I am Cindy Tonkin. I make smarter change happen. I am a coach, a facilitator, a trainer, a consultant. Read my bio here and find out what services I provide here.
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They call me the consultants’ consultant, because I mostly consult to consultants. Specifically, I help you introduce and sustain change, so you teams work smarter, faster, and “nicer”.
My consultancy career began in 1986 at Accenture. More than 100 companies have used my services since I founded my own consultancy in 1992. In this century 100% of my work has been repeat or referral work. So my clients like what I do! That’s me in the video below.
I’ve worked with data and insights teams at Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank, Suncorp and Telstra. See more clients here.
And I’ve written 18 books, with another one in the works.
Smarter change: do more with less, manage geniuses better, get happier stakeholders
My clients face three big problems.
- Trying to do more with less
- Working with hard-to-manage geniuses who can sometimes seem more like a liability than an asset
- Keeping their stakeholders (and their boss) happy
If you too have these problems and you need to introduce change then we should talk
Together we can do these 3 things:
- Measure the potential in your team (could you save 20% or 40% of their time if they worked differently?) Where are the gaps in analytics capability, where are they strong?
- Focus on where you’re headed, find out what’s important and what really isn’t, and make sure everyone knows which is which
- Build acumen: fill knowledge gaps, listen to customers, say no nicely, manage scope and do what’s most important first.
Improve things and care about people
So why do I do this?
As a young consultant I worked with a productivity consultancy. We would regularly save our clients 20 – 40% on their salary bill in 10-15 weeks. We worked uniquely on a return on investment basis (spend a million, get two million back). It was challenging and varied and I learnt lots. But I eventually left because I felt that I wasn’t treating my clients properly. And I wasn’t alone. We needed more empathetic ways to introduce and embed change. Better ways to connect with the people affected by it. I went on a quest to discover:
- How do we inspire stakeholders to want to change and then take action?
- What makes hard decisions easier?
- How do we get complex ideas across simply?
Fast forward 20 years, I now help other consultant teams with brilliant technical skills do exactly those things.
Caring about wasted time is in my nature. Working in productivity improvement honed my appetite for doing things right even more. While I have a deep-seated desire for things to work properly, we must care for people too.
I know that smart people can work much better and faster and nicer when we pay attention to customers and clients. And it makes the planet a better place too!
Let’s start now!
So what can we do together? There are two ways we can work together.
- Embed me in your team, and we’ll make the change happen
- Get Strategic – offsites
Smarter Data People – is a 15 month program where we renovate your team together.
It puts your data science team to work on the important problems faster, targets wasted time, delights your stakeholders and saves money. And of course your team is happier too.
In the first few months you’ll see silos break down, meetings become more productive and you’ll stop inching and start leaping toward your vision.
Get strategic
If you’ve not yet worked with me, then the best place to start is with a strategy day for your key team members. Define the changes you want to put in place. Get clear on what happens first. Put the team on the same page.
We all make the best decisions we can on the information available to us. Make sure that everyone in your team has the right information on what your strategy is. Get everyone in your team clear on where you’re all headed so that their decisions can easily align with yours. Book a strategic offsite with me now. Delegating, briefings and day-to-day interactions become smoother. Things get done because people know what needs to be done and what the “big rocks” are. A single day can make a huge difference and begin smarter change.
Ultimately, though, you want to get me working in your team on the Smarter Data People program. So you can make sure your teams solve the important technical problems faster with less hassle. And thank the heavens for how great they are.
We can make things work FAST
- Find and measure opportunities to improve. Then put
- Attention on what matters strategically, so we can add in
- Smarter work habits and
- Track and test that what we’re doing makes a difference.
Here’s how we start: let’s speak by phone. This link gives you a window into my diary so you can book ten minutes to talk that works for your commitments.
There’s so much more your team could be doing. If you feel bogged down take a breath. Then talk to me. We can make your days feel lighter and smoother. The team will hum, your boss will smile, and your stakeholders will ask you what you’ve done to suddenly make things work so well!
Find out about what clients think of my work here.
If you’re more interested in my artistic and improvisational pursuits, visit my art blog here.
Build analytics capability
Make your Data Scientists work smarter, faster and nicer: speak to Cindy