Businessweek Extra Extra - Tim Ryan

at a big consulting firm. You think, all right, he's gonna talk to us about consulting, right Yeah, Tim Ryant, he's a different sort of leader. And I've heard that from a number of people who work with him, and we spoke with him at a time where he was coming out of a weekend of having a lot of very serious and very intense conversations with his employees. He is thoughtful, and he's thinking a lot about what his

company looks like going forward. And keep in mind, he and his team are consulting with the leaders across the world, so what they think and how they act has a lot of influence. The most important right now is to communicate, to be open minded and committed to change that. The reality is we have huge segments of our population, including my workforce, that are hurting um in many cases they've

been hurting for a long long time. And it's important that we are vulnerable, we are open, going to communicate, speak, and being committed to change. I have. I have in the last weekend responded personally over three thousand emails. I've spoken to dozens and dozens of people individually to hear what's in their mind in addition to my team, and it is heartbreaking and to acknowledge and being committed to driving it is a good start. So how does the

how does this affect policy going forward? And how does it bring about change? Yeah, Carol, thank you. Important question. I look at it from two perspectives and let me let me start up by saying GTBC nor me do we have all the answers, But we look at it from two perspectives. For the last four years, we've been taking very aggressive steps to improve our inclusion withinside the full walls of p WC, and and it starts at home. We all can be better and we need to be better.

And myself and over a thousand executives who are part of CEO actions for diversity inclusion. We have committed to make our organizations better, safer, more aware, and more understanding. But as you point out or asking your question, policy

making also plays an important part. The reality is that we need more thoughtful policy at the city, state, and federal level to make sure that we get some we get at some of the more important parts or equally important parts around inclusion if we're to get to a better performance at a sustaining level. So, for example, we think about the economic inequalities that exists in our country, policy the policy making plays an important role there as well.

You know, it's interesting tempted to hear your response to the to the first question because it does feel like we're in a different moment where I dare say, and this is no judgment on any of your predecessors or any predecessors of current CEOs, but I have a hard time believing that in a previous generation of leaders it would be almost acceptable in some ways for a leader of your stature to personally respond to all of those things.

Do you feel like you bear more of a responsibility to show a level of transparency and I dare say authenticity to a broader spectrum of people. Yeah, it's a it's a fair question. I am. I certainly sincerely believe I have a responsibility to the fifty five thousand people who trust me with their leadership than that. That is very personal to me. I was speaking with somebody over the weekend or many many people. On one conversation, I asked, su,

do you think everybody's getting three thousand emails? And I honestly don't know the answer. What I am proud of is the culture is that people expect to have immediate access at PBC to the talk. And I and I take that response us to believe very seriously. I think some of it to sign of times, I think some of it is the culture of the organization. And we look at those three thousand emails and over and and I'm behind today to be clear, because it's the message

out today. But I think part part of it is many thousands just saying thank you, thank you. I shot a video on Friday morning and saying how sick I was. Part of it is thank you for the commitment and leadership. But hundreds were here are suggestions and and and we're going through them like we to think that in in a world where leadership is looked up to, we don't have all the answers, and I think part of it is part of it is we need to get it

at all levels in our organization. One of our black associates I spoke to today, he has three years experience with us. He was both um. He was both excited but also angry that society is not making more progress, is it, Tim, You need to listen to not only the years of partners and people in the middle and leadership polls, you need to listen to our views as well. I think it's I think it's incredibly important that we

do that. I think today more than ever, well, you know, going back to oh Man, you just kind of chills my spine. We spoke with John Hopebryant Um Sherman and CEO of of UM Hope and what's interesting is he said he was talking to a lot of young people, Tim, who said, you know, because everybody's like please, you know, looting doesn't solve anything. But these young people said to him, listen, you get to be you have a seat at the table. You know, you're in the room where it all happens.

You go to the white house. You talked to CEO for us, our voices aren't heard unless we take these drastic actions, and we need to figure out a way to make sure everyone is heard. And Tim, I feel like we have a lot of conversations about this and yet nothing happens. And forgive me, We've got about forty five seconds and then we'll come back and continue the com versation. But your thoughts on that, Yeah, I think.

I think, um, it is really important for us to understand to our black and brown citizens of the United States, what happened last Monday is not new. What happened in Central Park is not new. Too many. It feels new because we start on a video, but it is not new. And as I speak with my and I'm not black, I cannot say I've walked in people's shoes. But as I've listened to hundreds, what they will tell you is

that this is not new. And four years ago we had shootings in Dallas, we had violence in Louisville, two years ago we had violence in Charlottesville. We have it again. And it's incumbent on people in my role and other roles to say enough is enough and we're going to fix it. And we have to work together to do that. So Tim, I want to talk about the return to work at that. One more question for you about sort of where we are at this particular moment having to

do with protests. You've got curfews happening at major cities around the country, including here in the Tri State area, and I do want how do you balance sort of the safety of your employees with the notion that you want them to be able to express themselves at times like this. Yeah, we we encourage our people to make sure their point of view is heard, and protesting is

an important part of expressing ourselves. We obviously want to make sure they're safe as well, so we've encouraged people to do that and use the dust judgment and cities where we have had protests, we've used our Nation Wanted security team to make sure we're checking out on people that they're safe. If we've had a few instances, we simply had to move people because they were in very

closely affected areas. But freedom of speech and the ability to get your views heard both internally within the firm and outside is something that we think is really important. Obviously, we wanted to be peaceful, we want our people to be safe, but getting our emotions out and getting our feelings out is important, and the numbers really speak to the importance of getting those views out and having voices heard.

So it is a very important part of our nation and the freedom to get your view out there and something we're supportive of, you know, Tims. Something that Jason and I've been asking with a lot of the leaders that have been coming on our air CEO s, you know, folks similar to you in you know, top positions, is

how does our world change? And we've been asking it in the context of the virus specifically, you know, what's what's the most important in your view underappreciated way that the world, at least your world that you work within, will be different. And I feel like I want to ask it both of what's happening, you know, as a result of what happened in Minneapolis, and also as of the virus, because it just feels like, you know, our

world has definitely been turned upside down in many different ways. Um, certainly in the past week and certainly in the past three months or so. Yeah, Carol, thank you. I would start out by saying, I'm obviously very upset and sick by the events over the last week. But I but I also start by saying I'm an optimist, and I think when I look at the COVID nineteen situation, and I look at the events of us couple weeks, I think we're we are giving a great opportunity to be

driving as a change. And I think that's the way we have to look at things, because it is important as we as we go forward. And there's a couple of key things that I would say will change. First one, I think just about basic work, and this is something as I've heard from dozens of CEOs, I think one thing is safe to say work will not look the way that twelve or thirteen weeks ago and will not look the way it does today. Like there there's an

opportunity to reimagine how work is done. And when I think about the office space, so I think about industries like financial services, technology, professional services, that we have a fundamental way to reimagine work. The way we reimagine work hopefully will align with opportunities. Some people desperately want to get back to the office, and other people like the way of working now. You need the ecosystem around called schools and daycare and the like to work as well,

and we will get there over time. But we're seeing tremendous opportunity to reimagine how work is done where some some roles have done permanently remotely, some work is done on a hybrid basis, and some work is done fully back in the office space, which then should hopefully allow people who who like either end of that spectrum in the middle to match up with those roles. That's a

tremendous opportunity we never had before. And they shared experience that everybody has gone through creates a great platform for change and and I'm seeing meeting companies go after that platform from a change with the sense of it's a

great opportunity. By the way, it should also draw that a diversity inclusion when we think of certain people who maybe couldn't afford to live near an office, if we couldn't get a job, when we think about women and children or men and children to that matter, the ability to do things differently as well. So I view it as a great opportunity and shame on us well miss it. And so tim from from your businesses perspective, like even just the logistics of sort of getting people back to work.

What have you guys found as sort of the biggest say go challenger or maybe opportunity to depending on how you want to take it in terms of just the physical act of you know, kind of moving people back into some semblance of normalcy there. We're we're very fortunate because of the last four years we've been investing massively technology.

We've been investing not only in getting our business in the cloud, but we've also been investing in fifty five people with digital obscaling and awareness that digital obscaling has become an employee benefit at PTBC, no different than fown Ka health Care, So our people are constantly being invested

in now. We didn't plan for a pandemic, but when we had to shift to a remote we were able to make it very quickly, in large part because not only the broad transformation into the cloud, but also the skills that are people have had that has allowed us to meet our clients needs virtually And what we're hearing from most of our clients is they don't need us back right now. So the biggest opportunity we have right now is to meet our clients where they want to

be met. And for the most part right now, it's virtual that will change over time. Our opportunity is to help help meet our clients needs over time with less face to face, not not zero face to face, but less face to face, which then results in a better work expence for our people because we have less travel, and that also will benefit our environment as well. So again,

every every challenge is an opportunity. We're looking at this as a major opportunity to meet our clients needs in a very different way, just quickly to not less travel. Does that stick? I think some will like you. Of those, I don't see a world where we're not doing zero travelge you're talking to someone for twenty five years. It's been a road warrior. I literally the last thirteen weeks. I've never been home in my adult life that long. I don't I don't see us needing to travel as much.

But I also don't see if they are wearing this today. There's still a big need to be at our clients, but we're also learning some role, some functions, some task can be done virtually and without having people go there, and that's a good thing for good body. So I think is everything. I don't see it everything going back to the way it was. I don't see the ways today. It'll be somewhere between. That's Tim Ryan, the chair and

senior partner at p w c US. Jason and I thought it was so lucky that we were able to catch up with the head of a global consulting firm. Talking to CEO is talking to leaders around the globe. One of the things that struck me, you know, he talked about what it's going to be like to get back to the office. That was one issue we talked to him about, you know, the viruses impact and you know,

how we're reorganizing, how we're going to work. But he also talked about the shared experience of all that we're all going through right now together and how it can be a great agent for a change, of course, addressing the civic unrest that we're seeing around the country. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra be short of tune into Bloomberg Business Week Radio Live Monday through Friday at tpm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol

Masser and I'm Jason Kelly. This is Bloomberg