners have things for which they have responsibility. Sometimes we are going to work on something where the particular responsibility, the buck stops with an engagement manager or a principal. If so, I treat them as if they are the boss and say, “I will return a report. I will tell you what things I did and where I got them too. I will deliver them to you just like I would expect you to do with me if I were in charge of it.”
Quick rapid fire before we wrap up here. I’m interested in your approach to lifestyle. Building a sizable firm, how do you find balance? What are you doing on a typical daily basis? Are there a couple of habits that you have that you feel contribute to your success? Showing up, being able to deliver at high levels, being focused, anything that stands out?
I have five children. I’m resolutely committed to being a good husband and a good dad. I’m married to the most tremendous woman in the world. I try very hard to listen, so when I screw up and she says, “Rebalance.” I hope I do a good job listening and adapting. I do exercise every day. You can’t see, but I’m standing on a treadmill and I have a walking desk. If I’m typing emails, I’m walking.
Are you walking right now?
I’m not walking right now. I’d be bumping up and down if I were walking right now.
That’s what I think because I’m at a standing desk as well. I stand pretty much all day when I’m in the office. Like you, I exercise every day as well, but I was like, if you are walking right now, that’s one heck of a smooth walk you got.
I don’t have that smooth of a walk or cardiovascular. You’d hear me breathing. Again, I unapologetically incorporate my family into my job. My dog is often at the office with me. My kids have a workstation. They come and study after school. I take my children with me to projects when I travel. If it works, I will take one of my children with me. I was in Africa on a large engagement.
The general counsel couldn’t get my fifteen-year-old son. He was here with me for two weeks. Being here for two weeks, I could have worked. I remember the entire conversation he had with me was with my fifteen-year-old son. At the end of our meeting, he said, “This has changed my life. From this point forward, my kids are going to have a desk at the office. They are going to work alongside me.”
My youngest daughter, she’s getting a little older now, so we don’t do it as we did. If I’m at a dinner meeting, I used to excuse myself for 10 to 15 minutes, go out into the lobby of the restaurant, or go to a quiet place. I will FaceTime her and we’d read Harry Potter together. When I say, unabashedly do so. I don’t apologize. I don’t give an excuse like, “My child is with me because of this,” or, “I need to step out and read to my daughter. Sorry.”
I don’t apologize. I look forward to doing it. My kids coming with me. I want them to learn. They are part of my life. I exercise with my kids. If I’m running, it’s with one of my kids. If I’m swimming laps, it’s with one of my kids. I’m certainly not perfect at it, but I try hard to integrate my family fully into all aspects of my life.
Is there one book that you have either read or listened to, it could be fiction or non-fiction, but anything that’s stuck with you that you feel like others might benefit from it or enjoy it?
I was not expecting that question. I should have expected that question. I’m giving you an insight into my soul, Morality by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. It’s a book I have read that I love. I’m listening to The Frozen Hours, it’s a Jeff Shaara book on the Korean War while I swim laps in the morning. I put headphones in while I swim laps. It’s probably not what you are looking for. Maybe you are looking for a business book or something like that, but Morality by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is a book that I have read. It won’t surprise you, I try to read 2 or 3 books a month.
Before we wrap up here, Randy, I want to make sure that people can learn more about you, your work, and what Cicero has going on. Where is the best place for people to go?
CiceroGroup.com. Come to our website.
Randy, thank you again so much for coming on here and spending time sharing some of your journey, wisdom, and experience with us. I appreciate it.
It was an absolute treat for me. Thanks for having me on the show.
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