FMJ.CO.UK INTERVIEW FOCUS
FEBRUARY 2020 43
Her strong interest in business e iciency
led to Black Belt certification in Lean Six
Sigma, an evidence-based, data-driven
approach to tackling common business
challenges and helping organisations to
progress by eliminating wasteful practices
and improving the e iciency of processes.
A er giving birth to her second child, she
decided to set up her own business in 2012.
She explains: “I wanted to embrace a
new challenge and strike the right work-life
balance. I’ve always had a deep passion
for driving continuous improvements and
wanted to create a boutique consultancy
that provides an alternative to overtly
generic, high-cost approaches to solving
business challenges.
“It was never our intention to have a
predominantly female team. We do have
males working on projects, but for us the
key has always been about o ering flexible
working and a good work-life balance,
which is important to me as a mother of
two. Naturally, the reality is it attracts
women who are keen to develop their
careers in a supportive environment. It’s an
agenda I’m really proud to support.”
She adds: “We all bring something
di erent to the table. We are not a
consultancy who places just one person
into a project, as we all have di erent skill
sets and, depending on what solution that
client needs, it could be one of us or the
whole team that o ers the solution.”
CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
The team is drawn from a broad range
of backgrounds, including change
management, HR, digital/IT and FM
project management. In this way they are
able to respond to a wide range of client
needs, whether e iciency or productivity
issues due to outmoded target operating
models or processes that no longer fit
the organisation’s vision and need to be
updated.
According to Kachela, there are plenty
of theories and models in the marketplace
that claim to be the best approach to
change management, but she believes
that no one-size solution fits all. She
favours a hybrid approach to change
management, leveraging di erent theories
and experiences and applying them to the
specific needs of clients and their projects.
“We are not consultants who come in,
implement a short-term fix and walk away,”
she says. “We’re all about sustainable
solutions, and part of our delivery is
training, mentoring and upskilling the
people we work with. This is why we
get called in by anyone from CEOs to
operational directors who are driving
certain functions and need our support.
“We’re o en asked to lead
complex change projects on
behalf of our clients because
they recognise the emphasis
we put on engaging their
people in the process, whether
it’s a workplace redesign
and transformation or the
implementation of a new
system. We also help with
the tailoring of training, as
without the full engagement
of your team no change can be
successful.”
Business Change Manager
Oge Zogie-Odigie concurs.
“I’ve done some work in HR,
in particular learning and
development, and that’s been
quite useful because you’ve
got to learn to carry people
along with any big changes
and help them understand
how they can translate that into their
work. Our job is not about persuading
people to make changes – not because
their manager says that they’ve got to do
so, but because it’s something which is
going to add value to what they’re doing.
“It’s vitally important to get buy-in
across the board. You’ll o en come across
some who say ‘but we’ve always done it
this way’, and it’s our job to explain the
benefits they will get if they try it another
way. We will o en bring people together
to say, ‘what does good look like and what
can be done better?’ In this way we
are challenging the status quo,
and that means gaining
buy-in from everyone
within the client
organisation, from
operatives to senior
management.”
Adds Olivia
Chalmers, Business
Change Manager:
“Many leaders find
implementing change
overwhelming. Leading
by example and being
fully transparent is one
of the best ways to begin the
movement of change.”
LEAN SIX SIGMA
A keystone of the consultancy is the
application of Lean Six Sigma principles
as expounded by Kachela, who is a Black
Belt practitioner. Lean is a widely adopted
management approach that seeks to
create more value with fewer resources
through the identification and removal
of waste from processes – essentially
CHANGING
anything that consumes resources and
produces little or no value. Six Sigma is
a set of techniques and tools for process
improvement first introduced at Motorola,
among other organisations. Together
they are a powerful combination that can
boost an organisation’s profit, customer
experience and productivity.
Says Kachela: “Most FM organisations
are facing financial challenges, compliance
challenges, increasing competition and
demands from clients. Ultimately Lean
Six Sigma provides an evidence-based,
data-driven approach to tackling these
issues and helping businesses advance.”
Essentially, she explains, Lean Six
Sigma enables organisations to
correct and improve processes
that hurt their valuable
collateral. “Plain and simple,
it enables organisations to
create e icient processes,
so its employees can deliver
more services with more
satisfied customers.
“We have undertaken a
number of Lean Six Sigma
reviews for clients over the
years which have all resulted in
demonstrable benefits,” she continues.
“We’re currently working on an exciting
project with one of our clients to streamline
their planned maintenance regime, while
ensuring compliance, by adopting a total
production maintenance (TPM) model
traditionally used in manufacturing. This
will not only result in cost reductions and
reduced disruption for customers, but it will
also improve the overall maintenance and
condition of assets in the long run.”
The adoption of new technologies, in
particular data-driven digitisation within
Many leaders fi nd
implementing change
overwhelming. Leading by example
and being fully transparent is one
of the best ways to begin the
movement of change.”