My office is cleaned out as I start the journey of standing aside and handing the Kiah MD role over to someone else.

Just over 20 years ago I found myself redundant. Without a job. Facing, for the first time, that I was not wanted. Worse, I couldn’t find anyone that I really wanted to work for. I put my heart and soul into my work, and doing that for someone else’s balance sheet, delivering someone else’s message with conviction, until I changed jobs, was unfulfilling.

I could have returned to the Army, but for me that race had been run. I didn’t want to be in the military pushing paperwork.

I knew how government worked, the ins and outs of Defence, how public servants thought, and politicians acted.  I had already proven myself in half a dozen major projects, mostly urgent or wayward. I managed to fly a satellite, built a national communications system in a south-east Asian country, dealt with Khmer Rouge, led international negotiations on security arrangements at the request of the US, and managed a billion-dollar project or two.

I was good at consulting. An avid reader of Consulting the McKinsey Way I had studied the management gurus, read a hundred management books, and explored every process and methodology I could find.

So, I hung up a shingle, determined to become an important person in my spare bedroom. Kiah Consulting was registered as a mechanism for people to employ me, and for me to employ a few people from time to time when I needed a small team. I had one objective: to do good work well and make enough to keep me and my family safe.

How hard could running your own small business be? As it turns out, very hard and at times really frightening. 

The actual consulting work was challenging but good thinking, data, research, effort and energy could overcome that. I could have made my life easier, but I set high standards and demanded them of myself, the teams and our clients. No hiding bad news, no sycophancy in pursuit of a job. Good work, well done, honestly. Make a difference every day.

I don’t think clients should be paying for an easy path. Unfortunately, too many, both consultants and clients, are looking for exactly that easy path. However, we found some extraordinary clients: courageous but not foolhardy.  Willing to deal with the underlying problems not the surface issues and prepared to go outside their comfort zones. Leaders.

Most have continued as friends and colleagues past our engagements. I’m not as good at some at balancing the social with the business and staying in contact. To them I apologise and will try to be better given some now found freedom.  

We matched those leaders with teams that had the same ethic. At times we had a passing parade of unsettled consultants, as we found and settled on a team that matched our ideals. Only once in 20 years can I recall an engagement where we didn’t manage to settle on a team that worked well as a team.

That was hard work, but not as hard as dealing with the Public Sector.

The public sector is full of good people seeking to do the right thing. Too often, though, they are misguided on what good and right look like. A tender rarely released on time, and one evaluated and contracted in published time frames is an endangered species. Statements of work that are indecipherable, a fear of probity that ties them in knots, and senior leadership saying take responsibility at the lowest level but centralising every process and decision. Alas, that’s just a cost of doing business with the public sector.

Worse though, across the board, administrators don’t know their own rules and make them up. The intent of government policy is ignored, and where a process might be challenging it is avoided. Commonwealth Procurement Rules (CPRs) are amended by local policies and individual interpretation.  According to the CPRs SMEs can have $500,000 of work sole sourced. A policy enacted by a government to free up work for SMEs. It’s use is as rare as finding a contract signed on time.

Our closest corporate near death experience came from a new mid-level administrator deciding that the previous two years of process were not correct and rejecting all invoices coupled with an appalling supervisor unwilling to intervene. We weren’t paid for six months, and every claim for late payment rejected because our “invoices weren’t properly rendered”. I remortgaged my house and took a loan to meet our obligations to our staff and the tax office. The alternative was bankruptcy, and to fail our employees.

The risk of running a company with the vagaries of the public sector and government influence are high enough without having to bear the costs of such maladministration.

We weren’t the only one facing similar issues. The last 18 months have been very hard on most SMEs, mostly because of the governments reaction to PWC and the careless rebalancing of an industry that the APS created.

The public sector is a long way from being a model citizen and customer, and few inside the public sector do understand the pressure and risk on small business. It needs lived experience outside the safety net of annual budgets, no deadlines, and secure jobs.

I shall not be sorry to hand over those worries to someone else.

Nevertheless, we did some outstanding work, mostly around the urgent or dealing with disarray. Amongst other things, to name a few, we have been instrumental in taking clients through a multi-million-dollar aviation dispute, contracting whole of government international telecommunications services, the Australian passports system, Navy’s support arrangements, a billion-dollar contract structure in warehousing and freight, the risk reduction and rebuild of Defence fuels operations and infrastructure, catering for our operations in Afghanistan, and establishing an innovate government- industry collaboration. Alongside the usual consulting work of management and program support.  

When I look back, I am amazed at how often our small business was instrumental in turning around and rapidly resolving very large challenges. Proof positive that you don’t need to be big to make a difference.

I also had the fortune to work with some amazing people. They brought new ideas, new ways of working and were not afraid to “realign my expectations”. I didn’t always get it right, but on balance more often than not. My greatest joy has been seeing people on a journey. From interns and graduates, technical staff and videographers, to highly experienced managers, who joined us a for a few years and left better for their experience of having been with us.    

Because of them I have more heart, compassion, empathy, patience and understanding than when I started the journey with Kiah.   I am grateful for everyone who walked that journey with me.

It was always my ideal that I would eventually step aside, that the employees would take over and I would turn up for the odd Founder’s Day lunch, a bit like the weird uncle. Maybe I have something to offer, maybe for a while, or maybe not. It will not be my choice.

In January 2025, Kiah Consulting will head in a new direction under the leadership of a new MD.  More about that in January.

As for me, I think fading away is unlikely. It’s always been a challenge to test the status quo with government when you are also reliant on it for your income.  Clients are often wrong in their choices, but they always have the right to choose. While I have had views, I also needed to be pragmatic, restrained, and show some care. 

I have no wish to just complain. My approach has always been hallmarked by finding new ways to get things done. Breaking through the status quo. It makes people uncomfortable because it is the unknown, but we need to lean to that challenge.

We need to accept being uncomfortable, not defending what we have done but defending that we tried.

We do need to find new ways, to break free, to test the boundaries if we are to deliver the best possible public services, especially Defence for which I have a great affinity. That would be a fulfilling third journey for me. I don’t know what it will look like, it is another step into the unknown for me. Perhaps some advisory work, training and masterclasses, some research and study, some more writing on the horizon, and most definitely fewer sleepless nights.

Leading Kiah has been the biggest and hardest job I’ve done. It has also brought the most pleasure and joy. To those who have joined me along the way as clients, peers, advisors and team members, thank you.

I look forward to catching you in the New Year, in a different guise.