The Red Review - Winning Work and Growing a Business in the Defence Sector - The Basics Matter, with Kevin De Groot
In this episode, Jeremy talks to defence construction project management veteran Kevin de Groot about what good looks like in delivery and in winning work in the defence sector.
Find Kevin de Groot on LinkedIn - Kevin de Groot
Transcript
0:00:00 Jeremy Brim: I'm Jeremy Brim, and welcome to the Red Review podcast, brought to you today by Growth Ignition, the transformation, consulting and enabling tech business. All in the works, we need Space and the Bid Toolkit, our online bid process and guide.
0:00:16 Jeremy Brim: Hello and welcome to the Red Review with me, Jeremy Brim. We've got a series of episodes coming thick and fast, actually, but one of the key verticals I wanted to get into and talk a bit more about was defence. And so I reached out to my friend Kevin DeGroote and said, "Let's, let's have a chat." Hello, Kevin. Welcome. Hi Jeremy. Good to have you aboard, sir. So, well, let's get into it. So Kevin, if you wouldn't mind, first of all, though, could you give us a bit of background to you and your career before we zero in on the last few years? Sure.
0:00:53 Kevin de Groot: Well, I've had a career of 40 years in project and programme management consultancy, starting off at EC Harris in the mid-80s as tea boy and photocopying boy, and gradually worked my way up over the years to equity partner there, where I headed up the Public Sector Project Management nationally, working a lot in education, but also for local authorities and a lot of blue light work. After the merger with Arcadis, I spent some time with Arcadis Environment on secondment, working out of their Newmarket office. Then after around 30 years there, I took the plunge to move over to Capita, where I headed up their project management teams in London. That then led to secondment to DIO in the early days of the OP Defence Estate Optimisation Programme, where I went in initially to do some troubleshooting and ended up looking after the PMO there. That then followed on with me client-side on behalf of DIO, the client-side partner commission, which, as people know, subsequently went to Mace Turner & Townsend. And then there was a pandemic. And after the pandemic, I picked up the 'phone to Mace and spent the last few years as part of Mace's senior leadership team in defence, looking after a portfolio of projects and programmes delivering to DIO.
0:02:24 Jeremy Brim: Very good. So we've crossed paths a few times, Kevin, haven't we? Because when I was a lad at EC Harris, half this weight and twice as much hair, I remember you as a partner there, and always enjoyed working with you on bids and things. And then we have a bit of a shared history with Mace. I worked there at a different time as well, and so it's great. It's great to have you aboard. So part of this, I thought, obviously, the world's changing a bit. I tend to end up working in construction a lot, in other markets too. But clearly there's going to be a lot more government spending in defence because of the unfortunate circumstances that are going on in the world. So it sort of caught my attention, and I thought I should reach out. I've been doing some stuff by accident in defence, quite a bit in the last couple of years, and in nuclear and things, stuff at Hinkley and all sorts. But I wanted to take it a bit more seriously, so I thought we should have a chat about what's going on, and what does good look like. But also, why not record it as a podcast episode and share it with everyone else? I guess so. I guess what, what are you doing now, Kevin, and what's, what's the next couple of years look like, in as much as you can tell me or not? But and then, what does success in defence and the sort of crossover between defence and construction looked like for you?
0:03:44 Kevin de Groot: So for me, I stood down from Mace at the end of last year. Having spent 40 years doing this, I felt it was time to work for myself, do freelance work, so I'm in the process of building and developing that portfolio at the moment. In terms of what, what, what does success look like? What I'd like to focus on, Jeremy, is the work for DIO. And I think it's fair to say that "defence" in inverted commas is a very broad church. It covers MoD DIO on one side, which one would say would be the public sector, civil servant side of work. And then there are the big defence primes, Lockheed, General Dynamics, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce. I'm not going to touch that area, because my primary experience is working through with the DIO and bringing the sort of public sector experience that I've got to bear on that. So if that's okay, then I'm going to primarily focus on the experience of that. However, I think from consulting and construction, obviously, my background is in consulting, but during my time in defence, I've obviously worked closely with contractors, delivering, designing and delivering live construction projects. So I can share a little bit of insight into what I've seen and what I've learned from that side of things, if that's okay. Yeah, please. Okay. So what does success look like in defence construction? The first thing I would say is that the main objective in delivering a defence construction project relates to the military capability that the infrastructure project is designed to provide or assist with. Now, a lot of people in our industry see the construction of buildings in defence, called "all buildings infrastructure." So it's not just road and energy infrastructure as the be-all and end-all. In defence, there are things called DLODs, Defence Lines of Development. People can go and look that up, and quite frankly, if people don't know what they are, then they probably shouldn't be working in this area. They outline a number of criteria that are used to assess what is needed to develop a military capability. So infrastructure is simply one of a number of key strands of work that are needed to implement that capability. So for example, training, equipment, personnel, logistics, that type of thing will build up the picture. So one of the things that one needs to do to be successful is to understand where infrastructure sits in the provision of the Defence Lines of Development to achieve that military capability. That makes sense, yeah. The first thing to understand, some of the other success criteria are pretty basic and pretty common actually, to whatever else you're doing. Things need to be delivered on time. Now, why is delivering on time in defence so important? One of the reasons is the complex web of dependencies that exist in defence infrastructure projects. Again, common to a lot of construction delivery projects, but perhaps more critical in defence, because of the interface between the military capability and output of what's happening, the myriad of third parties who are required to come in and help hand over and finish the facilities. It could be, for instance, relocation of equipment and personnel, the risk of downtime. So lost output, lost capability, in the event of a delay. And then the other reason as well, and I'll come on to actually getting clean handover, is that once you have finished, getting back in to rectify or finish off anything that hasn't been completed can be difficult if you're in a secure working environment. So getting something done on time is a success criteria. On budget. The reason why it's particularly important in defence is money will be approved for a scheme during business case approval. That money is earmarked and banked to be spent on your project. If it goes over budget, people will be required to go back and bid and ask for more money, often through a process called a review note. Firstly, there's no necessary guarantee that that review note will be approved, but I think for me, my experience is that the reputational damage, credibility damage, and embarrassment to your client as to having to go back and seek that additional funding is undesirable. So therefore, delivery to budget is a success criteria. It is taxpayers' money, after all, and again, there's, I think it's common to all parties working in the public sector. One shouldn't lose sight of the fact that this is public money that could be spent on other things, and in my experience, in the defence world, those other things could be wages for service personnel, equipment upgrades, anything that's needed other than just your building, that is not the be-all and end-all of everything. The other budgetary considerations are certainty of outcomes. So I think where one is able to operate a rolling final account and stick to the cash flow, the expense tends to be annualised, and therefore, if you are able to meet what you need to do in that financial year, and your expenditure graph against forecast graph matches, that looks good. It makes you look good, and it makes your client officers look good as well, because they're effectively managing the budget. So yeah. And the other, the other aspect of that rolling final account is a little bit of sort of the value analysis equation, so that if, if you are reporting you're on programme, but your cash flow says you're not, then something obviously is wrong. So I think those are the financial success criteria. Handing over buildings is vital. I touched on that a little bit earlier. It's quite difficult and needs a lot of planning in advance. What I've found is that there are a number of different bodies, experts, technical approval people, both from DIO, from the end user, and I'll talk a little bit more about this when I come on to stakeholders, but there'll be people that operate the establishments outside of the frontline command as well. So coordinating all of those people, getting them all in the right place at the right time, providing all the information they need in enough time for them to review it, is all vital in terms of getting a clean handover. And again, I mentioned earlier, the importance of the clean handover is you can't always guarantee how and when they're going to get back. And another thing I've seen as well is the longer outstanding defects and snags go on, the more damage it does to one's reputation in terms of one's ability to deal.
0:11:49 Jeremy Brim: So, from a work-winning perspective, some of that doesn't feel like rocket science. It's the sort of stuff we talk about in construction bidding all the time, but actually super, super important. But it's the first bit. It's the understanding far beyond what the building is you're looking to build, but the outcomes they're looking to achieve from the construction of that asset. If you focus on that as well as technically, how you're going to deliver the thing, or programme and cost, you'll be much more successful in your.
0:12:18 Kevin de Groot: I think so. And that comes really under the heading of the importance of stakeholder management and the understanding of the differentiation between your client and your customer. And it's sort of a similar analogy to working in schools where you're perhaps employed by the local authority as your client, but the head teacher of the school is your customer. So for here, you will be employed by the DIO as your client, civil servants, and your customer will be a military person from whichever frontline command you happen to be providing the facility for.
0:12:56 Jeremy Brim: Yes, and is there some challenge with the commercial function within DIO? I've had instances in the past. I think I've had some really cool work I've done before. Actually, I helped a company that provides fighter jets and pilots to the RAF, and they pretend to be the baddies, and the RAF try and pretend to shoot them down. It's quite a sort of boys' toys sort of thing, but they had this real challenge that they've got the next-gen fighter jets and capability that's more expensive but much more effective in that practice. But you've got to get through that commercial lens, haven't you? So in terms of that stakeholder mapping, you've got the customer, you've got the client, but then you've got commercial procurement, haven't you? Yes, and figuring out how to dance with all of that is quite a challenge.
0:13:44 Kevin de Groot: I find all of those things a challenge. And I think in terms of moving on to some of the sort of key lessons I've learned, that understanding of the relationship between military and civil servant, client, customer, establishment management, commercial finance, all of the various strands of DIO who have an obligation to input into the work you're doing, is an interesting challenge, shall we say. I would really advocate people working in this area to be very, very strict at stakeholder management planning. One finds a lot of the bids I've seen, there's almost always a question on stakeholder management, and I think where I've seen successful responses to that, it's always where you can demonstrate the interface between yourself as a provider, be it a consultant or contractor, the customer and the client. And it's the same old thing that you will never always get everything that your customer wants. The customer doesn't hold the purse strings. DIO will hold the purse strings. You need to deal with the dynamics, the place of military civil servant and the way that interface works. Need to recognise your place as a consultant. So military, civil servant, consultant, and if you understand that dynamic and respect it and understand that relationship, then you can work your way through that stakeholder environment, I think, yeah. The other issue as well with stakeholders is that there tends to be a fairly frequent rotation of staff, both in terms of military position and some of the civil service positions as well.
0:15:44 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, that's really become a thing, hasn't it? Because I do loads of work with the Department for Business and Trade, and it's the same, that I have different people joining calls all the time. A bit of a revolving door, as their career is seen as a bit of a career thing, isn't it? They're moving to gain experience and things, but it is every year or two, it's pretty quick.
0:16:01 Kevin de Groot: And the lesson I've learned from that is, keep your records before it's been agreed. Said, I'm not suggesting any sort of impropriety. However, certain arrangements, approaches, agreements, courses of actions will be agreed, as it was drummed into me by certain people, "If it ain't written down, it didn't happen." Yeah, so, yeah, that's as part of that, respecting that process. Just be really clear what's been done, why, who did it and when. Earlier, Jeremy, there's nothing rocket science about this. It's basic. But I think what I observe is everybody knows the basics. You expound on the basics frequently, but when one is caught up in the heat of what one is doing, sometimes one can lose track of some of this.
0:17:00 Jeremy Brim: But they keep you safe, these basics, don't they? Good stuff. Okay, what else have we learned?
0:17:05 Kevin de Groot: Jeremy, things that I have found about working on occupied sites. One of the biggest issues is ground conditions and existing ground conditions, the adequacy of survey information and unknown services. I would say virtually every project that I've been involved with in defence that has put a spade in the ground has found something they didn't know was there. That can range from something totally inert, I'll kind of drink to something vital, like the main IT connection between one establishment and another, or something like the aircraft landing lights on a runway when a plane is coming into land. It's, again, really basic stuff, but, but it happens, and it will happen, and one needs to be cognisant of that as a risk and whatever management, risk assessment, supervision provision is needed to make sure it doesn't happen once you're put in place. I think what I've seen is a lot of the historic information on the site, sometimes information that you're given may not be complete. I think it's not always warranted from third parties who have done surveys. There's just a big watch out, but it also that also ties into health and safety as well. Maybe we should, as good construction professionals, mention health and safety really at the top of the agenda. So the ground conditions tied into it, and again, I've seen on projects where people have put diggers through electric cables, diggers have tipped over working near trenches. There's always explanations for these things. There was a flurry of incidents that led to an upping of the game. So a lot of the end of my tenure, all incidents on site were reported all the way up to one-star level, instantly, zero tolerance. On the plus side, I think the contractor community, particularly the DIO, have encouraged health and safety forums. Most of the active contractors are part of that forum, contribute to it, and I've seen a lot of good safety shares going on between potentially competing contractors under the auspices of DIO health and safety forums. So that, that's a positive from the health and safety side of things.
0:19:55 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, it feels like the defence community and all the people pulling construction, professional services and contractors working in defence. It does feel like we've been on a bit of a journey, and things have got better. I mean, we're going to talk about alliances, aren't we, but it feels like defence is kind of leading the way in some areas in the public sector world.
0:20:18 Kevin de Groot: Probably couldn't comment on whether or not it's leading the way, one way or the other, from other sectors that I haven't necessarily been involved in, but in the last few years, there has been a significant increase in focus on areas like health and safety and on, as you say, we'll talk a little bit more about Alliance shortly, but bringing contractors and industry experts together for the benefit of the whole. Yeah, yeah. Another aspect I'll touch on, should we sort of lessons learned, is around systems and processes within DIO. And again, I think this goes for a lot of public sector, one needs patience to work effectively through DIO. There are systems and processes that are in place, and one should respect them and work to them. Now, whether they are the most effective way of doing it, whether it is the most logical way of doing it, is not for us to question. Yeah, DIO are open to industry innovation. But I think again, what was drummed into me a lot was evolution, not revolution. One could bring the most all singing and dancing, fancy PMO control, automated model, whatever control centre. You aren't going to get that introduced on a single project on its own. And you aren't going to get that introduced across the whole of DIO in the first couple of weeks of your mobilisation. So sometimes you need to find the best way to dovetail the most effective method of working into the systems that you've got, sticking with sort of health and safety and well-being. It can be a grind working through some of that stuff. Things move slowly. Things can change quickly and unexpectedly. That could be through government funding changes. It could be through military requirement changes, new equipment coming in, new missions being put forward, and you just have to be ready to roll with that. One needs a certain temperament. I think what I see, it can knacker people. So I would say a big part of my job is looking after my people and making sure that they're okay, because it can become frustrating. On the plus side, when you do actually succeed in getting something through, when you do actually succeed in reaching the next stage and next level, by then, yes, these things must be celebrated.
0:23:19 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, very rewarding. It is a journey, isn't it, and it must be really turbulent times at the moment with what's going on with geopolitics, and obviously we've got a large enclave of US forces here and elsewhere in Europe. We're partnered with them, and we're kind of inextricably linked, really, or intrinsically linked, with the US and their capability, aren't we? So it's going to be an interesting few years, I think, of how we, and I, perhaps rightly, learn to stand on our own two feet, actually, and build our own capabilities alongside what we've partnered with. So but yeah, it must have been that, that, like you say, that resilience to change must have been sorely tested in the last three to six months, and I'm sure we'll continue to be tested for a bit as we, as we in Europe, find our new way, I guess.
0:24:08 Kevin de Groot: Yes. The other thing I'd say as well is that the, I suppose, looking after your people, look at looking after your client, your DIO client, and your various offices there, I've always thought part of the role as a consultant there is to help them look good. One can, one often wishes to take credit for everything, but I think to successfully deliver you need to find out what the people you're working for want, need, what makes them look good, where they're going in their career progression, and what they want out of the projects that they've delivered. And I advocate an element of selflessness from a consulting point of view, as to actually what that client wants, what makes them look good. Again, Jeremy, I've seen you talk about this sort of stuff. Just yeah.
0:25:07 Jeremy Brim: Client, client, account management anyway, rings it rings in my ears from our schooling when we were lads at EC Harris. I guess that's funny that I bumped into David Sparrow, our old chief revenue officer, I guess, or ex chief executive of EC Harris, who used to wind people up endlessly about, you know, it'd wind up the market as in, why do we need a website? And he'd wind up partners who were working with me, bidding on deals, and he was absolutely right, actually, if we don't know what is on the scorecard of those five people that will read our bid, what's on their scorecard for their appraisal at the end of the year that we're going to positively help impact? Then what are we writing? Who are we writing to about what? Because, funny enough, I've had a post go out. We're recording this on Tuesday the 22nd. I had a post go out this morning on researching opportunities. Again, it's actually a repost, because I was a bit upset. I had a client the other week whose bid team never get to research the clients they're writing bids for. All of their bids are fundamentally cold. What a thank, what a thankless, awful task that must be. You know, we really need to understand these humans, because they're going to select us based on how we're going to help them look good, as you put it, but how we're going to make their life easier, how we're going to deliver the outcomes that, you know, get them a good appraisal score, get them their bonus or promotion or whatever it is that they value. So and that's all connected to ultimately creating the greatest value for clients, and in this world, it's about enabling them with their mission. But it is, yes, nothing's changed in the world of winning since I started. It's all, it's all the same stuff. We might have the onset of AI and all of that kind of stuff in bid writing. But the reality is, if you can save the client a million quid more than anyone else in your solution, because and because you understand what's important to them, also you, whether it's a million quid or whether it's making their life easier, or whether it's programme time or health and safety, whatever they care about, if we can do more of it than anyone else, it won't matter what you write in your bid, as long as it's compliant, you've won. So, you know, I teach people, probably 1,000 people a year, how to write bids, but, and that's important, but that solution and understanding clients and what their drivers are is absolutely critical.
0:27:36 Kevin de Groot: I'll just sort of follow on from that, then, in terms of what, what, what is the approach for winning work in defence, just sort of build on, build on those sort of basic points. I think the first thing one needs to decide as an organisation is actually, what are you good at and what do you actually want to do? I think we've all seen organisations who take the view of, if it falls out of the sky, I'm going to bid for it, and then get upset that the win rate is below what it should be. You can't catch everything that falls out of the sky. You need to put the front-end work in. And I think certainly in defence, in the civil service side of defence, it's not the same as in the private sector, where you can wine and dine, go on a boat in certain locations and all that sort of stuff. I think what I've seen is that, first of all, work your frameworks, that there are a number of routes to market through DIO, not just necessarily through CCS, lot five from the consulting.
0:28:42 Jeremy Brim: That's interesting.
0:28:43 Kevin de Groot: So, Scape and various other routes are available. And the other, the other piece of advice I always give is anyone who's out anywhere, give them your two-pager on how to appoint a single tender action through whatever framework we happen to be directed towards. 0:29:04 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, you can win direct awards in defence. Sorry, yes, you can.
0:29:11 Kevin de Groot: And I think what, what one of the areas for developing work in defence is the idea that you can actually find smaller, discrete, strategic bits of work, low value. I've seen it done around sustainability areas like that, where you can go in and do a very small piece of consulting work that gets your foot in the door, gets you some track record on paper, gets you introduced to people, and can be hypothetically procured via single tender action.
0:29:43 Jeremy Brim: Interesting? Yeah, that's interesting. So I'm going to be doing a podcast, actually, with Rebecca Reese from Trowers & Hamlins, the procurement lawyer, about the new Procurement Act and how that's been adopted. But there is, there is some interesting stuff coming. What we're seeing with CCS on their estates management framework they're currently procuring, their approach to direct awards in that is a bit peculiar, so I'll leave it for the episode with Rebecca. But if they start a bit of a fad, then.
0:30:13 Kevin de Groot: They will change. But say it's, it's, I think it's an under-exploited area of opportunity.
0:30:20 Jeremy Brim: Interesting, and that's good coaching, because I tend to try and drive people towards that, because they tend to make more money, not because they're profiteering, but because if they've been engaged in that fashion, they probably understand the work better. They deliver it at lower risk. You know, they're more comfortable delivering it. They make everyone better off. So, I always try and get that to happen.
0:30:40 Kevin de Groot: It's really hard to get big teams to do it. To do it is give me the Idiot's Guide, a two-page Idiot's Guide that I can give to a client when I'm out, when they're just, when you're over here. Oh yeah, I think we're just going to get, you know, a bit of ground investigation done here, or contamination, something over here. It's probably only about ten or fifteen grand. But we can do that. You can point to single tender action. Here's the process of how we do it. Yeah, absolutely. And we can do it. We can start next week. Very.
0:31:11 Jeremy Brim: Good. So I'm just, I'm conscious of time Kevin, because we could talk about this stuff all day. So I just wanted to touch on. So at the other end of the scale, from 15 grand single direct award stuff, the big Alliance stuff. So because the context is that the big government programmes, we've been on a journey with the development of FAC-1 as the alliance form of contract. Over the last few years, we've got the, so the rebid of CCS construction professional services will be out in June. The rebid of CWAS, the main construction framework, will be out in Q1 next year. And then you've got the National Hospital Programme, you've got prisons, you've got schools, you've got all sorts of stuff going on. I think government are realising there isn't actually the contractor capacity to do all this stuff if we try to procure it all traditionally, and at the same time, we shouldn't, because of the potential efficiencies in delivering in an alliance model, whether it's a full FAC-1, or whether it's more of just a strategic alliance. So you've got some experience of this with the OP from.
0:32:21 Kevin de Groot: Yes, I had the opportunity to, on behalf of Mace, to head up the technical advisor elements of the OP. Really good alliancing approach, combining all of the contractors, the regional contractors, and all of the consultants who are providing the technical service provider in a single Alliance group. What, what I found really good about that group was the breaking down of any sort of competitive issues between the contractors. And I think, I think defence is a small world. There is a myriad of joint ventures, formal, informal allegiances, people coming together to do bits and pieces to the extent that you can actually get all of those national contractors and consultants in one room and all talk openly about the way in which you are going to procure and deliver major, major projects across the country. It took a lot of work to get off the ground. I don't think anyone would mind me saying that. I think it was tested. It needed testing live over a period to come into play. As I say, I think the enthusiasm of all the people that I was involved with was exemplary on it. And I think that's really heartening. I think I guess the watch out is whoever is responsible for bringing those types of alliances together, I would say focus on the soft side of it, as well as the contractual side. Yeah, because the need to actually build that consensus, build that team, build that group, build that single, single vision of what you're doing, but the potential benefits of it, and I'll take, for example, there's living accommodation, the idea that there is a huge amount to be provided through Defence Estate Optimisation, and as you mentioned, a number of other government programmes ongoing at the moment that may require modular solutions potentially. Not only does one need to look nationally about the defence provision of single living accommodation, but one also needs to factor that in with the ongoing programme delivery across government of other potentially modular solution items, prisons and office work and so forth.
0:35:05 Jeremy Brim: So yes, it's a bit, it's a, it's a bit of a dangerous category, the old MMC space, particularly volumetric, because there is only about a billion quid's worth of turnover a year in the MMC supply chain. And if you, if you add up all of these programmes, they far exceed it. And I've been saying for ages to government ministers, hopefully now we've got in government at least one person who understands all this stuff, because my mate Mike Reed has been elected as an MP, he was at Mace. Of course you do. So you know, there were, for the longest period, lots of MPs saying the letters MMC, and if you scratch the surface, they clearly didn't realise the implications. So the likes of Reds 10 have been let down a bit by some of their competitors going bust and all that sort of stuff. But there are, like Reds 10 are a great example of how to do this stuff effectively.
0:36:00 Kevin de Groot: If you give them the chance, if you give them the quantum and the run up of standard design challenge. And I think in defence, it's the incremental budget for improvement approval, in that you are not necessarily going to get the advance approving of five, ten, fifteen years' worth of accommodation. Insufficient volume to allow a Reds 10 or equivalent, to invest in the new facilities with 100% certainty that that cash is going to land in the programme isn't going to get changed. And that's, that's, that's the dynamic. And I think that the next, the next level that government needs to take this approach to is the interdepartmental connectivity and the pan-departmental investment in industry, UK industry, that can provide across the board for public sector.
0:36:59 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, so that's the job, I think, of Mr. The new combined IPA and pieces there. So hopefully they should get a grip of that. It's all linked. I mean, in fairness, the government are doing a bunch of very simple, sensible stuff that you kind of have to question, why didn't we have it before, like an industrial strategy as a country, you know, what's the country going to do and what should it be doing? And then, you know, hanging from that will be the different programmes of activity in defence and other sectors. So it's a perfectly sensible approach. We'll just have to see what comes out in the spending review, I guess. Well, listen, like I say, I could talk about this stuff all day. You're very welcome to come on anytime. So how can people find you on LinkedIn if they want to.
0:37:47 Kevin de Groot: Do some work, find me on LinkedIn. KDG Project Services Limited. If anyone wants to continue the discussion, or if there's anything I can do for colleagues in this area, feel free to give me a shout.
0:38:02 Jeremy Brim: Yeah, I think there's lots of companies that are looking at defence, recognising which way the world's going, that could do with some insight on the right behaviours, the right language, how to approach things, etc. So whether it's consultants or contractors, do reach out to Kevin. It's great to have somebody who's been there and done it to give you a bit of coaching, isn't it? We don't want to work you too hard, Kevin, you're meant to be having a more sedate time of it, but it's always interesting to stay active with these things. But thank you very much for coming on, mate, and we'll see you soon. Thank you.
