Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Deloitte Consulting CEO Dan Helfrich

I recently interviewed Dan Helfrich on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: I'm excited to have the leader of a consulting firm that all of us know and many of us have either worked for, have worked with or have friends in the company. Dan health rich runs a $10 billion plus business that is comprised of over 55,000 professionals. Dan Helfrich is the chairman and CEO of Deloitte consulting. Dan, welcome to the show.

Dan: Fantastic to be here.

Adam: Thanks so much for joining us. And first question, which is a question that I'm sure you're asked ad nauseum, but I have to ask it. How do you get hired at Deloitte consulting? What are your best tips?

Dan: You gotta be lucky. At least I was. No, I, there's a lot of routes into our firm. It's interesting, Adam, you know, back in the day I would say that being from a quote, tier one university and being recruited directly off campus was the primary pathway into Deloitte consulting. Now, there are dozens of pathways that old pathway still exists and we get a lot of great people from they are. But we're at a far wider group of universities now at design schools and trade schools and you know, a much wider group of, you know, state colleges and universities in historically black colleges and universities. And then experienced hires have become a far greater percentage of our hires. Some of those have consulting backgrounds, some of those are data scientists from industry. Some of those are nurses or doctors that have decided to leave the clinical world and practicing consultants. So that to me is the fun art is there used to be maybe the, a common recipe to get into Deloitte. Now the pathways are, you know, numerable.

Adam: What do you look for in people who you hire?

Dan: Well, it's a combination of skill and in particular the types of skills that I need. I need data skills, I need analytical skills, I need design skills, I need quantitative, I need rapid problem solving skills. I need brilliant communication skills. I need finance skills. So, and I could add 15 more skills to that. So I'm, I'm certainly looking to build a team with skill sets, but then what am I really looking for? I'm looking for creativity. I'm looking for people who are great listeners and I'm looking for people who like team orientation to solving problems. And I'll tell you what I'm not looking for and what I am, we try to root out at all costs is arrogance. We spit out and chew arrogance in this firm and I think that's a beautiful thing. And so I can do a better job of identifying arrogance on the way in, then I prevent it from entering our organization.

Adam: Dan, I love that. Along those lines, what in your view are the keys to building a winning organizational culture? Well, first of all, you have to start with a mentality that culture is and can be a competitive differentiator. And I absolutely believe it can be. And so culture isn't about having happier, friendlier people. That's a byproduct of a vibrant, thriving culture. But culture is about creating a place where more of the best people and more of the most diverse people in the workforce want to be. So you start with that mentality and then you have to make the culture conversation practical. Because many of my peers, most of my peers, whether in the professional services industry or in any industry, we'll get up on stage and get in front of their people and say culture matters to me. The differentiator is how do you make it practical.

And some of the ways I'm making it practical and we're making it practical are you know, things like saying here are the commitments that we are making to you as a member of our team and you know we have about a dozen of them and if you don't experience those things in your day to day life, then you have a responsibility to raise your hand and say that part of my experience isn't working. And we've also given people a set of what I call everyday equations. And the idea of everyday equations is here's something that can guide an individual's behavior on a day to day basis. And what might that look like? Well, one of them says 15 minutes of content and decisions is greater than, and that's where you get the equation. Concept is greater than 30 minutes of clutter. And what I'm telling our team there is let's be efficient with the way we use our time.

Because if I can strip out some of the time people spend that just frankly doesn't add any value, then I can give that time back to my people, which they can then use to do whatever they want with. They can use it to learn, they can use it to go spend with their family, they can use it to go to a yoga class, they can use it to go spend more time with a client. But I have found that taking cultural ambition and then translating it down to commitments and practical things like our everyday equations is the special sauce.

Adam: I think that's awesome. Dan, one of the things that I'm especially impressed with when it comes to you and your background and, and what you're all about is in your free time, who, I don't know that an, a lot of people know this about you, but you're the play by play announcer for the Georgetown Hoyas men's soccer team. And I personally think that that's really cool. I love sports. I'm not a huge soccer guy, but I love sports. Can you talk about what that means to you as a leader, what that means to you as a human being? How you're able to wear both hats and how being a play by play guy just makes you a better CEO.

Dan: I love it. So first of all, when you, you asked me that question in the future, you have to say the national champion, Georgetown Hoyas men's soccer team.

Adam: I'm an Angels fan, so I'm not really used to the words “national champions” and I'm also a USC Trojan football fan. So the word national champions, they were very familiar words back when I was in college, but over the last a decade plus it's been a sort of, I don't really remember what it feels like, hoping to get that back sometime soon.

Dan: So yeah, so Georgetown won the national championship recently defeating Virginia in a thrilling game. And you know, my Twitter account is a good place to see how my normally I'm calm demeanor can turn into high pitch Dan calling exciting goals in the NCA tournament. But it's an important question in it. And the implication of the question is absolutely right in that I think me choosing to spend time on my broadcasting career slash hobby, even as I've progressed to this role in the organization, it's really important. And it's not that, it's just important to me, it's important to our practice. And you know, leaders talk about wellness and they talk about well being and Hey, it's important that you have a life too. And yet many leaders either don't reveal that life to their teams or frankly they aren't making the choices that prioritize their own wellness, their own ability to have a meaningful life outside of the workplace.

And I think that's wrong. And so for me to be a complete person that has the energy and the drive to be successful as a CEO, I need a fulfilling life with my four kids and my wife and I need things that give me energy outside of work because that creates oxygen for me to be great at work. And for me, broadcasting is, is one of those things. And being able to tell the story to my 56,000 person team that I'm making choices to prioritize broadcasting on a Wednesday at 2:30 PM in the fall when there's a game over what seemingly might be an important business meeting that same day that in, you know, a small way is giving my team permission to make their own version of choices that create fulfilling life outside of work. Now, the last thing I'll say to your final part of that question is there is absolutely a connection between what it takes to be a great play by play broadcaster and what it takes to be a great CEO.

And I would say the most important thing is the combination of preparation and yet reacting to and being articulate in the moment. So do I have to be fully prepared every time I go into a client conversation every time I'm in front of my team, every time I'm in front of a board of directors on a complex topic. Absolutely. Just like I need to be prepared and knowing the roster and the statistics of the teams that I'm broadcasting. But guess what? Stuff happens. Things happen in a soccer game that are dramatic that you never could have predicted and just like things happen in the course of a meeting or an important event in the business world that you couldn't have predicted and how to make sure you're calm and articulate and effective as the world unfolds in front of you is I think an underrated skill and it's mutually beneficial to my career as a broadcaster and as a business executive to do that.

Adam: I love that. What are some of the things that you've learned as a broadcaster and in your 15 years as a broadcaster, as you've improved that you try to pass along to the people who work under you in terms of how they can become better and more effective communicators?

Dan: Sometimes letting the situation breathe a little and letting the moment sit and not filling the air time with your voice becomes a really important technique. And I've learned that and gotten better with that as a broadcaster. And it's something I teach our folks to do is sort of to know when to inject your voice into the conversation and when to [inaudible] to let it breathe. It also teaches you what I think are really important skills around when to inject different intonation and different emotion into a conversation at work. Because if everything is on overdrive all the time, then you lose the ability to distinguish between moments of real drama and those that don't require it. And broadcasting has been a way to, you know, to help me do that. And then the last thing is if you're a broadcaster, just as if you're a leader, you're serving someone else and you're not the star.

So in the case of broadcasting, you're serving an audience and the stars are on the field and your job is to make the whole production successful. And as a leader of a big organization and someone who believes servant leadership is a real thing. I'm trying to orchestrate the environment to make other people successful, but the last thing I want to be is the one in the headlines because other people are making the magic happen every day with our clients and they deserve the headlines. In your view, what are the defining qualities of an effective leader? Empathy, inspiration, authenticity, and effective communication. How can anyone become a better and more effective leader? By practicing, by putting yourself in situations that are uncomfortable, to explore new muscles you haven't, I explored before and see how it feels. Now that might mean depending on where you are in the business, where that might be.

Raising your hand and saying, I'm gonna say, Hey, I'd like to lead that status meeting next week, and you're standing in front of a room that you used to be sitting on the side of and you experience what that is for the first time. It might mean that your company is starting a recruiting program at a new university and instead of volunteering to be one of the people interviewing you, say, you know what, I'd love to be the one leading that recruiting effort at that university. And then you experience what it feels like to have other people relying on you for guidance, for inspiration, for feedback. And you try it on and you say, do I like that? Am I good at it? You ask for feedback from those people that you're leading and, and then you find in what conditions am I going to enjoy and be successful as a leader.

Adam: How is leadership different today than it was earlier in your career?

Dan: I paused because I don't think that it is, it is the context changes the size of what I or someone is leading changes. But if you go back to what you asked in terms of the, the most important qualities of a leader, I believe those are, those are timeless. And part of having empathy, part of being a good communicator is generations in the workplace are different than they were 30 years ago. So how you empathize with someone now might be different than if the years ago, but you're still practicing empathy. How you communicate and capture the imaginations of the people that you're around. The, the animals might be different. The forums might be different. You and I wouldn't have been podcasting 20 years ago, but I think the essential attributes of a leader are timeless.

Adam: How essential is ethics to leadership?

Dan: It is fundamental. It cannot be faked. And in today's world, the responsibility of leaders two make ethical business decisions, not just in the context of the environment that they are directly managing, but make ethical decisions and understand the second and third order consequences of those decisions. Two broader ecosystems to society as a whole. That's essential. And I think organizations that spend time, not just teaching technical skills or communication skills, but teaching applied ethics, scenario-based discussions on how to make difficult decisions when there is an ethical component of them. Those organizations are and will continue to be ahead. What's the biggest ethical challenge that you face in your career and how did you navigate it? Look, I think the biggest ethical challenge that I've faced is probably how to appropriately identify bad behavior. Bye. Someone in in a position of superiority that might be someone in our own organization or frankly a client that is done something, said something behaved in a way that is in congruent with our values and finding the comfort and the courage to raise that and to tackle it without fearing the consequences or you know, retribution that others might perceive I could be at risk of.

And in going through some of those situations is why as a leader today I go out of my way. Anytime I'm with our people to say you not only have the permission but you have the responsibility. Two hold all of us to a set of cultural standards of behavior. And if I'm not living up to those or any of the leaders, no matter how senior in our organization aren't living up to those, then we want to hear about it and they'll never be any retribution.

Adam: Dan, you weren't always at the top of the organization. How do you move an organization to your way of thinking when you're not at the top of it?

Dan: First of all, you are savvy at identifying the nodes of influence within the organization. So in most organizations and in particular in matrix organizations like ours, the org chart doesn't define influence. There are pockets of influence across the practice and building networks and understanding where those pockets of influence exist and building relationships with the people who represent those pockets becomes really important. And that, I'm a believer that word of mouth works. And so organizations are looking for bright spots of places where, for example, someone has tried something that has illuminated a great culture or advance the cause on a particular inclusion topic. And organizations will find those what I might call bright spots. And then they'll seek to understand those bright spots and maybe they'll seek to expand those bright spots. And that's how I believe you have influence if you don't have authority or the title to, you know, the authority or the title to do so. I sorta call that the echo effect. Finding places where what you do will echo throughout the organizations a really important skill.

When you reflect on your own personal journey, what do you believe were the key elements to your rise to becoming the chairman and CEO of Deloitte consulting? I mean, when you started out you are one of many and now you're one of one. How did that happen?

Two ways. One, not caring, a single moment about becoming the chairman and CEO of Deloitte consulting and two, demonstrating in word and in action that diversity and inclusion and creating a culture that supports the most diverse workforce in our industry and the most inclusive environment in the business world matters to me and I live that every day. Those two things have been incredibly important. I see people all the time in the business world and my client organizations that are single minded in their desire to achieve some titled role or one of one or two titled roles. [inaudible] I rarely maybe never see someone who achieves that ambition that they've articulated five, 10 or 15 years prior, and if they have achieved it, I see no one who's done so in a way that is fulfilling and drives happiness for them. Ambition is good, growth is good, accumulating new experiences is great and it makes you a better, a better leader. Trying to figure out how to navigate the corporate hierarchy to achieve some single role. I think it is a fool's errand.

Adam: What was the biggest risk you've ever taken in your career?

Dan: Biggest risk I've ever taken is I was doing great in the early part of my career. This is before I became a partner in our Cleveland, Ohio go. Cavs are Cleveland, Ohio practice. And at that same point, the Deloitte decided we want to open up federal government business in Washington D C many of my mentors and advisors said, crazy idea. The firm isn't really serious about that market and you're on a glide path to become a partner and just keep doing what you're doing. And I said, I appreciate that advice, but I see something that I'm passionate about. I see something that I think I could add a lot of value to and I see something where we're going to get to create something new. And so I ran to that new opportunity that other people would have viewed as a career risk.

Adam: What's the biggest mistake you've made and how did you bounce back from it?

Dan: I'd say the biggest mistake I made was, and there's probably several places where this played out, is trying to make myself indispensable to a customer or indispensable to an internal initiative. And you know, the listeners might say, well why would that be a mistake to make yourself indispensable? It's because what happened was, man, I was ready to go do something different. And as you can probably tell, my desire to go accumulate new experiences is high. And so, you know, me wanting to do something different occurs semi frequently. The response of the person on the other end of that situation like a client is you're telling me so-and-so is ready to take your role on this. No chance you Dan are in the middle of all of this stuff. And I see so and so. And they seem like a perfectly delightful person but I don't hear from them and I don't have the confidence that they can do the things that you're doing.

Cause I haven't seen them in action and, and so the way I, you know, have responded that is to be very intentional at making sure there are always people around me who are gaining the experience, gaining the credibility, gaining the perspective two, do what I do in their own way so that I'm never indispensable to the organization. For some. That sounds counter-intuitive. I found it incredibly important. What does a day in the life for you from the time you wake up until the time you turn it? There's probably a couple thousand emails, a hundred text messages. There is exercise every single one of those days. On the best days there's one, maybe two smoothies and my kids joke with me all the time that I'm ready for my eighties because I could eat liquid soup and smoothies for me is thrilling and then in the best in the best weeks, cause you know it's easier for me to describe a week than a day.

I have interaction with senior customers. I have interactions with our partners in the industry, like software companies and other industry partners that we're teaming with to build new market relationships. I am spending time with are people in unscripted town hall kinds of forums. I'm having one on one mentoring sessions with people who are trying to advance their careers, especially focused on women and black and Hispanic leaders in our organization. And then I'm getting a chance to be with the other people who are in senior management roles in Deloitte talking about in the future of the firm. How that translates is a typical day, probably darts in the fours am for me and exercises you know is right after that. And it ends somewhere between six and 10 depending on the night. And I love the nights where it ends at six and what I'm doing between six and eight is driving carpool.

Adam: So how do you balance everything? How do you effectively manage all of these competing priorities and how do you maintain such a high energy level?

Dan: I don't actually know the answer to the energy level. People ask me that all the time and I was perhaps born with that and I, I'm sure exercise helps and I'm sure good nutrition helps. And I'm sure that being an optimistic person helps to answer the earlier part of the question. How do you, you know, how do you balance it all? You, you recognize that your life is full of trade-off choices and that perfection is unachievable and that

You're going to upset people. And because you don't spend as much time on a particular topic or attend a particular meeting or a moment as they would like you to. And what you tried to do over the course of a week, a month, a year, a decade, is make a set of choices that give you the most fulfillment. And again, for me that means making choices that sometimes Deloitte is the beneficiary of. Sometimes Georgetown soccer's the beneficiary of. And I hope all the time my family is the beneficiary of. And look, I say to people all the time, one of the things I realized earlier in my career is Deloitte likes me and wants me to be happy. And that may sound cliché, but I see lots of people who based on their decisions, either don't believe Deloitte likes them or doesn't believe Deloitte wants them to be happy. And so they make choices that compromise things that matter to them because they're anxious or paranoid about the implications on their career. I don't have those mental gymnastics happening in my mind. And so my stress level is a lot lower.

Adam: That's tremendous advice and a great way of thinking. My final question is a very broad one, which is do you have any general tips, thoughts that you convey to the people under you that you convey to clients that you convey to partners that you give when you give talks to audiences that you could share with our audience? How people can be more successful in their careers, in their lives, just more successful in general?

Dan: First of all, don't think about people as under you think about the organization. You get the privilege to lead as a combination of lots of people in a lot of different places, but don't think of yourself as sitting in the throne on top of a group of people under you. Even just using those words creates a distance between yourself and an organizational leadership role and the people on your team. I always like to think of myself as a captain.

I've played competitive sports my whole life and the captain's seat or chair is certainly a privilege one, but it's a, it's a seat that has as its essence being a peer. It has some additional responsibilities that are bestowed upon you, essentially by your peers. And I think that's incredibly important for people to think about. And the second piece of advice I'd give to people is lean into the discussion about diversity and about inclusion. Do not be intimidated by it, particularly if you are in the majority, which I am as a white man in corporate business circles, lean into the conversation, seek to understand the perspectives and experiences of people that don't look like you. Seek to understand the language and the vocabulary of diversity and inclusion. Seek to understand unconscious bias and how it affects you and the people in your organization and make sure that you understand and live every day the belief that and the truth that the most diverse in the most inclusive organizations are the most successful ones and have the best culture and you can achieve that without lowering a single standard on any topic or on any person if you do it the right way.

*Note that the transcript is not 100% accurate, as it was captured through an automated transcription service and lightly edited. For the interview in its most accurate form, please listen directly at www.thirtyminutementors.com.