Julie Sweet, Chief Executive Officer, Accenture
Interviewer: Kristen Bellstrom, FORTUNE

MPW Summit 2020: Advising the World's CEOs

Julie Sweet, Chief Executive Officer, Accenture

Uncategorized

As we forge our way through what the CEO has called the ‘Henry Ford moment of the digital era,’ how are leaders approaching such rapid transformation?

So now we are going to talk about how the pandemic has fast tracked digital innovation. Our next guest has called that transformation a complete re platform in a bull business and the Henry ford moment of the digital era. Please welcome center Ceo julie sweet. I've been great to be with you today to promote, nice to see you too. It's so great to see everyone stays has been my favorite party event so far. Um so to prepare for our conversation, I was re watching the video that you did for the Mp W list last year. Um just reminder Julia was number nine on our fortunate PW lift and you burn it with a quote. Um and you said if your dreams don't scare you, they're not big enough. Um so I don't want to imply that it's been scary. Exactly, but you know a center is a company made up more than half a million people. Um This was your first full year as ceo. So I have to imagine there was some pressure in leading a work force of that size through the pandemic. So just to start off, tell us a little bit about what that experience is like. All right, well, um it's great because quote actually inspired some of the first things I did a Ceo. And one of the great lessons of his first year of Ceo has been how important it is really to actually follow that quote and be bold because prior to the um prior to the pandemic, when I took post september 1st, 18 days later on September 18, I announced to our 500,000 people that we were going to make a very big operating model change And that they would hear more about it and we designed it and implemented it within six months and it was the largest change really, in our history. It changed our piano. In the mid of our fiscal year. We took out 30% of our management knows it was a massive change and as you can imagine doing that as a public company with 500,000 people, that was considerable. In fact our people did not expect that we would be able to move back quickly. Now that was ended up being a great achievement. It was implemented March 1st 11 days before the pandemic was declared. And unfortunately when I did earnings, nine days after the pandemic, there were no questions about our fabulous quarter. It was all about of course what we were moving going forward. But it was a very important lesson because we decided to be bold. You know, first years Ceo leadership Team said we must move quickly and had we not done so, we wouldn't have been as well prepared as we were for the pandemic because we simplified our organization, we had exactly the right leadership team in place and we were able to move very very quickly and uh so I I think of this time as ceo of this first year is I think it will affect my entire career as Ceo because I learned very much first hand how much speed matters because it was really what helped us be prepared. Um I wanna follow up on that point about speed, you know, as I mentioned an intro, you know, digital transformation has just been such a huge part of the business conversation um you know in the last few months and certainly predating that and and I think you know what we're seeing is kind of a split between companies who are ahead on on digital transformation, who have done even better, not even further in the pandemic and companies that are lagging behind. Um and that includes, I think in a lot of cases small businesses which are so important to our economy. So, you know, from your perspective, what if your company that is on for the losing end of that? Like what can you do to get ahead of it? Um and you know, how can we set those companies up to be in the best possible position? It's a great question on the various suit point. We actually did research uh the year before the pandemic in 2019 that said, that measured 8000 companies across industries At their technology adoption, depth leadership and culture and the top 10% were doing twice as well as the bottom 25% and the pandemic happened. And really that gap became a chasm and so we're spending a lot of time with both leaders who are doubling down and trying to widen that gap even farther. But also the laggards. And the first thing that we really have talked a lot about is the need to be brutal with your reality meaning pre covid a lot of times people felt like they were doing a lot. They had put new positions and they were spending a lot, but they're really where they were against, their competition became front and center. The second thing is after sort of facing the brutal reality is to set full bowls. And it goes back to a little bit about that quote is to redefine speed. And I often talk to Ceos who say, well look really quickly. And uh and so I have a very simple question. I said, what have you changed institutionalized and oftentimes to silence because you know, the a lot of people have done is still rely on being in the crisis mode. But if you want to do digital transformation as much as we'd like it to be overnight. Although everyone is trying to do it much faster. These are major programs and if you're going to movement speed it can't be a permanent crisis mode. Uh and so I think it's a really important question for people to ask themselves that yes, they performed well. They were able to respond well. But how are they institutionalizing that? So that that becomes a normal course of speed and the organization. Hm. Um That's interesting. You know I've read this time story recently that referred to you as the Ceo with her. Now. I have no idea how you feel about that nickname. But obviously it's talking about these conversations that that you're having with Ceos like the one you just described. Um and I'm wondering, you know, at this stage in the pandemic, what are you hearing from your client ceos as far as you know, their main concerns and what they're focused on for the next six months to a year. I try to ignore headlines. So, uh, you know what I am very fortunate to do is we have a lot of the served most of the world's leading companies privileged to get to have a lot of conversations with people across the globe. I think there are two very prominent topics right now. One is when do you turn the page? What do I mean by that? Uh, you know, there's a lot of discussion that we're in a new reality. We don't know when the vaccine is gonna, you know, will come and be available or whether it be effective. There's a lot of uncertainty about, you know, what kind of work it's gonna stay remote or not. And so the question is, you know, how do you how do you move the organization on to live in that more permanently? So for essential, for example, we just had earnings, we finished our fiscal year august 1st and I declared internally and externally that we were turning the page. We had, you know, we were out of the navigating the crisis and we are instead facing the new reality and expecting ourselves to return to pre covid growth for a certain time frame. Uh and that is a big conversation right now, is to how to move the organization on understanding that the pressures will continue. But it's almost more exhausting to sort of constantly wait for when it's ending. So that's a big topic. And the second topic is really about how do you measure that you're going to emerge stronger and what do I mean? But every ceo says I want to use this crisis to be stronger. And at the center I actually said to my board in july these are I get five specific measures. This is how you the board should judge up. And that was important because we felt we had to move from saying that sort of holding ourselves accountable and also setting goals for the organization. And I had a lot of conversations recently that as you can imagine are linked to this idea of how do we get into the new reality? Uh especially when it's happening today is so uncertain. Um I want to switch gears a bit but stay on the idea of setting goals for the organization. Um you know and I believe 2017 a center set goals for representation of women in the company. And Um I believe it was 2025 that that you said that you would get to gender parody. Um Now fast forward a bit um and fast forward to september and sorry julie, can you can you hear me? I've got a little lag. They're going a little bit in and out. So I'm not sure if it's you or it's me but you are going a little in and out. But I I got to be fast forward to september. Okay, great. Um So fast forward to september and you set similar goals but for representation of black employees of latin X and hispanic employees. Um So I want to ask you, you know, what kind of earlier goal setting that you did around gender have you been able to apply to to what you're doing now to increase their representation of underrepresented minorities? It's a great question. So first of all, when we sent our goal for gender, we followed a certain playbook, Right? Which means so we started internally to improve our recruiting. So our first public all was how many women we would recruit hire? About 100,000 people a year coded. And so we set goals around recruiting. Then we began to set goals internally around the tension. So how do we see people promotion? Making sure there wasn't a gap between men and women. And then um as we learned how to recruit and better retain, you then set the court goals for representation overall and for at the leadership level. And that was really important because it's important to actually also make sure you have leaders and that you're not just changing things by doing some junior levels so that you have, you're able to better see a path and retain women. So we've done the same thing actually starting back in 2015 in the US. Where we were the first professional sources company where I believe we're still the only one that does as extensive transparent disclosure every year about black hispanic americans in latin neck, asian veterans and persons with disabilities. Because transparency we learned was really important in setting goals. He then said in internal goals. And we did the same thing. We started with recruiting retention promotion gap. And so when in the country faced yet another crisis. We said this was the time that we needed to set external bowls about both representation as well as managing directors. Because we know that that helps us hold ourselves accountable, that transparency builds trust. And uh you know, we think that this is uh these goals are just like every other business priority. You know, if you want to achieve a business priority, you need to have clear goals, accountability, a way to measure and an execution plan. Um julie, I wanna understand. We have some questions from the audience. So here is my colleague Jon Messner. Hi everyone. Hi julie. Hi, we have a great question coming from lucy Fatto, who says, I'm curious to know if you see a difference between how male and female leaders manage transformations, particularly in terms of how they manage to change with their employees city here from you. It's an interesting question. I think it's um, I think it's less along gender lines for say, you know, I worked great people, including people really see it who are really good about change. Uh, so I I don't notice it so much around gender. Uh frankly I do think it's types of culture. So if you start with, if you're working in an organization that's already very focused on, for example, they invest in their people. There's a strong corollary to organization to already have a track record of investing and learning for example, and being better at change because there's much more of a natural connection with sort of thinking about the employee. So I think that really good management of change is often tied much more to the organization, you know, baseline culture, uh then protect and then particularly gender. Can you still hear me? How can you? Yeah. Okay. Crows on screen a little bit. Mhm. Yeah. We have a second question um coming from Cheryl Stokes, who asked, are you able to please share the five measures that you asked the board to measure you against? What are they? Absolutely. In fact, I just I in fact, I even disclose the last week at earnings. So the first measure was whether or not was whether we would grow our market share faster than pre covid. Remember the pandemic started right in the middle of our fiscal year. So we were able to compare have, you know, H. One and H. Two. And so we threw market share four times in aged two and only two times still good by the way in H. One. So that was the first thing we said, which of course we said, we didn't know whether we would or not. The second was would we uh still execute on our large deal pipeline going into the crisis? But we didn't know was whether or not our clients, we feel like in such a time of uncertainty they would still do fields of 100 million or more something we disclosed publicly, for example, 17 of those in our in our last quarter, we did think more of those in H. Two and did an H one check? We hit that. The third was um would we capture new areas of growth? So immediately going into the crisis, we saw what our clients needed, for example, collaboration tools, right? We were putting clients um up on teams, for example in G seats and other collaboration tools, helping the public sector standing up entire new remote centres to help new benefits. So our question are the way we measured ourselves is in the new areas of growth. Did we in fact capture them? The fourth was that we continue to invest in our business and our people training compensation bonuses. So our training actually increased 6% in H. two and we trained 63,000 people since March one in new skills. And we announced last week that we're going to play many bonuses. And that was really important because doing that makes us more of a magnet for talent. And it also builds the loyalty that in the crisis we were continuing to care and invest in our people in. Our fifth measure was delivery on our consistent shareholder value proposition, which was growth, grow faster than market, expand margins And have a disciplined capital allocation including paying our dividends and stock buybacks. We've had the same enduring shareholder value for almost 10 years and delivered on that despite the pressures of the crisis. So these are very clear, extremely measurable and uh, and that was important to us also in being able to turn the page. Um, thank you julie. I think we are out of time for additional questions, but I just want to thank you for that transparency and all of the really detailed examples. Um, it's always a pleasure to talk to you and thank you for bearing with us with these technologies difficulties. That is our, that is our new reality. And thanks for having me. I just think again, I mm w is amazing. And you know, we were talking about it earlier. You have been so important to my own career. I've made friends at the conference. I miss being together. I will be there as soon as you open again and you guys just do a great service to women. Thank you very much a matter to be thanked.