Sel Watts joins Nick Anderson, CEO of OneAccord, on The Value Factory. It starts as a conversation about fractional leadership and ends up somewhere more interesting: what an org chart looks like when some of the boxes are AI agents.
Nick explains the OneAccord model, placing interim and fractional operators into C-suite roles for a defined period to do a defined thing, usually for owner-founders past 25 million in revenue. Sel talks about rebuilding in the US after 18 years running a full service HR consultancy in Australia, and why this market forced her to reposition the work around performance rather than HR.
Highlights
- AI agents belong on the org chart. Sel builds structures where agents sit alongside offshore team members, senior consultants and part-time experts. Nick's reaction: it was the first time he had heard anyone say it out loud, and it clicked immediately, because someone still has to supervise the work.
- An accounting team of four, one paycheck. Nick hired a controller who is fluent in technology. Alex built his own agents, so the business gets the output of a four-person accounting team and writes one paycheck.
- What actually makes people perform. People need to know what success looks like, do work they enjoy and are good at, and have the resources to do it well. Sel argues it really is that simple, and that most engagement problems trace back to nobody ever defining what a good job is.
- Outcome profiles and transition plans. Sel's team writes role profiles showing what success looks like, which parts of the old job an agent now handles, and how the person moves from doing the analysis to managing the agent that does the analysis.
- Where the culture architecture methodology comes from. Sel started the business in Australia because she thought the HR industry was broken and wanted to disrupt it. The work has always come at problems from the business point of view rather than the employee point of view, asking what the company needs to achieve and how the people get it there.
- A promotion path for people who should not manage people. The old route up was taking your best salesperson off the road and making them a mediocre manager. Managing agents creates advancement for experts without forcing them into people leadership.
- Owners see opportunity, middle managers see risk. Founders look at one payroll covering four roles and lean in. Middle managers protecting their teams need coaching and different incentives.
- Fractional is not a job, it is a business. Nick has spoken with around 200 people in two years who want to be fractional something. His line: there is a seat on the bus if you can bring revenue with you.
- Australia and the US are different markets. Australian businesses often wait until 60 to 100 staff before hiring internal HR. In the US it happens closer to 10. Sel also finds her Australian clients well behind her US clients on AI.
Also discussed
- Why turnaround work is the least enjoyable engagement, and what makes it necessary
- Why the expensive middle of a consulting team stopped delivering a return, and how senior-only teams became affordable
- Clients whose plan is to get smaller before they get bigger
- The large consulting firms shedding staff, and the opening that creates further down the market
Sel and Nick are both early among their peer group on this, and the honest position they land on is that nobody has the finished answer yet. What clients want is someone a step ahead who has made the mistakes already.