After a long career, which led her to become a partner at a Big Four, Sofía Medem saw firsthand the main shortcomings of professional consultancies and decided to create something different: she is the founder and CEO of Connecting Visions, a platform that connects companies with independent consultants. With Demócrata she talks about what they do, the future of work and, above all, about Visionarios, the event they are organizing on April 27.
He assures that the best way to predict the future (and, perhaps, also to have some control over it) is to "create it together". For this reason, they will bring together different people who are already trying to devise that tomorrow of the labor market, in which, Medem suspects, people will no longer work for a position, but for a project; in which there will be resumes only of competencies and skills (soft skills) or in which it will no longer matter so much whether you are on payroll or are a freelance.
Question: What is Connecting Visions and why is it so different from other consultancies?
Response: At Connecting Visions, we always say a phrase that is: “Visionaries change the world by connecting with people”. What traditional consulting, or management consulting, has always done is provide companies with experts to solve their business challenges. The problem with that model is that they always try to ‘place’ the person they have on payroll, who may be the best for that challenge, or, perhaps, is the one they have available at that moment.
But, currently, two circumstances occur: on the one hand, there are a large number of young people who do not want to be in these organizational structures and want to be freelance. On the other hand, there is senior talent that at 50 years old finds itself without work and with much to contribute.
That is to say, there are many independent experts, and what we have done is, instead of having people on payroll, create an ecosystem where all those experts sign up and every time a company needs someone, we look for the exact fit for them. For example, a person who has solved that same problem and who can help them at that moment to accelerate results, because they have already faced that challenge previously.
Q: From which sectors are those ‘freelancers’ mainly from?
R: We work with absolutely all sectors. Regarding the qualification, they are manager levels and up. They are people who can really make a difference in the profit and loss account. In fact, sometimes they even ask us for CEO levels in an interim format. This figure, that of interim management, is super widespread in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Q: On your website, you say that 85% of executives are not satisfied with large consulting firms, did the idea for the company arise from there?
R: Effectively, the idea comes partly from there, because I have been a consultant almost all my life. I had a traditional career, until I became a partner at a Big Four. It made me very angry to see two fundamental problems that cause that discontent on the part of executives.
One is that many times ideas remain on paper: consultants make great power points and often give very good ideas, but then those ideas must be implemented. And it generates a lot of frustration – both for the client and for the consultant themselves – to see that those power points, for which they have paid a fortune, end up in a drawer because there is no one capable of putting them into practice. Normally, the most pragmatic thing is for the person who designs to be the same person who executes.
And then, another huge pain point in the consulting sector is the famous ‘selling you a pig in a poke’. In the end, the consultant manager is more of a salesperson. Those who execute the project are juniors. This also generates frustration in the client because first the partner comes to sell to you, who you love and who generates trust. But then, once you have bought the project, some junior people come, very smart and very talented, but still very inexperienced, who are the ones who carry it out.
Q: At Connecting Visions you organized the event ‘Visionaries’, what is it?
R: In Visionaries, what we want is to create a club where people who have an interest and want to contribute to the future of work can participate proactively. Our vision is that there are three basic legs on which how the future of work is changing rests: technological change, the demographic challenge, and cultural change.
It is clear that the topic of AI is “worrying”, although according to the World Economic Forum, 170 million new jobs will appear and 92 will disappear, the issue is, will it be at the same speed?, and it seems that the pace of complete automation of tasks is being very rapid. If we add to this that 30% of the population will be over 65 years old in 2030, and that both generation Z and that generation seek purpose… what will the future of work be like?
We believe that this future is posing a whole series of changes and dilemmas, and we want to create a community where best practices are shared, because we think the best way to predict the future is to create it together. In fact, this event is just the first, but the idea is to do more and generate content.
We are fortunate to have access to both business leaders, such as CEOs, HR directors, or change management directors, people who have an impact on the future of work, as well as entrepreneurs (whose companies are closely related to these types of topics) and opinion leaders.
That, perhaps, artificial intelligence will arrive later and take all our jobs, well, bad luck, but at least we will have tried. In any case, there are symptoms that encourage us to be optimistic: we see a very humanistic leadership trend and we want to create a breeding ground to talk about these issues.
Q: What role do you want people who join this community, and who are not part of Connecting Visions, to have?
I would love for them to have an active role, which for me is, on the one hand, that they share their knowledge, that they participate in content creation, and then, above all, that they share projects, either with those of the club itself, or even, if they want, also creating content, a paper.
Q: Besides these public events, will private events also be organized: talks, meetings, breakfasts?
Yes, this year it is already planned that there will be two other events, which would be more in a petit comité format. When we talk about Visionaries, we talk about believing, creating, and connecting. We are going to launch an associated manifesto, because we all have to believe in certain principles.
Q: How is the first event, the one on April 27th, going to be?
First I will give an introduction that will be structured around five axes. Afterwards there will be a general participation part and a round table.
These five axes of change are:
1. What a job: from work associated with a company, to work associated with the type of challenge I solve.
We believe there has been a change: we have gone from thinking that your job is a very static position, where you spent 15, 20 years or almost your whole life in a company, to which you associated your identity. However, now, we are moving to working on projects associated with specific challenges that have a beginning and an end. In the United States, 40% of people already work on a project basis.
Q: A side note: when you say that work is done by project, are we talking about freelancers or people hired for a particular project?
R: More and more, in companies, a lot of people who work on payroll have actually been hired for a specific project. In other words, structures are much more fluid, it is no longer so guaranteed that you will have a position depending on a department.
It no longer penalizes on the resume as much as before that a person has been four years in one company, four in another, three in another. Now, if they know how to explain it and if in each of those companies they have achieved some achievements (that you can verify) then there is no problem. I would even tell you that it indicates a more accelerated learning curve.
2. What we work for: from salary to employee value proposition
Before, people worked a lot for a salary and security, and now it is very interesting how all this is changing and the topic of purpose, for example, is becoming absolutely fundamental. Before it was living to work, now we understand that life has a family, social, spiritual component... Many pieces, and work is just one more. It is striking that, among Generation Z, only 6% want to reach senior management or that 80% value flexibility.
3. How work is organized: from hierarchy to network
We have gone from very hierarchical structures, of command and control, to authentic collaboration ecosystems.
4. Who works: from employee to ecosystem with external parties and AI
Previously, you thought about who worked at a company and it was the employees. Now there are all the external collaborators, the entire network of partners, experts, freelancers, consultants... and to all that, AI must be added. It no longer matters so much whether your employment contract with the company is on payroll or freelance, what matters is that you are aligned with the project, with the vision, hence our name.
5. How much: from schedule to productivity
This has to do with a very interesting topic, which is how soft skills will be valued, since there are already artificial intelligences that measure them. For example, an AI that, by listening to me, can tell me if my communication ability is high, medium, or low. Or analytical thinking, problem structuring... This will allow us to be more fluid between different sectors, to be less boxed in. And, at the same time, we live in a world of data where almost all returns are measurable. Really, a person who is absolutely brilliant and spectacular at communicating, well, they will be able to do it in any type of sector, and they will be able to measure their impact.
Therefore, I believe we are heading towards a more humanistic world, where what makes us more human, those soft skills, is precisely what will be valued more and what will allow us to flow between different projects or different challenges. We will surely see sole proprietorships that make fortunes, and at the opposite extreme, Elon Musk talks about "universal basic income".
Q: In resumes, will these qualities start to be shown and valued more than usual degrees, master's degrees, courses, etc.?
R: Exactly, and I think in the future it will be very widespread to have a little test done to check, for example, if you are really a good communicator.
Q: Who will be at that round table?
On the round table there will be four people who are already driving that future that we like:
Sara de Pablos
She is cofounder of Greater. Previously, she was the CEO Iberia of Suntory Beverage & Food Spain. She has experienced firsthand what it is like to have to reinvent oneself and make the transition. And she has created a company that helps make that transition. And her vision, with which I agree, is that companies also have a certain responsibility at the moment of disengagement and in fostering the employability of senior talent. She is dedicated to preparing people to continue contributing their experience, when they are no longer linked to a large company.
Rafael Sarandeses
It is, in itself, a brutal example of what I was telling you about soft skills. He has gone from being in Formula 3 – which is where his professional driving career began – to being in investment banking, at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, to then managing a company like Talengo. And he is at the round table as co-founder of Wiselook.
It is an AI that, you have a conversation with it, and it determines what your soft skills are and if you are at an excellence or beginner level. He firmly believes that we will have a resume of those soft skills.
Ángel Bonet
He is a showman. Founder and president of Impact, which is a consultancy that helps leaders have companies with purpose. He has written a book, for example, about companies that grow with soul. He is demonstrating that those companies that have purpose and those leaders who truly do things with soul, achieve superior business results.
Miguel Sotomayor
Miguel is a person who is in our Connecting Visions ecosystem and who clearly represents what would be the archetype of a super high-level interim management: he has gone through a consulting firm –in this case, McKinsey– and has had various experiences in different companies.
Miguel represents many of the changes I've told you about before: he is a person who, even though he has been on the payroll of these projects, what he likes are challenges. He represents that top executive profile, who knows how to work by project, who also knows how to reinvent himself and who continues to contribute a lot of value with his experience. He doesn't care so much about the format, whether he is a freelancer or on payroll, but what matters to him is the project, aligning with the vision.
Q: How will the event end?
R: We always say that we are looking for real impact. In the end, we will do a vote on what things the attendees are implementing in their organization related to everything we have discussed. There will be a QR code, with which people can comment and vote, and the idea is that they take away initiatives.
Q: Who will be the attendees: executives, ‘freelancers’, entrepreneurs?
R: We have focused the public a lot on company executives, because, really, the people who drive work are those who have an impact on thousands of jobs. We have directed it to CEOs, human resources directors, heads of change management, of innovation, that is to say, to people within medium and large companies who, if they truly internalize these changes, can be part of a solution that we all like.