A CoE Journey through the Eyes of Pedro Berrocoso

Louise
Hello and a warm welcome to the Automation Talk, your bi weekly podcast where you get to listen to real automation and digital transformation specialist straight from the field. My name is Louise and I'm delighted to be your host. In today's episode, I have have the honor to welcome Pedro Berrocoso, Intelligent Automation Advisor and Digital Literacy Coach. With a passion of connecting business, technology, and people, Pedro shares his extensive knowledge in creating and operating Centers of Excellence with us. From his years as Global COE lead, he dives into the largest roadblocks in creating a CoE and the new responsibilities and skills that are required. We also cover the essential elements of an internal upskilling program, the ongoing difficulties a Center of Excellence must overcome, and much more. I hope you enjoy this episode.

Louise
Hello and a warm welcome to you, Pedro. It's really nice to have you with us today. Please start by briefly introducing yourself and tell us a little bit about what you do.

Pedro
Thank you very much. I'm glad actually to be here with you, Louise. My name is Pedro Berrocoso. As you already said, I'm an independent intelligent automation adviser. I'm currently focusing on three things. On one hand, I'm advising and coaching companies on their intelligent automation journey. The second thing I do as well is actually help companies as well getting their perspectives out there on intelligent automation. And thirdly, as well, I'm focusing as well on helping people and organizations to really drive skills forward when it comes to digital citizen development and these type of activities, really building programs so that we can enable the organization to take advantage of their own workforce as well.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
I've been part of Zurich, Switzerland, just to add.

Louise
Thank you. Very interesting. We're definitely going to go back to the things that you're currently doing, but maybe before we can take a look at your track record and then your career, what is your educational background, where do you come from, let's say, and what attracted you to this particular field of automation and digital transformation?

Pedro
Yeah, look, I have a degree in Business Administration in German speaking countries. This is "Kaufmann", right? I think that's what we call it. And this is where I started my career very early on in a small Swiss company where I started off with operational procurement activities. So this was the start of my career. I learned a lot about how companies work. I learned a lot about relationships, stakeholders, partnerships, and really as well on how to work in the most effective manner so that people can really get the best out of it. And that started off my interest in really process improvement and systems implementation, which was the core of my career for many, many years. I've been working in management, consulting companies, I've been working at individual organizations and really been driving strategy roadmaps programs and implementations of SAP. All of these business applications which you may have already heard about the last few years, I've actually been dedicating myself to intelligent automation. I had an opportunity to lead a center of excellence for digital innovation and intelligent automation at a large biopharmaceutical company. And with that have really explored and really been kind of finding a new passion for me, which is, you know, combining process improvement technologies, but then as well bring people along the change journey by really enabling them with the right skills to participate in digital transformation activities.

Pedro
And this is where I'm currently at in my career, bringing together all of these good things, hoping as well that I can make really a difference with that for the companies who engage with me and for the audiences out there who listen as well for some of my advice.

Louise
Great, yeah, it's really impressive and all the stuff that you've already done and I think those of you who may be offering you on LinkedIn, you're a very active voice when it comes to this, driving the change and bringing the people along especially. And you bring out a lot of advice. I think this is great that you're also sharing that with us. And as you said, the center of Excellence, building it up internally is one of your topics that we're going to focus on a little bit more later on. But maybe when we look back on your career or when you look back, what would you say is the most important learning that you've had so far?

Pedro
Well, it's hard to just pinpoint one learning, right? Because there are many things you actually experience at whatever stage of the career you're in, you're actually learning all the time, right? And I think from my perspective, one important thing I learned is that you have to have your own path, right? So when you build your own career or you follow your passions, you can follow your own path without really having too much focus on what others do. And I think that's really important when you're young. So if I would be talking to myself again back when I was really early in my career, I think I would actually confirm to myself that it's okay to follow your passions, follow your interests, and not to be obsessed about titles and kind of the path of other people, but really explore what your path is going to be and where it leads you by being open and curious about things around you, the opportunities that you potentially have. And as well build on the relationships to actually get to know things which potentially will help you as well forward and have coaches and mentors who potentially will help you as well around that.

Pedro
So really building that kind of understanding that a career is the career you drive and not the career someone else drives for you and being able to be, as I said, open and curious about all the things which are around you so that you can find that really sweet spot. I think it's really critical.

Louise
I think that's a great learning but also advice, as you said, for many younger generations to always also have that growth mindset that you can also your path and you can determine it. I think that's a great transition to the next topic which is kind of diving deeper into the center of Excellence, which essentially also means enabling people that have maybe been doing other things before into a new career path through learning digital skills. So maybe let's start from the beginning and look at what are the steps that you need to take in order to establish a successful center of Excellence in Europe.

Pedro
And Louise, I think every company or every organization starts at a different point of maturity, right? I think there are organizations where they potentially already have a capability somewhere in a team which is focused on digital transformation, is potentially focused on automation, right? And they really want to grow this into Centre of Ex. There are organizations as well which completely start with a blank page, right? It's a greenfield approach. They can really follow a playbook, right. And in my point of view so if you go into a greenfield approach, which means basically you can start from scratch, I think the very first thing to ask yourself is, you know, what's the purpose of that center of Excellence is. It going to be a center of Excellence which you need in order to consolidate knowledge from the whole organization so that you can build synergies across the organization. When it comes to automation, for instance, is it a center of Excellence which will deliver so is it actually going to build solutions? Is it going to be operating them? What part of the value chain of automation are is really going to be whole health in that center of Excellence or is it a center of Excellence which is going to disseminate and diffuse learnings, right?

Pedro
It's going to be kind of an enablement center of Excellence which will help the rest of the organization to follow along. So I think very early on, that's one of the first questions to ask yourself what's kind of the purpose you're going to have because that's going to be fundamentally drive the rest of the structure. The second thing I would be thinking is really important as well in this context is your understanding where it's going to fit in. So it's going to be kind of a centralized center of excellence which is going to be holding the whole knowledge in one place? Or is it going to be a federated one where it is actually part of a business unit and really close to the demand and close as well to processes which potentially then have opportunities as well?

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So having that picture is really, really critical. Then the second thing I would actually advise is to really have conversations very early on with stakeholders, go out and talk to process leaders. Go out and talk to your operational leaders and find out what are their pressing points. So what are the areas of opportunities they see, where do they see collaboration? How could a structure be looking like where the governance model is actually allowing for a structured approach, where business priorities get really channeled in the right way and then you can build on that as well for the delivery of solutions which are then really going to have the biggest impact to your stakeholders.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
And so you follow then the building of a house, really.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So you first start understanding what is it actually you want? Is it a small house, a big house? How is it going to look like a terrace? Right? And then you follow with planning it out. Then you go into really the building of the internals which is basically kind of structuring everything around that first and second and third year roadmap which you build from a planning perspective. And then really find out how you will be managing the whole internal processes, how you're going to manage pipeline management, value tracking, delivery of capabilities, enablement. So all of these things will then need to really be filling that house of automation which you're going to build with that center of Excellence, with life, and then obviously get people into roles and I think really, really crucial as well or match up their skill gaps with a plan which helps them to develop. And this is kind of where I was starting. I started in March 2020. It was the launch of the Pandemics. We had a small team. I had been given there was a point of fresh in the rule. So I had to find out all of these questions in a relatively short time in parallel to really building the foundation I had to run.

Pedro
But I think that's probably the reflection which most organizations have. You need to kind of go in parallel tracks to learn, experience and adapt as well how you build forward your foundation which then gets hopefully stable and scalable over time.

Louise
Right, right. Okay. That's a really impressive overview, I think, of how to tackle it, especially given the different paths that you can take. I think, as you said, there are different options and it depends on the maturity, but also on the outcome that is desired and also the purpose of the center of Excellence. But if we were to think about in this case it was you leading and building the center of Excellence, what kind of personality or what kind of leader do you think is best in this case? Because I talked to someone yesterday in another podcast episode where it was kind of like it should be someone that doesn't have maybe all the business knowledge but is not too invested in the processes in order to have a fresh view on, let's say, how to improve things and how to best implement this in the organization. What would you say are the requirements for someone to establish a center of Excellence?

Pedro
So you mean for someone to be in a role as a leader of.

Louise
That center of Excellence.

Pedro
Right. And I think there's different perspectives. I just heard yours from that call you had, which is you don't necessarily need to have all knowledge, which I believe is true because the center of Excellence doesn't need to be an expert in every single process to be tackled.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
But what a center of Excellence leader needs to have is a connection to these stakeholders and a broke band understanding how business operates. Right. So from my perspective, a good leader is actually understanding the pressing points in an organization not necessarily adept, but has kind of that network of people to tap into, someone who can really influence leadership as well. To kind of understand the concept of automation and evangelize out as well kind of the abilities which the center of Excellence will be bringing to life. But then as someone who is able to motivate people from coming from different places in their kind of development or in their maturity to unite as a creative team and really master a journey which is actually not necessarily very clear at the beginning. Right. You need to kind of lay out a plan, but you need to as well adapt as you learn, right? And build resilience within a team to have a learning culture and an open and safe culture of conversations where everyone can bring things to the table and at the same time be able as well to grow together from a trustful relationship perspective.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So on the outer line of the leadership abilities, you need really someone who can influence, who can as well take both decisions, but can as well motivate a team to be united behind the purpose and really follow along.

Louise
Right, okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Now, thinking from the leadership, maybe in the next level, what kind of roles and responsibilities do you see are key in a center of Excellence? Also, there probably depends on what kind of setup you choose to go with. But what would you say are the key roles in the center of Excellence?

Pedro
I think we talked about, let's say sponsors, we talked about the leader. And then when you think about the organization itself, I think you needed, in my perspective, well, in my case, was a diverse set of skills.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
We needed people who were able to program manage, to kind of really manage a set of activities for the first phase, where you're not necessarily having yet really a pipeline which is actively having a lot of volume yet. Right. So someone who can really build a structure around a program and then make sure that everyone kind of follows along and comes along the journey with analysis of processes, opportunity assessments, heat map reviews, and then after that as well tracking of projects throughout their life cycle. So someone who can really coordinate all of these activities is crucial. I think you need as well business analysts. So you need people who can talk to your, let's say, process leaders and actually challenge, but as well qualify and maybe as well help understand the abilities of the technologies, but then as well help with the design part of your solutions. And then you'll need as well development capabilities, if that's something you have internally or someone who will complement that from a partnership perspective, who, together with you, can bring along as well kind of the hands on knowledge on. How you do things best from, let's say, development perspective as well.

Pedro
And as well operational teams who can then take them forward into support. But what you sometimes underestimate is kind of the level of community management activities you need to do as well. So connected to the fact that you will as well do enablement and most likely you'll upskill other people as part of your center of Excellence activities. At least we did. That's one of the rules which we you have to keep an eye out because I think it's going to be super important for your ongoing activities to sustain them, the skills which you have maybe created and as well to keep evangelizing what comes out of the center of Excellence moving forward.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So very critical as well. And maybe just one last conclusion. And this is not to forget. You need someone as well who's really administrating this stuff, right. Someone who's got a finance kind of mindset, thinks about realization of benefits, tracks these benefits and is able to create these reports very, very on point so that the leadership team gets as well kind of an understanding and trust in the process as well. This is just a few of the roles which you need to package together. How do you assemble this and what is kind of the volume of people in the different roles really depends on where you are in your journey and as well, kind of where you sit in the organization as part of your center of Excellence.

Louise
Right, okay, thank you. I think that really shows up with the complexity of setting this up. And definitely if you think about how, as you said, to assemble, it can be difficult, especially with maybe development skills shortage and how to do this internally, definitely a challenge. But as you also touched upon the culture that it needs to be established, maybe also from the beginning, what would you say are best practices for creating the right mindset and the right culture internally in order to then also take control of this community and manage or enable this community of people to be part of the center of Excellence?

Pedro
Yes, and I think you're making there a very good point, which is basically the center of Excellence, almost like lighthouse. I think that's what we call it sometimes in German, which is some people learn as well from the center of Excellence about new behaviors, new mindsets, new ways of thinking, and as well, their skill sets, which potentially they will adopt as well as part of their learning program. So it's really, really important that the team is exercising these skill sets as well. So from my point of view, people who are working in a center of Excellence have to be self starters. That's the point. Number one, these need to be people who are really interested in learning and are interested as well in creating almost like in a startup mode, an organization which starts with a blank page but then grows over into becoming a robust and operation organization. So people who are self starters are willing to get their hands dirty, right? They want to really experiment, they want to learn, they want to get themselves out of their comfort zone and really expose themselves to experience as well potentially opportunities they are given and are really having an attitude as well as being agile in how they go about things.

Pedro
Courier and open as we already talked about I think earlier and have really a collaboration model of trust. And this is really, really critical because as a center of Excellence, you're not a selfcontained unit, you're working with a lot of different people. So collaboration means you're not holding back knowledge. You're actually someone who or a team who is able as well to disseminate the knowledge openly and with that have an interest through that to elevate others so that you actually become as well promoted and at the same time promoted by others as a center of Excellence. But at the same time you can learn as well together and move ahead into a scalable model. So really having that ability to have flexibility in your mind, hands on, practical and at the same time with a real dedication to service others, I think it's critical.

Louise
Okay, yeah, I think as I said, also being that multiplier in the organization and sharing the knowledge note gatekeeping it, but rather exactly taking it forward to build up the organization. That sounds great. When talking about kind of talents to recruit for a center of Excellence, what would you say, how do you look for them in an organization and how do you kind of structure your sense of excellence? So you've already talked about the roles and people being self starters but maybe also for the different roles. What kind of talents would you say you'd be looking for?

Pedro
Yeah, I was in a setup where most of my team was actually internal.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So basically we didn't really recruit for the roles until a very late stage when we were a bit larger. But we started off with a basis that we identified first resources who brought along either a continuous improvement kind of capability from their operational roles or had already developed solutions and therefore had an understanding how you build actually out solutions and experiment with them and had kind of that mindset of continuous learning I was just talking about. Right. But what I think you can do as you move ahead and kind of assemble the team is really put people into the places where you see them having the best fit as well from their interest perspective. It's really important that you understand when you build up a team as well where people see themselves growing into and then being able as well to slot them according to their talents into the different roles. Now to find new people, for me it was relatively easy. I had a large citizen development program, we called it the Automation Ninja program. Actually more than 500 people were passing through that program. And so spotting these talents which had really a passion for process improvement but as well solution development and an ability as well to go out there and talk to others and really having that soft skill aspect as well.

Pedro
For me was actually quite easy because I could spot them in the program. And most of actually my internal team over time became built out of all of these citizens, which some of them had then really found a new interest and new talent for them. Then to kind of focus on that to 100% and move into my center of Excellence. Right, so from that perspective see that as a breeding ground of talents as well when you think about citizen development but as well a ground where you can potentially offer careers out in the rest of the organization and with that really take forward it's all accelerators into your digital transformation activities through that.

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Louise
Okay? Yeah, I think we often talk about how when you also give the opportunity to learn new skills you take away that fear of transformation and you empower people to drive the change as well. And I think building it internally always is the best way to go if you can do that. So that's already sort of a great best practice overview for building a center of Excellence. But let's look at once you have kind of started establishing it, what kind of challenges have you in your experience faced or do you think center of Excellence members face as their kind of internal organization and how also can the team overcome those?

Pedro
Well, I think let's start maybe let's start with the team first. Right? And I think we were already talking about the fact that you're kind of in a startup mode, so you need people who are able to understand that the journey is not going to be necessarily we call it Ponyhoff in German, right. So it's kind of an easy path forward, right. It will encounter, obviously, challenge and you may stumble across things as well.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
I think that's part of the challenge, really, keeping the team cohesively fixed on the North Star, which is really build out capabilities which are then able to scale over time and motivate them through the different stages of your center of Excellence journey from excitement at the very beginning to the moments of despair, where people are mainly having conversations with stakeholders which are not necessarily really always easy, or solutions which do not really deliver the value they should have. And you'll encounter all of them because that's part of the journey. Right. You have to go through these things in order to actually learn and then be robust over time to have addressed all of these learnings with experience and as well solutions. Right. So really having a good eye out there to get people through that whole journey is one of the aspects which really counts. The second thing, and this is where a lot of, I think Centers of Excellence need to focus on, is really getting people out of that startup mode I was talking about into a factory approach. Right? And that, from my perspective, is where a lot of these center of excess, particularly when they're internal, need support or potentially need to adjust.

Pedro
Right. So a center of Excellence, which is from a factory led approach perspective, has a different set of requirements, right. You need to have a mature set up when it comes to your processes you manage internally. You need documentation requirements, you need compliance requirements to meet up with, and you need a whole range of stakeholder engagement and governance, which really allows you then to have that robust framework in place which people can trust and audit and at the same time delivers results which are more than just experiments, pilots, et cetera, but robust solutions which will help the organization really with business continuity activities as well if they fail. Right? So really building this professionalism out in that factory, I think that's a big stumble block for many center of Excellence and is where I believe you really need to plan ahead when you're kind of on your journey to really achieve that as well with the competencies elevated up in your own team. Okay, maybe the third point, and this is maybe just the last reflection on the point around challenges, is to be on the outlook, to be linked up with the business priorities all the time.

Louise
Right?

Pedro
And that may be something your stakeholders bring along, maybe as well the process leaders who will help you there. But you need to be focused on being meaningful with what you do at your center of Excellence. Anticipate potentially as well new solutions like AI, which you may want to infuse in time, so that you're ready then as well to build out these solutions or these activities and really be fostered around an understanding that value is what drives actually the whole conversation and not necessarily just doing things right. So really being linked up with priorities and the benefits you want to be achieving all the time, I think it's really crucial as well, right?

Louise
So from that I pick away. The focus is really important. Looking at having that north star that you define and that people strive for as a common goal, but then also professionalizing this and maybe also adding new skills. Such as compliance supplementation things that maybe not everyone in the startup mode wants to really get into, but just continuously building and maturing the organization. How to do that is probably also a lot to do with skilling off your employees and your workforce in that regard. And you've already mentioned the Automation Ninja program and things that you've built with that. So maybe we could talk also about how you would or how you have established a successful Upskilling program. What does it include, which topics would you absolutely cover? Just getting a little bit more into the Upskilling element of this.

Pedro
I think that Automation Ninja program was one component out of an Upskilling program, right? So that was really a focus component, which was really anticipating that people needed to have skills as well, not just the champion understanding around digital, but as well have their hands as well in the cake, as we say. Right? But generally speaking, when you think about digital Upskilling programs, what you want to create is digital fluency within your organization, right? So you want to have everyone in the organization understanding the why the organization needs to change and the way the organization anticipates with that as well, transformational activities taking place in order to shift their business models, to shift potentially their innovation capabilities. And with that as well, the infrastructure and tools you may potentially serve up in your organization as well. Right? So I think that's really, really critical that your Upskilling program is anticipating that people need that broadband awareness to engage, right? And there's a four E model which I've been lately talking about, which actually helps you to get there, right? And what it does as a model is actually help you understand that in order to get to full Upscaling program, four components are really needed.

Pedro
You need on one hand to enhance people's abilities to understand. So we were just talking about that a few minutes ago. You need to enable them as well with structure and content. So that means basically give them learning programs. Methodologies and tools to then be able to apply the skills you need as well to engage them in activities so that they are part of a learning path. They're part of a gamified approach where you do crowdsourcing of ideas like an ideathon or hackathon. And you need to really empower them as well, with time and capabilities as well, to take these actions forward.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
And with that you have then the ability in your learning program to build out the same experience. A learning experience which will help people in context of the organization and really important as well in context of their own role, follow a path where they not just kind of motivated by their managers to be going through this upskilling program, but really learn as well with their own intrinsic motivation to be part of. Right. And I think this is really critical.

Louise
Let's focus a little bit more specifically on citizen developers. You've mentioned that you've specifically trained people in the organization, have kind of like a breeding ground for people learning off the development skills, which is something that they sort of shifted maybe their current abilities to a new stage where they were able to develop. What would you say are the key factors for training citizen developers? Especially given the fact that there's often, let's say, a clash with maybe common It projects and there's a fear of also the governance of citizen developers. How do you manage those expectations? And how did you go about training citizen developers in the best way?

Pedro
Yeah, well, citizen developers, that's a passion discussion for me, right. Because I really experienced handson, really in the program I was leading, how kind of the eyes were blinking of people right after they came out of these programs. And suddenly a lot of people were understanding they had talent which essentially were a bit hidden and not so clear to them. And seeing them really passionate for me was really a great experience. Now, when you think about citizen development, what really matters to me is that at the very beginning, you clarify what they're for. So what role will they play in the whole transformational activity you have? Are they really going to be focused on, let's say, the core development activities together with the center of Excellence, or are they going to be potentially more on the champion side, really evangelizing with you and center of Excellence activities? But let's assume now that they're really here to do all of the things which is champion build out solutions, and then after that as well sustain the skills in the community of practice and be an elongated arm for the center of Excellence. What I think is critical is that you have indeed a good approach on how you structure the citizen development program so that it follows a governance.

Pedro
It follows as well a documentation approach. It follows as well with sustenance of solutions which then do not just failed over, but actually are kept up to date, are fresh, and are as well meeting up with compliance requirements. So really critical is that in a program you're able to bring people around the journey, which skills them up, teaches them about ideas as well, where to find ideas, how do they look like, what does qualify? What does not qualify what is actually suitable for a citizen developer in terms of scope complexity? What maybe is important for a center of Excellence to be taken forward and then are able really to transition them out into a community, sustain that with maybe a community manager. Just talked about that earlier on. Right. And keep them really engaged throughout their journey so that they become that elevated arm for Evangelization, for the center of Excellence, and then really help them as well to get into new skills and having that learning path as well the flexibility to upgrade the skills as they mature up with their journey. So we had a belt approach in my last program, right. So they started off with qualifying with a first spot and receiving their green belt, so to speak.

Pedro
I think it's called the artisan belt at the time. And they could then, with additional skill sets, be it's coaching skills, competencies on the soft skill set, but as well as technical skills, advanced forward into the next level up, which was in our case, I think it was a ronin kind of skill set, right. And without the ability to really grow their skills and keep motivated to engage with that path of becoming a citizen developer and as well upgrading over time into more mature development specialist.

Louise
Right, right, okay. And you mentioned before that for some people that took part in the program, there were kind of skills that had been maybe hidden and they weren't even aware that they had that sort of affinity to such things. Would you say there's a profile of a person that is ideal for a citizen developer? Would you say anyone could be a citizen developer? Where would you draw the line and who would you say should be prioritized for such programs?

Pedro
Yeah, well, and that's a really good question because it's a question which a lot of organizations are asking themselves. Right, right now the approach we had at the very beginning in my program was actually different. We didn't actually set any bar because we wanted to see first who's actually coming because otherwise what you get is always the same 10% who are somehow the ones everyone goes to for technical questions. So we lowered the bar completely at the very beginning. What we had as a prerequisite is that the line managers were supporting and it was part of their development plan as well.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So kind of that was the very only prerequisite we had. Everything else we were actually telling them in the programs themselves. So what is it we need from you, right. In terms of skill set. We obviously wanted people with an analytical skill set. We wanted people which had a communication skill set. We wanted people who could work on things, start to end and not fall over just because things were maybe requiring documentation, for instance.

Louise
Right?

Pedro
So we needed really people as well with grit and perseverance to complete activities and stay on track. But then it's all be engaging obviously with the center of Excellence itself. I think if you would set the bar too high, you'll get the same people all the time so you'll not discover this new talent. So for us it was critical is to lower the bar first and over time. What we figured out is that actually out of the, let's say 500 people I was just talking about, there's maybe 30 to 50 people who are really that super champion type, right? And the rest they may occasionally build. So they're part of the larger community. But these may be people who are activated to champion but may not necessarily be having their hands in the cake all the time. Right, and that was totally okay as well because it just means that you can dedicate time then for that let's say 30% to 50% people population and really bring them up the next levels which much more focused and if you go there, quite broad. But in our case, what we found, and just coming back to your initial question, is that we uncovered a lot of talent, particularly as well in places we didn't expect, right?

Pedro
So we had classical finance, of course, we had young people, we had people from HR. We didn't expect assistants to be so brokenly interested and they became really actually quite active because they were seeing opportunities to help themselves as well in their whole work and be able to actually overcome a lot of their challenges, for instance. So that was one population. But overall I don't think there is actually that typified hoodie wearing person, right. Because that is in development. They live in all roles in the organization and the best thing forward is really to identify them as you see them growing through your programs and then be really tapping the ones you want to further develop as you see them actually coming across with their key talents.

Louise
Right, right. I think that's a great insight also to kind of keep it broad in the beginning, as you said, buy in from the leader, the supervisor, whoever it might be, is really important in order for the person to be sort of enabled to follow this path. But I guess the worst thing that can happen is that the person is aware of automation or digital skills and that they are going to talk about it and multiply that knowledge. The best thing that can happen is that you get a great developer out of it. So I guess that with that approach you can only win in a way.

Pedro
To maybe two additional insights. One of them is, again, we were expecting the classical people to come along. Actually for us it was 60% female citizen developers in my program, which was surprising at the beginning, but I think it's normalized now because it's quite normal, right, but it was kind of an insight at the very beginning. We didn't expect necessarily, but it was really, really powerful. And at the same time, the second thing maybe is that you create this almost like the Yogurt culture, right? So you have a small pocket of people which is kind of infusing the organization with that mindset, that automation first mindset and then it's able actually to kind of diffuse that across the organization almost like the Yogurts do, right? That's how you culture, obviously these type of ingredients as well, right? So have that mindset that you need to start with a group which is then able to really disseminate this knowledge across the organization. So if you start putting very strict barriers at the beginning, you may not reach everyone. But that's the approach we chose. Maybe other organizations are much more dedicated. I thought that this was quite powerful.

Louise
Yeah, it sounds fantastic actually. And I mean, the outcome proves you right in the end. Okay. I think my question about how do you create a culture in which transformation is embraced, which would have been next, is kind of being answered by that in a way by having those change agents, those multipliers in the organization. Would you add anything to that?

Pedro
Well, I think you need to see that as well from the angle that you need top leadership as well to exercise kind of that change.

Louise
Right?

Pedro
So if you don't have the leadership team exercising new behaviors, approving that, yes, this is what we want and this is what it looks like, and themselves being acting as well, kind of that change. Mediator I think it's very hard to have people follow along because people are looking very classically to the leadership to see what is right, what is wrong, what is the good behavior, what is the less good behavior. Right. So actually you need to have the leadership almost going first. And then what you need to have as well in that sense is the ability to understand that in order to reach people, obviously you need programs like the citizen development activities I was just talking about. Right, but you need as well these kind of self starting groups which are then able to create movement in the organization you can follow along, right? So that's really critical as well. So from that perspective, I wouldn't add too much else and show and tell. I think there's a lot of show and tell and change management and going out there, talking to people, using the right channels and really creating that big movement in the organization which helps you propel forward and maybe one last aspect.

Pedro
And I think this is really critical as well. You know, build a culture which is not just brand new.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So please don't forget that you enhance current existing behaviors.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
So you need as well to go back and clarify when you are evangelizing what the new culture is looking like and the new behaviors, what are the old behaviors which with that are still relevant and which ones potentially get then obviously replaced and why they get replaced. Because that is what is going to make people understand and make people then as well follow with clarity, obviously as well of direction and leadership pushing.

Louise
Right, right. I think that's a great and crucial aspect as well. And with that, I think we are almost about to conclude. But before we do so, we have a quick fire question vending machine with three quick questions I'm going to ask you and you can just answer what comes top of mind. So the first question is what is the best thing about the internet?

Pedro
So I think the Internet has been a fantastic equalizer of opportunities, right? So if you ask me and I think I thought that when I had my first time hands in the Internet, right, I still remember that actually, because I was in an Internet cafe at the time, right. And for me it was like opening up the Nclbadias of the world, right? So you suddenly had an opportunity to tap into knowledge, but as well connect with people you would otherwise never meet. So from my perspective, it's really been an equalizer of opportunities across many different fields. It's been opening up careers, it's been opening up knowledge to everyone. It's really given an opportunity as well to emerging countries, for people who maybe didn't have access to education, to tap into all of this cojoined and kind of total knowledge of the world and be able as well to contribute, which I think is quite important as well. So that, I think, is one of the real important aspects of the Internet. A connection building machine, right, obviously. And with that as well, a dissemination of opportunity for knowledge which helps everyone across the globe.

Louise
Yeah, definitely a great positive view of it. The second question is, if your life were a book, what title would it have?

Pedro
A book? Yeah. 60 Years of Me right now. Well, maybe a good title could be the Marvelous Journey of Pedro. Right. And the Challenges, the Hopes and as well, the kind of happy moments and with that an ability to understand it, really as a journey.

Louise
Right.

Pedro
And I think my life has been starting off here in Switzerland as a child of immigrants, right? So I had a very different setup than maybe my peers. But I always found a way to actually be able to be motivated and kind of learn and have always people around me motivating me as well to excel. So I learned through the challenges, but I as well learned as well to master that by actually driving myself and having people around me who were motivating. So maybe that would be a good title, right. Kind of the adventure, almost like glyphosate adventures.

Louise
Very nice. I think that's kind of a full circle moment with what you said before when you look back on your career and how, you know, you have to deal with the challenges as they come along, but that you can drive your own path. And I think that's a very nice sort of title and content of the book. My very last question to you would be what is your favorite quote?

Pedro
Yeah. And favorite quote, right. And I'm probably at a time in my life where a lot of the things I think about right. They are kind of orienting themselves into the fact of what I'm going to leave as a legacy as well for other people. Right. So I'm thinking a lot about sharing knowledge. I think that's something which I'm doing right now. Right. I'm actually quite passionate as well about doing. But on the other hand, there's a good quote which is summarizing things up and it's an African court, as far as I know, at least that's what they say. Maybe it's a Greek quote, I think some people would argue, right. Which is plant the trees on the whose shade you're not anticipating to sit yourself. So kind of think about what you're going to build for others then to benefit from as well, and not just be solely focused on the now focus as well on the future and leaving the place in a better shape than you have encountered it when you started. Right. So that's becoming quite a driver for me lately and I'm thinking a lot about that as well in context of my family.

Pedro
I have three little kids and I'm hoping as well I'm going to leave them with a better legacy as well moving forward.

Louise
Great. That is a beautiful quote. And I think we don't say this enough or we don't think about this enough, and we need it more than ever, people to think about the generations ahead and how we can enable them to have the same or a better life. So I think this is a great conclusion of a very interesting episode. Tetra, thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing your vast knowledge. I know this was only a fraction of the things that you could talk about, but thank you so much. It was a pleasure to host you.

Pedro
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure to be here with you. Thank you, Luis.

Louise
Thank you.

Louise
Thank you very much for your time. We hope you enjoyed today's episode and that you were able to take away a lot of interesting information and insights from our guests for even more insider knowledge freshly coming from the core of the automation industry. Feel free to listen to our other podcast format called Automation Insider. This is hosted by Nico Bitzer Andreas Zehent, or if you prefer to read, subscribe to our Biweekly Automation Magazine. If this has intrigued you to learn more in the area of process automation and this is also interesting for your company, then feel free to visit our Automation Academy and get advice on Upskilling. You can find all the necessary links in the description. See you next time you're about some people team.

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