Pictured: Lorna McDowell, CEO of Xenergie
Lorna McDowell is CEO of Xenergie, a purpose-driven, for profit, transformation consulting and SaaS performance management organisation.
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
Xenergie focuses on harnessing the power of “social energy“ and human connection, enabling leaders and their organisations to navigate the complex change and organisational revolution that we are experiencing today.
Socially energised organisations benefit from more agility, more flow and greater well-being because they’ve really worked at and activated the generative energy across their connections, and a key part of this is evolving peoples’ relationship with technology so that they can find more enjoyable and powerful ways of working with a more complex world. Herein is a balance of ethics, experience and experimentation.
Important to say this is not about just about people – it’s about how we connect everything and to get the right level of thinking around this, organisations need to align and re-align at multiple levels. We focus on the performance of the social energy which is the flow of what happens between people, processes and systems, and how to unlock the potential and possibilities in the journey of change. As a business, we have created a new category for “social energy” within the change and transformation market around this experience, because most organisations are very disconnected and do not recognise their social energy as a source for performance uplift. This also substantially enables and connects multiple transformation agends including digital, the S of ESG, LEAN and more, bringing them alive in a more meaningful way that people can embrace.
The main priority of my role, therefore, is to ensure that we deliver on our purpose of harnessing the human connection in driving up business performance, both for clients and for ourselves. This entails a substantial amount of communication and education in the marketplace, which is a key aspect of my role. Commercial wellbeing is attained by ensuring that we really walk our own talk and pay attention to how we connect all aspects of our business, customers and their contexts and really help everyone to work and adapt to new conditions and expectations.
In a confused world, this is challenging work!
What are your biggest challenges as CEO?
Reimagining organisations – away from the known hierarchical model – is difficult and feels risky. Most businesses today are also quite disconnected and therefore rigid as a result, in a world that is increasingly interconnected with changing fast.
So, we are in both an early stage market, but working often with very established organisations who are modelled on a need for certainty and risk reduction, struggling to really innovate (vs continuous improvement). They may be aware that they have challenges but are stuck in ways of working that are losing energy faster than they often realise.
To help people understand and reimagine themselves, we need to constantly bring learning opportunities, meaning-making, measurement and stories of lived experience to illustrate change in practice, showing what can be done, even in small steps.
Key to what we do, therefore, is help people see new ways to solve today and tomorrow’s challenges, by developing new ways of unlocking and working the resources they already have and evolve for new times. This requires aligning and developing leadership across the organisation – not just at the top but as a pervasive skill. This is as much true for ourselves as it is for our clients. So, for me this is a key part of my role in helping people learn and look at how we deploy our own energy and resources to best effect, and where we are losing energy.
Reimagining organisations – away from the known hierarchical model – is difficult and feels risky.
We use systemic thinking and a high degree of empowered leadership to enable this, and we have a distributed, adaptive and virtual way of working. Communication is key, and the ability to form working groups quickly and easily for enabling outcomes. Values and behaviour are at the core of our culture and we pay attention to working at a deeper and more meaningful level, being outcome focused and maintaining the “social energy”.
Currently, my focus is on taking this organisation into the future, together with my business partners. It’s an amazing time to be working in this field with all the innovations in sentient and data technologies and of course, AI. This presents a substantial opportunity for us and currently we are fundraising to enable us to avail of the scale of this opportunity.
I have a profound belief that humanity can get its act together and something better will emerge because momentum is building. The phoenix will arise from the flames of the current systemic anxieties and failures, and our job is to help and accelerate that process! This is our top level challenge.
Within this, I see my role as the “Chief Energy Officer” – this is a process rather than a position. How I show up really matters as the unconscious thoughts and behaviours resonate and ricochet across the organisation – neuroscience now proves that systemic anxieties begin with how we think and feel. I’ve learnt a lot about myself over the years in this regard and it’s a point that we bring home clearly to our CEO clients that the quality of their presence really matters and needs constant honing with the support of a reflection partner or systemically-trained coach.
Scaling and committing to a young company brings many highs and lows, and the need for huge resilience! Waiting for breakthroughs is nail-biting and disappointments can hit hard in impact. That said, the highs balance the lows, and we celebrate the milestones of success on the journey to the bigger goals. We are not saying that socially energising is easy, we are saying it needs constant attention and a strategy, to work with our own energy and capacity to do productive work in these conditions.
How do you keep your team/staff motivated?
There are five key motivators from what our staff tell us:
Firstly, working at Xenergie is a great “action-learning laboratory” for career and life transformation – all staff, whether permanent or contract, constantly remark on how much they learn in their journey with Xenergie, personally and professionally. Like any organisation, people come and go, so it’s our attitude and preparedness for movement and change counts.
We have a phrase, you can “check out but you never leave” and we have a wide network of people who have been part of our history and those who want to be part of our future. This also makes business quite personal so we know each others’ lives and there is a real desire for people to succeed and thrive in the system.
Secondly, substantial energy comes from our burning ambition for the future and exploring new technologies and innovating ways of working. We have always been pioneering and pivoted at every crisis from the financial crash in 2008 to Covid-19.
Working with that changing context actually brings new energy and inspiration to us, and we have learnt to trust in the process of adapting with a constantly changing context. This is further energised by our relationships with clients, because they are part of the future exploration with us.
Thirdly, we have a highly empowered business. There is plenty of scope for those who work with us to focus on what they love doing and excel. Our team is highly motivated and self-starting, we are high achievers, so giving people the scope and the space to achieve is important.
Fourthly, diversity. We bring together a wide range of experiences, ages and cultures in our teams. This fusion is very exciting and mind-expanding, particularly from the perspective of working globally and across generations.
It also means that people feel they can bring their contribution to the table and be valued.
Fifthly, results. Seeing our clients grow and transform makes all the efforts worthwhile and helps us become more trusting and confident in our abilities. Our clients are our biggest advocators. However, a focus on results, also encompasses fast recovery from setbacks, and staying close in understanding that success looks a lot like failure in the middle at times, so recognising what progress looks like is key.
As an employer are you finding any skill gaps in the market?
This is a great question.
Being part of a scale-up comes with challenge and it’s not for everyone. Whilst Ireland is naturally a resourceful and entrepreneurial nation, there is still a tendency to want certainty, to be risk averse and wait for the golden goose to land.
This does not suit our culture, so yes, we have found it very difficult to find the right people and those that are on board are here because they believe in the purpose, they understand the journey and they want the experience of growing this organisation.
What unites them is the ability to be very proactive and resourceful and think on their feet, and conceptualise what is missing and go looking for it. Some of this comes through experience, but much is about adjusting the sails for what it takes.
Part of this is mindset, the another part is a systemic issue around generating an eco-system around growing and scaling organisations that is less bureaucratic and enables more companies to take flight faster, rather than get lost in the chasm of despair.
What are the challenges facing the industry going forward?
We have grown up in the consulting industry and one of the key challenges is the transformation of scaling a people-heavy business and the need for more data-driven approaches in areas which have been either invisible or underrated – for example, moving from measuring employee engagement to measuring how well a company is attending to its culture development and the extent to which it is at risk of extinction due to underdeveloped leaders and associated people processes. There is so much confusion about this because it hits a nerve with so many people and potentially exposes organisations. The opportunity is to generate more amnesty on the past, and really provide solid and informed strategic supports to containing and enabling robust journeys of upgrade and evolution. Yes, this can be underpinned by technology, but we cannot just rely on technology such as e-learning or AI coaching to do the job humans have failed in. It is our relationship with technology that will make the difference, in the context of an evolved strategy of organisation and people development.
What new trends are emerging in your industry?
As mentioned, AI coaching and e-learning are powering the way people approach and scale behavioural change. However, we also see far more use of data ahead and the ability to aggregate many forms of disconnected data to create new narratives and insights that will be extremely powerful in organisational management. I believe in the next 10 years, organisations will reach another level of sophistication if they can become more digitally agile and ready to use the data. This does require an organisational upgrade first, because there is no point putting a digital process around something which is already fundamentally flawed and outdated.
Are there any major changes you would like to see in your sector?
In Ireland I would like to see the eco-system supports around scaling companies, particularly those who are involved in internally trading services evolve. Our growth has been hampered by an under-developed understanding of the opportunity of service businesses and the global context, in favour of businesses that focused on manufacturing and engineering. Now, Ireland is seeking new markets and opportunities, so I’d like to see more enlightened thinking in those that hold the purse strings and in investors about the game-changing impacts that service and SaaS-based integrations can bring.
How did your strategy develop in the context of the banking crisis and economic crisis?
I love this question because it reminds me that our business evolved through each crisis. During the banking crisis of 2008, we moved from offering transactional services to a deeper systemic approach which game-changed our business and enabled a more programmatic approach with ARR. It was ironic that one of the clients that enabled this was in fact a bank in the heart of the action of the crash. We were running a team activity with them on that day.
We bring together a wide range of experiences, ages and cultures in our teams. This fusion is very exciting and mind-expanding, particularly from the perspective of working globally and across generations.
That said, it has forever frustrated me as a business owner that the service small businesses receive from their banks is atrocious. Precious time is lost in a system that doesn’t work properly, and our grow strategies are never taken seriously by the bank. The focus was always on the larger organisations, frustrating in a country that is a patchwork of small, home-grown businesses. I developed a resilience to this over the years, something I still feel an opportunity loss around. When I started this business I was a single mother with a young child, just setting up in a new country, with no networks. Not a secure bet, I understand that, but I had brains, determination and attitude, so I do feel a sense of much lost time trying to convince a system I was worth supporting!
How has Brexit affected you?
We have always been a very globally active company with clients around the world, so Brexit was annoying rather than disastrous. In some ways, it has put Ireland in a stronger position and we have helped our clients step into this power of being a more influential global hub for development, and the gateway to Europe.
For investment purposes, we have also looked beyond Ireland and the UK is a key market for us as it is an important gateway to other international business and investors, so we have a foothold in both Ireland/EU and in the UK through registered entities in each market.
How has the COVID-19 crisis affected your business/sector?
COVID was again a crisis point which brought substantial opportunity – we gamechanged again – when other service organisations were going out of business. We took our business fully online, adapted and signed our biggest deal ever. Crisis brings opportunity and we know how to turn that around.
How do you define success and what drives you to succeed?
Success is about making a positive difference, about trying something new and studying your progress. Success can also look a lot like failure in the middle, so being able to interpret what we see is key, and not aborting efforts because we think we failed.
What drives me is intuiting the vision, the exhilaration of what’s possible. I love to bring ideas to life and therefore success involves persistence and resilience to shape it into existence and engage with others in making it happen.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given, or would give, in business?
Business is part of the natural order of things. Organisations are living entities – they have a birth, life and a death, embracing that helps us put things in perspective. As such, survival is not about the fittest or the most intelligent of the species, it’s about the most adaptive. The more we can embrace change through the stages and navigate the challenges, the more sustainable we are. And, take no one in your business for granted, they all play a role, even the antagonists for tension propels evolution!
What have been your highlights in business over the past year?
Seeing the progress in our clients as they move deeper and further into their transformation journeys and embed the learning they have gained through their experiences with Xenergie.
Also, being shortlisted on the Business & Finance ESG awards was important and sponsoring the governance category which brought us into contact with Coolmine Therapeutic Community who are very aligned with our values and ways of thinking as an organisation. As a business, being meaningful about our engagements with B&F and the Awards was important to us and since the Awards, we have engaged with Coolmine to get to know them and explore collaboration around the topic of “right to thrive”, transforming attitudes to addiction, and promoting education inside organisations that will shift mindsets about how and why addiction happens. This is important learning in the journey of organisational thriving – addiction isn’t just about “them”, it’s about all of us.
What’s next for your company?
That’s part of the great mystery! There’s what we intend, plan and aim for and then there’s what happens! We are prepared for both.
Our main focus is to expand our digital business performance toolkit for measuring and enhancing Social Energy. We also need to expand our reach, both in terms of client projects and trained systemic practitioners who are learning about how to enable systemic organisational change. We recently launched the Systemic Growth Network, a hybrid learning community for leaders who want to embrace systemic thinking in their practice and experienced systemic coaches and consultants who want to continue to develop their skills.
Where do you want your business/brand to be this time next year?
We want to be the go-to organisation for socially energising businesses for transformative times – be it for reasons of sustainability, digital, legislation or other triggers for change – we want to be known across Ireland and have made substantial traction in our new markets in the UK, US and Australia. We are also seeking collaborations with EU entities who are seeking to help organisations accelerate more transformational sustainability action.
Gaining investment into our business to extend our Social Energy Monitoring SaaS tools is also part of our plan, whilst continuing to build our consulting businesses in UK, Australia, Kazakhstan and USA and recruiting many more systemic consulting practitioners into our community of learning.
What advice would you have to others starting out in business?
Your business is more than having a great product, it’s about having a sustainable growth system behind the product. Think about your growth plan from the outset- what kind of business do you want to grow and why? What purpose will it serve in your life and what is your ideal exit plan? Therefore, what kind of people do you want – and need – to have on the journey, to both balance you and resonate with the mindset and culture you need to succeed. Be clear about these things, because they are central to important decisions and responses you’ll make on the journey.
What is the best book you’ve ever read (non-business) and why?
Operation Chiffon by Peter Taylor. This is the history of the back channels in the Northern Ireland peace talks. I listened to it on audio book on my road trip from Galway to Belfast, and then Dublin through to London. The back story centres around the power of human connection and shifting relationships with violence, political process, beliefs and moralities amidst the search to fulifl purpose, death and destruction. The story of the powers that be shovelling peat and coal to keep the fire in Brendan Duddy’s “wee room” burning and Mrs McGuinness watching a TV quiz show whilst critical conversations were being had around her kitchen table brought home that at the end of the day we are all human. It also symbolises many of the good things that Ireland brings to the world – the art of being human and levelling up.
What is your favourite hobby and why?
Walking my dog, Max, and swimming in the Atlantic waves at the Flaggy Shore in New Quay, Co Clare. I moved to the West of Ireland over 20 years ago to discover another way of living. The landscape never ceases to nurture me with insight and a way of holding me in my process of developing as a human. Even the wild weather has taught me to embrace each day, each moment as it comes with its ever-changing hues and happenings. You couldn’t buy that kind of education in any college, this is the school of nature.
What is your mantra for life?
Learn to dance in the rain! As you dance, you connect to yourself and the world starts to move with you.
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