Learning Insights

Kreisler Ng with Cprime

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Connecting people and organizations to meaningful work are Kreisler Ng’s purpose now. Kreisler is VP of Talent at Cprime.

In a past life, Kreisler was an Agile coach/trainer, product manager, and business consultant with over 17 years of experience in agile development, product management, and consulting with particularly an energetic, hands-on approach to product development and agile transformation.

With this background, he likes to think he can help professional services professionals build and find a better place to work, because he too was there at one point.

Follow Cprime on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Transcript

Intro: [00:00:04] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for Learning Insights. Brought to you by TrainingPros. When you have more projects than people, TrainingPros can provide you with the right L&D consultant to start your project with confidence. Now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here. Another episode of Learning Insights, and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, TrainingPros. Without them, we could not be sharing these stories. Today on Learning Insights, we have Kreisler Ng with Cprime. Welcome.

Kreisler Ng: [00:00:44] Thanks, Lee. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:46] Well, before we get too far into two things, tell us about Cprime. How are you serving folks?

Kreisler Ng: [00:00:51] Yes. So, at Cprime, we are an international consulting and training firm. So, essentially, we deal specifically in the space of digital transformations. And so, we always have an element of learning and L&D when we go to different clients and we’re doing transformations. And a lot of big thing about transformations is, it’s really unlearning what people have in their organizations and then going through that training, that workshop, and that coaching type of services. So, that’s really what we offer and how we add value to our clients.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:21] So, what was the genesis of the idea? How did the company get started?

Kreisler Ng: [00:01:26] Wow. It’s a very good question. The company started over 15 years ago. We actually have a parent company, ALTEN Group, which is a French publicly traded consulting firm. But the firm actually started as a staffing firm, so giving out project managers. And then, naturally, we gave great talent outright. We started in the Silicon Valley in 2005, 2003, that era. And then, from there, it extended out into training and learning.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:56] And then, talk about kind of an engagement. What is the pain the client is typically having and then how do you guys plug in?

Kreisler Ng: [00:02:05] Yeah. As you know, Lee, and I’m sure a number of your listeners know, is just, the world is incredibly complex. It gets incredibly complex. I mean, 2020, obviously, threw a huge curveball to the world with COVID. And so, every company is being disrupted. It doesn’t matter what industry, how long you’ve been in business, what’s your brand, et cetera. And so, a lot of companies come to us in terms of trying to fix that complex solution of, “Hey, how do I upgrade my workforce? I want to upscale them in the way they work and how they do things.” So, it could go in from technical skills, to management skills, to leadership skills, all the way down to technical skills like code development, for instance. And so, those are usually the pain points of how do I gain agility. That’s what we call it in our industry for my organization, because we’re used to working in one way. But, now, we need to be able to more and more effective because the world is incredibly complex. And look, my market is being disrupted. So, how do I execute against my market and adjust?

Lee Kantor: [00:03:06] So, when that’s the mission of the organization, how does that impact you as kind of the person in charge of the talent within the organization?

Kreisler Ng: [00:03:15] Yeah, Lee. I think for me, we have this concept or I have this concept in terms of talent and organization. So, if you think about our workforce, they’re constantly learning. Learning is actually one of our core values. And so, there’s a concept – and we have a number of principles behind it but I’ll just explain. The high level concept is, really, we’re constantly trying to align what Cprime needs are as an organization, whether it be business, or mission, living our values, with what each individual business unit or our groups have. And I think of a Venn Diagram, we think of three circles. And the third circle is really what does each individual need in terms of motivation and goals. And so, we’re constantly trying. It’s a natural tension.

Kreisler Ng: [00:04:04] I say it’s a Venn Diagram because we don’t get it perfect. It’s very fluid. But that’s one of the things we, as a leadership team, always try to do is we constantly have these conversations with our workforce and our consultants around, “Hey, what do you want to do? How do you want to grow? What are you seeing on the clients? What kind of skill sets you need?” And then, balancing that with what the organization is going toward, whether it be strategic or roadmap, et cetera. And so, that is an ongoing conversation we have. And that could delve into tactical things of like, “Hey, let’s go put this person off into a conference,” for instance, or a speaking engagement, or a specific client or environment that they want to work with. So, that’s what we’re trying to balance that with the business’ needs as well as with the individual’s needs.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:48] And then, how do you kind of create that level of alignment that requires, I would imagine, really personalization in terms of each of your employees?

Kreisler Ng: [00:04:58] Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely. And we talk about it every year and it always gets tougher as we bring on new folks, and even if you think of generational differences of different workforces. So, we try to practice the five values, essentially, we value. So, the first value is, we value clarity and alignment over ambiguity, for instance. And that is the concept. That is always reminding people what’s the mission, the alignment. But then, also hearing the feedback from people of, “Hey, am I misaligned? I’m aligned?” And just being that radical counter to that transparency you may have. Because ambiguity is what gets you into problems.

Kreisler Ng: [00:05:38] The second principle is what you just hit on, Lee, is, adaptability and customization over prescriptiveness for career path within our organization. So, a lot of our folks, some have been only with us for one or two years. Some have been with us eight plus years, ten years. And what you’re going to find from a lot of the folks who’ve been around is, they’ve worn multiple hats. That’s part of our culture. We’re very entrepreneurial. So, that is, again, customizing to what people’s needs are. So, I have colleagues that I work with, I have worked in marketing, I have worked in operations. They’ve been out billing in front of clients as a consultant, for instance. So, that’s a principle we practice.

Kreisler Ng: [00:06:17] And then, a third principle is having a growth mindset over a fixed mindset. So, the inherent belief that we all can change as humans. We’re not limited in our potential. And so, we’re constantly trying to balance that out and respect that. The next principle is collaborate over dictate. Collaborate over dictate between employees and the organization. So, it’s a two-way street. We believe employee engagement is a two-way street. You need to opt in as an employee. As well as a manager or leader, you need to opt in as well. And so, that’s that collaboration. No one really likes to be told exactly everything what they need to do. And like you said, it is very much about adaptability over prescription.

Kreisler Ng: [00:06:57] And then, the last thing is just having empathy for one another and humility over ego. That’s the last principle. And that really comes from a space, because without empathy and humility, these principles, we can’t live them. It’s hard to practice if people don’t have empathy for one another and where they are at. And so, that’s the last principle we practice in order to achieve that customization that you described.

Lee Kantor: [00:07:25] Now, can you share a little bit for our listeners about the ambiguity part? I think that that is really tricky for individuals, let alone organizations. You mentioned clarity and knowing the true north makes everything easy, right? When everybody knows where we want to go, it’s easy to make decisions. But how do you kind of work through situations? And then, you’re seeing this even now in the public where it seems like we’re all looking at one screen, but we’re watching two different movies. You know, like, we’re each seeing the thing totally differently. And for me, you know, one thing I see – I’ll use the analogy of ice cream. I’m tasting chocolate and you’re tasting vanilla. And we both swear we’re right. And, you know, the ambiguity is almost kind of built into the situation.

Kreisler Ng: [00:08:22] Yeah. I love your metaphor about ice cream, Lee. I think, going to what you’re describing, internally, we call it, perception is reality. And where your perception is, is your reality. So, I think how we manage that is in the day-to-day interactions. I think a lot of times people, whether you read a blog of a famous business leader or organizational expert, it sounds like if you set a high direction and it comes from leadership, it’s going to drive. It’s going to be great. And, really, what people don’t talk about, which we understand and we’re always trying to practice – again, we’re not perfect about it – is it’s really in the day-to-day interactions.

Kreisler Ng: [00:09:12] Like, for instance, with my team, in our one-on-ones, I mean, they might be repetitive almost. It’s constantly trying to get clarity, asking questions a lot. A very good technique we do internally on our one-on-ones is, when we describe something, a direction or, “Hey, what do you think about this?” A lot of times it might be in a coaching stance. It might be a question, for instance. Again, that collaboration piece. And then, there are times when we have to, perhaps, there are some policy, let’s just say, something legally that it needs to be done, for instance. What we do in our one-on-ones or even in conversations with our larger groups is, we ask people what we call, play it back to us. So, we may say something and it’s just an echo back of, “Well, if you were to use your own words or if you were to change some adjectives, how would you describe what the essence of the message we just said?” Message – excuse me.

Kreisler Ng: [00:10:08] And that’s a quick way to, hopefully, help with some of that ambiguity and reduce that. But, again, it’s the day-to-day social activity. It’s not really about one meeting that you have all the leadership talk about it and come out of the room. And then, you just say, “This is the direction,” and it’s completely clear to people. It’s going to take that day-to-day reinforcement.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:30] Now, do you find when you talk about empathy and humility, does that help you when it comes to, maybe, diversity and inclusion in that part of the business?

Kreisler Ng: [00:10:47] Yeah. Yeah. No. Absolutely. I think, just like our clients, we try to meet people where they are. A lot of people, and even us, we use industry terms like best practice. I know the training industry uses that. Every industry uses that, best practice. What’s the best? You know, and best is within context of the organization. And that’s where the empathy part comes through is understanding where our employees are at, where their weaknesses are. And to have that, you have to have a lot of trust. What they want to do if they voiced their concern, you’re listening to that. Feedback is a gift in this essence. So, that helps us with diversity of opinions of different groups as well within our organization.

Kreisler Ng: [00:11:41] And then, just going over the egos, I think, it goes a long way when leaders and managers say, “I really don’t know. What do you think?” And I think for the longest time, our Western culture has celebrated more of that alpha, who is aggressive, outspoken. But we’re seeing that swing, right? We’re seeing that swing. And that’s really what we try to practice with ourselves.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:08] So, now, how has the pandemic impacted your work? How have you kind of made the adjustments to deal with these kind of uncertain times?

Kreisler Ng: [00:12:20] So, for us, before the pandemic, we are distributed nationwide and some of our workforce is actually international, not U.S. based. And so, we have eight to ten offices or so. I forget the number. It keeps growing as we grow. But everyone was more or less remote. I would say 60 to 70 percent of the workforce was remote because we travel to client sites. And so, in that essence, we were built for this environment of COVID, of minimizing disruption and doing things virtually. There was definitely a learning curve with our clients, particularly. Because, again, like I said, we’re on site. As you can imagine, driving a transformation to a company, you need to have that human connection on site. But what we did was, we introduced a lot of various collaboration tools online.

Kreisler Ng: [00:13:11] I know we’re talking on Zoom, but there’s programs, there is, actually, virtual sticky notes. There’s these platforms we use so that we can help drive a transformation, still. And I would say that was one of the biggest learning curves for everyone. And so, it definitely has impacted some of our business and the way we do things. But in terms of value with our clients, I would say, it took about three or four months for clients to really fully buy into it. And then, when they started experimenting and seeing it, I think even after COVID, when that happens, it would be different. So, those are the major changes that impacted us.

Lee Kantor: [00:13:49] Now, when you’re onboarding talent and, now, you’re putting them out in the wild in this kind of new manner, how do you kind of implement some of the serendipitous learning that happens when it is, like you said, human to human? And I can shadow you or I can look over your shoulder or I can be, you know, the fly on the wall. How do you kind of integrate some of that into this virtual experience?

Kreisler Ng: [00:14:18] Yeah. Yeah. I’ll be honest, it was tough. We had some adjustments as well in terms of our employee onboarding. But, I mean, our H.R. team is awesome and they’ve always virtually onboarded, for instance, in terms of H.R. related things. And so, that wasn’t an issue to your point, absolutely. What we do is incredibly complex, so there’s a lot of shadowing programs we have. Where, as a new consultant, I may join a client and observe a training, let’s say. I may be a student, let’s say. We’re very big on 30, 60, 90 days, because that’s very important for our success in indoctrinating people into the way we do things and our culture. So, there’s that.

Kreisler Ng: [00:15:05] I know of with my teams, we do a lot of weekly calls, you know, virtual happy hours. We do events, not necessarily about work related, for instance. And I would say one of the biggest successes in terms of multiplying our learning as an organization, I would say, is we implemented a town hall. So, we’ve always had town halls, all hands. But what we did was we did it every week, so it’s a lot more frequent. And, initially, it was just around COVID. Just like any organization, we were trying to get situational awareness of everything and make sure everyone’s safe, everyone knows what to do, et cetera. And then, now, it’s been consistent. Over 60 percent of the company comes, which is huge for us of, so well over 100 people every single time on the call.

Kreisler Ng: [00:15:50] And it’s self-organized. People submit things they want to learn about, they want to talk about. We might bring a comedian in. I know we’ve brought a magician in. So, there’s all these kinds of ways. It’s not just learning professionally, but just getting together and learning about each other and treating each other as humans, even though we don’t see each other. It’s really how we do it. And then, lastly, just like a lot of tech organizations we work with, we use Slack, internal chat. And so, you know, that gif or that joke of the day always goes a long way with people.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:22] And then, it sounds like that’s really kind of become part of your culture, this town hall.

Kreisler Ng: [00:16:30] Yeah. Yeah. There’s talks of just maintaining it as is, even after all this and we go back to a little bit more normal.

Lee Kantor: [00:16:39] Right. And it sounds like you’re still getting a high level of engagement. And people, they’re not kind of dreading that. They’re like, “Okay.” They’re looking forward to it. They’re going to get something out of it, obviously.

Kreisler Ng: [00:16:52] Absolutely. Yeah. And I think one of the biggest things, Lee, was it is optional. It’s opt in. So, this is not required. It’s all recorded. We usually send out an agenda or a topic item a few days before so people can choose if they’re interested in it. And I think that’s what drives that employee engagement as well. It’s not forced. I had a good friend who used to tell me it’s almost like mandatory fun when you force people to do things. And so, that’s our culture. It’s an opt in culture. And that’s what’s allowed us to increase engagement throughout this.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:25] Now, talk about your background. I see here that you were an Agile coach prior to your role now. Do you think that that background of coaching kind of gives you a different lens, maybe, when you’re in your new role?

Kreisler Ng: [00:17:42] Yes. Absolutely. I think coaching is valuable whatever role you’re in. I think, just having that experience – and I’m thankful for it. I’m very grateful – of just going to different clients, different cultures, and learning to coach with them. I don’t want to say to them. With them around we’re collaborating on trying to pull off the same thing. And then, that’s what I’ve been able to apply internally at Cprime as well. And a lot of our leadership, all of it, operates that way. And so, even from our CEO, a lot of times he is coaching us or just asking questions versus telling someone something. And you get a lot more buy-in that way. And so, that’s what I’ve learned at client sites and that’s what I’ve learned to utilize in my role at Cprime as well.

Lee Kantor: [00:18:36] So, now, what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Kreisler Ng: [00:18:41] Very good question. I mean, for me, I just want to learn from more people. Our organization is always hungry to look at different industries and what they do. And I think, you know, something like this is very valuable. It’s multiplying the learning. And that we, as humans, we’re all in this together even though we may be at different organizations.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:13] And then, if somebody wanted to learn more about Cprime, are you hiring right now? Kind of where are you at in the growth?

Kreisler Ng: [00:19:23] Yeah. We’re always hiring. Our recruiters and our talent team is always looking for great talent because we know it’s really hard to come by. So, people can check us out at cprime.com, that’s the letter C-prime, like prime number, P-R-I-M-E.com. And just go to the career site and you’re going to see our postings of what type of talent we’re looking for.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:45] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing important work and we appreciate you.

Kreisler Ng: [00:19:50] I appreciate it, Lee. Thank you for having me.

Lee Kantor: [00:19:52] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We will see you all next time on Learning Insights. And remember this work could not be done without the support of our good friends at TrainingPros. Please support them so we can continue to share these important stories.

Outro: [00:20:06] Thank you for listening. For more information about TrainingPros, visit their website at training-pros.com.

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