Do You Want a Nuanced, Younger Perspective on the Billable Hour?
Tom Hall, a millennial (we say that tongue-in-cheek) from the UK, is studying economics and political science at the University of Bristol, UK. He produced a report on the billable hour and timesheets. He sent us a list of questions, which were excellent, so we are happy to have the chance to speak with him about his findings.
What follows is a brief bio on Tom along with the FULL transcript from our show. Enjoy!
A little bit about Tom:
My name is Tom Hall and I’m a 21-Year-Old Economics and Politics student at the University of Bristol, UK. I’m a young individual who is just looking to learn as much as I possibly can. Over summer I was lucky enough to be involved in producing a report looking at the use of hourly billing and whether it was time to leave it in the past. This led me to firstly reading Ron’s books and then on to listening to The Soul of Enterprise, which I have listened to religiously since discovering it. Following this, I emailed Ron and Ed asking for advice on the report. My lack of experience has proved to be something of an advantage. I have no pre-existing thoughts or assumptions which allows me to question the status-quo and not just accept things as the way they are, such as pricing methods. A keen sports player having played soccer, rugby, and tennis amongst other sports, this competitive nature spills over into my working life always striving to be the best I can be.
The Transcript from Our Interview with Tom Hall
Ron Baker 0:31
Welcome to The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy, sponsored by Sage, energizing business builders around the world through the imagination of our people and the power of technology. I'm Ron Baker, along with my good friend and VeraSage Institute colleague, Ed Kless. Hey, Ed, how's it going?
Ed Kless
Good, Ron, how are you?
Ron Baker
Very good since we spent some time in Cleveland this week.
Ed Kless 0:54
Go Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Ron Baker 0:57
The home of Drew Carey.
Ed Kless 0:59
That's right.
Ron Baker 1:06
Yeah, it's always great to talk to Reginald. And I still didn't get to see him talk because our sessions are the exact same time, but they're hoping they can move that for our last show in Columbus, which is next week.
Ed Kless 1:21
Oh, good. That would be nice for you to get a chance to see Reginald. But you were both kind enough to come to my session at the end of the day, which I appreciate.
Ron Baker 1:27
Oh, yeah. No, that was great. You did from compliance to consulting. I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Ed Kless 1:33
Yeah, good stuff, always like to drop Peter Block on people.
Ron Baker 1:37
That's always exciting. Well, today, we're having a discussion with a millennial. We'll have to talk to him if he plays Monopoly Millennial Edition. But let me introduce him and then we'll get him in here. Tom Hall. He's a 21 year old economics and politics student at the University of Bristol, UK. And over the summer, he was involved in producing a report looking at the use of hourly billing, and whether it's time to leave it in the past. His lack of experience has proved something of an advantage because he had no pre-existing thoughts or assumptions about this particular business model. And we've talked about this before, at how rookies can come to something with fresh eyes, fresh perspective. They don't have all the orthodoxies of the profession, and that's usually where you get massive leaps of innovation. Tom's a keen sports player, he's played soccer, rugby, and tennis amongst others, and this competitive nature spills over into his working life. He always strives to be the best he can be. Tom Hall, welcome to The Soul of Enterprise.
Tom Hall 3:05
Good evening, gentlemen.
Ron Baker 3:08
Thanks for joining us, Tom. We know it's a little bit late over there, but this is going to be the fastest hour of your life. But you sent Ed and me an email a while back and told us about how you were involved in this role to research and produce a report on the billable hour and whether or not change was advised. So tell us how is it that an economics and politics major gets involved in studying the billable hour and the timesheet?
Tom Hall 3:42
Well, through my university they offer internships, summer internships, which are paid for by the university, and then the businesses, the local businesses get the benefit so they get free work basically whilst I get paid and get the claim of doing stuff for the local town or local city. And I saw this on advertised and thought I needed some cash, I needed something to do and it interested me. So I applied. And then the further through I got to the interview stages, the more and more invested I got into it. And luckily enough I got offered the job. So I did that for two-and-a-half months over summer. So from July till the end of September. My lead on it, Dr. Harry Pitts, has done a lot of work on pricing and value. And that's mainly in the creative economy. So architects and manufacturers, and then through conversations, we had meetings, he got me in with this accountancy firm in the UK. And yeah, from there, it just developed and turned into something great.
Ron Baker 5:03
So when they advertise for interns, they didn't have this assignment in mind?
Tom Hall 5:09
It kind of came after I joined. It wasn't a specific assignment, it was more looking at value and pricing. And then just sort of the ability to go where the research took us, which was great. It didn't inhibit us in any way. So we were able to still go with the flow. And the more we developed, the clearer it became, almost like a dissertation or a final year, I'm not sure if you have them in the US, but a final year project where you just sort of eventually work out the question you actually tried to answer.
Ron Baker 5:43
Sure. And, you sent us the outline of the report, the background, the aims, goals and objectives, and the time sheet. The second point dives right into value in pricing. You even talked about the labor and subjective theories of value. I have to ask you, you’ve finished the report now? Is that right? [Yes]. Have you gotten any feedback from anybody who's read it?
Tom Hall 6:14
Well, but the firm has read it. And we're due to have a meeting at some point to go through it. It's positive. But there's been no specific feedback yet. We are just waiting until we can all get a date free to go through the report in depth with all those who worked on it. And those at the firm. It's quite difficult, obviously, in a very busy time to get everyone together at one point. So yeah, there's been no specific feedback other than this is good. Let's talk.
Ron Baker 6:46
Excellent, because Ed and I both have delivered the labor theory and the subjective theory of value in Europe, and it's quite popular. I mean, the Europeans, I think more than the Americans, appreciate theory. We're all about “how to” over here and give us the checklist. But when we talk about it over there, it really resonates. So I'm really curious to see what the specific feedback on that section was.
Tom Hall 7:18
I think it was important to frame the frame everything about value by giving the sort of basis and core assumptions to work from because that's where you move from. And the subjective theory of value, as well as the entire thing about value pricing comes from there.
Ron Baker 7:39
Where were you introduced to the labor theory and the subjective theory, was that from your professor at college?
Tom Hall 7:47
Yeah, from my professor whose work touched upon it and went into it so he's done extensive work on value and especially for marks and capitalism. And so he introduced me to it and then from the books he bought for me and recommended to me and then just steadily gained the knowledge of it by searching on the internet and tried to develop my understanding of it.
Ron Baker 8:22
And what books really helped you with that—not just mine—I’m looking for other books you read. So yeah, yours,
Tom Hall 8:28
Your, you sum up very concisely, it was very clear. After I'd done the reading, I had all this information and then I came across your books, maybe a bit later on in my readings, and then they sort of pushed it all together into one concise little piece of information. But mainly, it was just different websites, and then work by [Karl] Marx. So I read a bit of old Marx stuff, which is quite chunky to get through and difficult to get through, and also isn't actually that useful. He takes a lot of words to say a very small point, right? Which is basically how writers make their money. So yeah, it was just sort of a slow development of my understanding. But all the books that I've read on value, they always touch upon that at the start, to a greater or a lesser extent.
Ron Baker 9:22
That's fascinating because you're 21 and I wasn't exposed to these ideas until a bit later. I didn't get any of that in economics. Did you study Austrian economics in your courses?
Tom Hall 9:37
No, I haven't. The economics I study is more overarching, it's not very specific. So I haven't really looked into like, the economics of Carl Menger or anything like that, other than in this project.
Ron Baker 9:55
Right. You're probably learning more macro like Keynesian and monetarism.
Tom Hall 10:02
And then the other side of it is game theory at the micro level.
Ron Baker 10:11
Yeah, I got the same type of education. And I had to find these guys on my own. You run across Hayek or Menger, and then you get into Mises. And it does kind of take you down a another path. But I think it gives you a clearer view of how the world works. But we've only got a few minutes here, Tom, but let me also ask you, you can't separate pricing from what a company measures because it's an integral part of the business model, something most people don't understand. If you change your business model you must change two things, your pricing and what you measure. And if you only do one or the other, you're not changing the business model. You end up with the old behaviors. What got you to study the timesheet?
Tom Hall 11:02
The timesheet is what stops the escape to a different method of pricing. Because of time- sheets, you're constantly measuring the time that goes into it. And then because you're measuring what goes into it by time you think, well, this is my inputs and therefore I should be paid for my inputs. And that just completely stops the development of any other type of pricing. It's seen as just this little thing, but it has roots all the way through the business model. And it's almost inescapable unless you completely take out all the roots and replant everything.
Ron Baker 11:43
That's a great way to put it because even when people argue that they're not using it for pricing, I got news for them. They are, and they don't want to get rid of them for that reason. They were devised to do cost-plus pricing. That's their origin and you can't escape their roots, like you said, so you’ve got to rip them out root and branch but and that went over really well in the reply? I know you haven't talked about that specifically but there was no outcry about OMG he’s attacking the timesheet in this thing?
Tom Hall 12:20
Well, there's widespread distaste for the timesheet, but no one really knows what to do with it because it is this endemic problem. It's everywhere. It's almost seen as inescapable. And so it seems, from the research, the next step seems to be how can we now move to the right way to do it, or the way we're doing it is wrong? How do we now escape this and that's the next steps, which I believe is looking at, but obviously, it's a very slow process and I think in the business this size takes a long time, and a lot of administration and there will be a lot of naysayers.
Ron Baker 12:58
Right? Yes there will be and it's usually the people that bill the most hours, as they say the tailless dog praises talelessness. Well Tom this is great, I just knew this was going to fly but Ed's got even more questions for you. In the meantime folks, if you want to contact Ed or myself, send us an email to askTSOE@Verasage.com. And check out our full show notes at www.thesoulofenterprise.com. And now we want to hear from our sponsors.
Ed Kless 15:43
And we are on with Tom Hall. Tom you're in your third year at University of Bristol is that correct?
Tom Hall 16:03
Yeah there's a lot of courses in the UK Yeah. Mine is only three years
Ed Kless 16:07
Okay, there's a funny song by downtown Julie Brown who says that because I'm blonde and one of the lines is I'm a freshman in my fourth year at UCLA but we didn't bring you on to talk about song lyrics. I wanted to ask you about the origins of this report from a process standpoint, how did you get started, what was the your process for writing it and what's happening with it now, you said it's being reviewed, you're gonna have a meeting about it, but what's been that process?
Tom Hall 16:46
So it started with getting a general understanding of pricing and value and timesheets. So for about four weeks, I was working 30 hours a week. So for the first four weeks, all I was doing was reading, trying to get as much information, trying to bring all this information because I've never really looked at anything like this in depth before. So those first four weeks were spent in a library and in my room reading the recommended books to me. And luckily, a number of books. So the first four weeks all it was, this information gathering process. And so I could understand the basics of everything about value and pricing. So that was literally from July to August, and then from August to the end of August, middle of September, I was lucky enough to work inside the firm and have access to their information, their information on pricing, their information on customers. So they had a number of customer reports, which I went through from end of year reports, asking how the businesses, how their relationships were going. And that was really insightful because then I could give them specific examples as to what the customers were saying, things they weren't listening, to especially about pricing. And they talked about the NPS score [Net Promoter Score], which was used by the firm. They were very good, especially with the top tier clients, the clients love the firm, mostly 9s and 10s for the NPS score, so very much promoters, but the pricing was slightly lower, whether it be a six or five or seven. And it seemed to be just ignored, that no one's going to be happy with pricing, but the patterns were there to see, it was all about quality, we don't care about the hourly pricing, we care about the overall price. So for me to combine these examples with the theory, it made it very easy to produce the report and just steadily gain a logical progression through it to show them why they should consider moving away from this pricing.
Ed Kless 19:25
And so did you got a chance to talk to some of the team members at the firm and what their thoughts were on the billable hour, the timesheet, and even just their jobs? That kind of stuff?
Tom Hall 19:37
Yeah, I did. I was assigned a number of meetings, team meetings, and often I was introduced just at the end of the meeting, about what the report was about, and often would ask their general thoughts on it, and it would immediately break into a heated debate over whether it could be changed or whether it should be changed, and this happen in five minutes. It ended with people shouting at each other. Because people feel, quite often, everyone wants to move away from it. But there's a number of people who think it can't be done or it shouldn't be done for the good of the business. And it's just a pipe dream. So to be able to speak to workers who go through this process every day. And because I've never filled in a timesheet in my life, they explain to me the process of filling in the timesheet was vital to my understanding, because I tried to fill it in myself whilst I was working to see what it was like, for a week. And it took me a huge amount of time. And then I was just laughing as I was doing it, and then gave up halfway through the week, the amount of time that it was taking me.
Ed Kless 20:45
You mean you went through three years of university and you were successful without a timesheet and filling one out? That's not possible.
Tom Hall 20:53
That’s unheard of, isn't it?
Ed Kless 20:57
And actually, I think that's one of the best examples that I've ever heard Ron share. And that is this notion that we get through a college education yet none of us fills out a timesheet. We all know what's expected of us. We all seem to be able to pass the courses and make stuff happen and get the results that we expect to achieve. And there was no timesheet there. And then the first thing that you're told as a first-year person in the accounting industry is you will now track every six minutes of your day.
Tom Hall 21:29
Yeah, well, that's the thing. So I was only paid for 30 hours a week on this project. So is my hourly wage times 30 hours, but I loved it because I didn't see it as I was being paid by the hour. I just saw it as being paid for 30 hours a week. So I didn't see it as that and because I wanted it to produce a good report because I was interested on it. The hours didn't matter to me. So it was just I was happy to put in extra hours because I thought this is going to be good for me and I'm enjoying it. So again, I was paid by the hour, which is quite ironic. But I didn't ever think about it as that and it wasn't necessary. It was only because it was the method of paying individuals who went through this program.
Ed Kless 22:13
Yeah. And that's why it's so ubiquitous, especially for things like labor. And the fact is, in many cases, we don't want your 30 hours, we want the report at the end of however much time it takes you to do this. That's what we're looking for. We're not looking for 30 hours a week. And if you were able to do in 15, it wouldn't have mattered as long as the report was good.
Tom Hall 22:35
Absolutely. And no one be able to tell if it was good enough now and be able to tell whether it took 15 or 30 hours, but at the end of the day, it's the report you're paying for, it is the report that you really desire and why should you not put that effort in if you think it's going to benefit the people who are receiving it, as well as benefiting myself through the learning process of it.
Ed Kless 22:56
And so you mentioned that people screaming at one another. I had this vision of the things that I've seen in Parliament, right? People going at one another? But what I wanted to ask is, did you notice anything any characteristics of the people who tended to be more pro getting rid of the timesheet than those who were against it? Was there any way that you could perhaps group them together in your mind?
Tom Hall 23:30
That was definitely a factor of youth and the amount of time they had been in the job. It wasn’t more often the old people being specifically anti timesheet, it was more the younger workers being open to it. Most of them hadn't really considered it before. Or they might have heard of it in passing, value pricing this abstract theory, but not never really given a consideration because it's not their job to give it consideration. But I can see from just talking to the younger workers, it probably wouldn't make sense. Whereas some of the older employees say, Well, this is why it's always been done. There's a reason why it's been done this way. They didn't know the reason and there wasn't a specific reason. It's just, well, it's just too big to change. It's everywhere. The client’s happy. It's the way it's always been done. And we're running a successful business. But it was definitely the younger employees who were more open to it. And especially because they hadn't filled out timesheets for that long and clearly didn't like it.
Ed Kless 24:42
Sure. I think it has to do with that. What is it, neural plasticity, right, our ability as we get older, our brains just tend to harden and get fixed in one way, and yeah, it's harder to think differently. And hey, yes, we've always done it this way. Although it hasn't always been done this way, and when you get into the research of the history of it, it didn't happen this way forever. So it's pretty interesting.
Tom Hall 25:08
I think one of the important things as well as getting across to people the importance of value in their jobs, because it's never really stressed to them, they do this job, they focus on the inputs. And then as you get higher in the company, you communicate to clients more this theory of value, it's never really stressed to individuals, it's just sort of assumed, and that they'll work it out eventually. But if people are taught, taught about it and taught to think about the customer first, I think it would greatly benefit businesses, from everything in the knowledge economy, doesn't matter what you're doing, as long as you're putting the customer first, or whomever you're trying to convince first. That's the best place to start from. And that lack of emphasis on it is was quite shocking to me. Because I was quite surprised, that seems such a simple theory. It's such a simple piece of advice and very easy to take on board.
Ed Kless 26:02
Yeah, so one of the things and I don't know if you've come across this in Ron's work or the stuff that you've seen from me, but I have this thing that I do occasionally called the nuclear option, where I ask the people in the audience that I'm speaking to if they've ever filled out a time sheet and all raise their hands. Yeah. Then I asked the next question, which is, have you ever not exactly put on the timesheet what actually happened? and leave your hands up and I close my eyes and kind of joke about it and say, I'm not looking, knowing that every hand is still up in the room. And then I usually quip something about, well, we really need an ethics class. But the point is, oftentimes it’s not that they're putting too many hours, they're putting too few meaning it took them say six hours to do something, but they'll put two or three because if I put six my boss is going to think I'm an idiot.
Tom Hall 27:03
Yeah, well I know if I was in that situation, I would do exactly the same thing. I know that I would just want to impress people. So I know if I was put in a situation of time cheating, I think I took too long and something I know that I would screw myself in a way, which doesn't help anything. And I know that the amount of people that would do that, especially as young employees trying to impress, you might give less of a crap when you get older, but I know myself personally that I would definitely do that and it's just encouraged by the system, which is wrong.
Ed Kless 27:34
Well, in a sense, you did do it because you said yourself that you took more than 30 hours per week on this but it didn't matter to you because you wanted to do is, God forbid, learn something.
Ed Kless 27:51
And we are already against our half hour break, and want to remind you that you can get a hold of Ron or me set by sending an email to asktsoe@verasae.com, and I also want to remind you about the Patreon site. www.patreon.com/TSOE, where you can sign up for commercial free episodes of The Soul of Enterprise as well as our bonus episodes and materials that we produce from time to time. But right now, a word from one of our sponsors.
Ron Baker 30:21
Welcome back everybody. We're here with Tom Hall from the UK and he just finished a report on the billable hour and the timesheet for a large [Top Ten] UK accounting firm. So this is good progress that we're making, we're finally getting into the larger firms with these ideas. And, Tom, it just struck me as you and Ed were talking, and we were talking in the first segment about the timesheet and you were saying that they're not very well liked, that people see them as a necessary evil, and they can't see a way around it. I love the Oscar Wilde line, “He has no enemies but is intensely disliked by his friends.” In the email you sent to Ed and me you outlined the report. You asked us what I anticipate to be an issue is convincing those who have worked in the industry their whole lives, and using the cost-plus pricing and timesheets, why should they listen to a 21-year old? Do you have any advice regarding this? And what methods and arguments you have found to be the most convincing? We'll answer that. But before we do, I'd love to know what you think now since you have studied that and you did come to this with a fresh perspective, what are your thoughts on that very issue now?
Tom Hall 31:47
Well, as time went on, I thought about it more and more and thought about where I wanted this report to go. I sort of came full circle and realized to convince people of this I have to think about their point of view and their standpoint and their pain points and what particularly this could solve and why it was an issue. And always showing them that it is an issue and they are hurting. And showing them that this is the answer. So I thought about the limiting income potential from the business side of things, less the people side of things. And then it was just applying the theory of value and the subjective theory of value and thinking with them first, where are they coming from their point of view, it was so helpful to me and it made it a lot easier. I could go through all my report and think, well, who's going to be reading this? I've convinced myself writing this but I'm not the one who needs convincing. These are the people that need convincing. And this is their standpoint now and where do I want them to be? So definitely everything that self-interest, that benefits them or showing them the issues that this is causing. And then the most important thing was why the timesheet is not needed. And that I ended up doing a massive section on, which I had to cut down massively because I just rambled on and on, about how it's not necessary. And there's this assumption that it is, and then trying to give example after example, just to show that.
Ron Baker 33:30
Yeah, that's basically what I my conclusion was for it. Try to put yourself in their shoes, their pain points, and yeah, and you said this in the email that you wrote to us, but the technology obviously is having a significant impact. And I think that's one of the things that is creating a burning platform for these firms because they're starting to realize, hey, what used to take us 10 hours is now taking us one with AI, or bots or whatever. And if our business model says we sell time when we're in big trouble. And Tom, I have to say, you know, we've been doing this for a long time. And I've seen more movement because of that force than I have because of the war for talent, the competition for the best talent. I thought that would be a bigger driver. And it turns out the technology is actually bigger driving this change. And now even the bigger firms are into this is, do you feel the same way about that?
Tom Hall 34:34
Absolutely. The final section of the report was on the it was titled the firm of the future and it’s got a big section on technology and mainly using the ACCA report from 2016 or 2017, which highlighted the impact of technology and how softer skills are going to be emphasized and why it needs to be a movement away from just providing these inputs and thinking more about what the customer wants, the softer skills. So consulting the customer, understanding what their issues are that can't be solved by AI and giving them the answers. And rather than actually doing the inputs, just giving them the answers and providing the medicine for that particular problem.
Ron Baker 35:23
You know a while back we had three Australian colleagues, all lawyers, from down in Australia. And Australia writes a lot, at least in the legal profession, about the link between depression, mental health problems, even suicide, divorce, alcoholism, and other addictions, and the billable hour hamster wheel. Did you run across any of that research when you were doing the report? Is any of that included in your report?
Tom Hall 35:57
It's not, I did come across bits, but I didn't really feel that it was good to push on that because some of the research I thought was a little bit unfounded. It was the business side of things rather than individuals. But it is a very convincing argument, but I didn't think it was necessary to put it into this report. Even if it might have been, I just thought was a little bit too personal maybe. It definitely would convince people.
Ron Baker 36:42
It certainly could be another pain point. At least for some people. After thinking about your question, it's really hard. I think people come to this in their own way for their own reasons. Some when you say the billable hour limits your income, that really resonates. And I've seen people move off of it just because of that, why would I want a model that limits my income, other people move to it for other reasons. Some experiment with it figure out, hey, this changes the dynamics of the customer relationship, it strengthens the relationship. It's really hard to know which of the arguments that you assembled in your report are going to resonate with any one person. And that's why we've tried to attack it from all different angles, and we've got the four defenses of the timesheet, pricing and project management, etc. And we we've taken that out from every angle. But now we can point to a lot of empirical evidence at McKinsey and Company, Bain & Company don't use timesheets anymore. They got rid of them, and they got rid of them, not only because they're really smart people who understand all the defects but also they have to attract talent, and hire and keep good people as best they can. And it just doesn't work with a timesheet model. But now when we point to Bain and McKinsey in the accounting world and use them as examples, the accountants will say, Yeah, but their consultants that's different.
Tom Hall 38:24
Why it's just so clear that accounting is going exactly the same way. And it's so obvious to everyone except for accountants that is going this way and something needs to change. But it's also quite easy to say from the outside shouting in that something needs to change whereas they're inside and I know we're fine. We're fine. The building is on fire at the bottom, but that's 50 floors away.
Ron Baker 38:48
Tom, on the report, how big is it?
Tom Hall 38:52
When I finished it, it was about 11,000 words, and I think it's about the same maybe a little bit more now. But I haven't seen the word count of the finalized report that was submitted. But when I completed it, it was about 11,000. So it's not massive, but it's there.
Ron Baker 39:17
Sure. It's a white paper size report. Do you think they'll go public with it or not?
Tom Hall 39:28
I would hope so. But I'm not sure because unless they make a change based upon it, I think they will. And then they'll hopefully try and get some sort of publicity about it or that sort of thing. But at this point, I'm not sure, I need to see what they say in the meeting when we meet in the coming weeks or months. I really hope so, because I really think it's important and I hope they get it out to the employees within the company as well, because only a few people knew about the report. It obviously is quite a big company. There's a number of people who wouldn't have heard much about it or have given much thought to it. But my hope is that at least it goes out amongst people within the company so they can start thinking about it and just promote some sort of change even from person to person.
Ron Baker 40:25
Excellent. Well, that that's just fascinating that you got involved in this, it is so great because it’s just not because it collaborates with what we preach here. But because it's just another voice from another completely different perspective. In the time left in our last few minutes in this segment, I just want to ask you, you're about to graduate. What are you going to do? What do you want to do?
Tom Hall 40:50
Big scary question. I've been applying to graduate schemes. I'm not sure if you have them, I assume so. But so That one year to year schemes for out of university leavers. And I have been applying to all sorts of different companies, from banking to civil service, basically trying to get one of them to say yes, we'd love it to happen. And just for a bit security, because it is a big scary world out there. And if we can go from one secure place to another secure place where I know I'll be, that makes life a lot less stressful for me, rather than a lot of job hunting. But that's just a steady progression because it takes so long to do all these applications. I spend half my time learning at university and half the time doing these applications, constantly filling out cover letters, and from one thing to another, constantly thinking about why they should hire me. And eventually you get very, very sick of thinking about yourself.
Ron Baker 41:54
Do you think you'll rely more on the economics education, or the politics, or both?
Tom Hall 42:00
I think economics for now, I think politics is something that I’d loved to go more into in the future. But I don't think I'd ever try and be an elected official or anything like that I'm be far more happy behind the scenes sort of thinking about how I could make a difference. But I would hate to be an elected official that’s far too much pressure on me. I'd much prefer to be behind the scenes. But interestingly enough, my politics dissertation, which is another 10,000 word report, I'm completing on value in politics, and whether it's an underused technique for public services, because it's a different angle to come at it. And I thought, I've got this bulk of information now in my head, I might as well put it to good use.
Ron Baker 42:52
I have to ask you, since you follow politics. You must be somewhat of a political junkie to major in it. So you must have loved the shows Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
Tom Hall 43:05
Well, Yes, minister was a little bit before my time. I've watched episodes but The Thick of It, I'm not sure if you have it in America, but The Thick of It is the political satire that I watched but Yes, minister also used to make me laugh, I've watched quite a few episodes of it, and it does make me laugh. It's very, it's just very clever.
Ron Baker 43:25
I love it because you talked about you how you’d rather be in the background, and of course, the aids in the background. They controlled him. It's like, does it matter what the Prime Minister want? I forget the actor, but a phenomenal actor that played his lead, I just love that show. And, oddly enough, it was Margaret Thatcher's favorite show too.
Ron Baker 43:50
Well Tom, Ed is going to take you home. I just wanted to say thank you so much. You reached out to us, you sent us this great email. We just wanted to get you on to talk about this report. It's so cool. That you were able to do this and contribute to this literature and hopefully we can move the profession off of some of these archaic practices. So thank you so much for coming on the show today. And folks we would like to remind you if you want to contact Ed or myself you can do so at asktsoe@verasage.com. We'd love it if you went out to iTunes and gave us a review, good, bad, or indifferent. If you write something, we'll read it on the air, give you a shout out. We really appreciate that. It helps. It's the currency of the show. It helps us get great guests. And now we want to hear from our sponsor, Sage.
Ed Kless 46:42
And we are back with Tom Hall and we're talking about all things value pricing in the report that he produced for the firm that he did some work with over this past summer on value pricing and the timesheet, but Tom also has an interest in politics and is what we would call a double major. I want to ask a little bit about some questions about politics at home and during the break you said you're willing to do that so what are your thoughts as a young person and looking at what's happening with Brexit, not necessarily your feelings on it, though you're free to let me know how you feel, but what's happening right now with this turmoil that has happened in Britain because of it.
Tom Hall 47:25
Well, to start with, I was a month too young to vote in the Brexit referendum. But if I had at the time, I definitely would have voted remain. But my reasons for that are quite unclear. I just thought well, it's the thing to do, but remain had quite a negative view of leavers and people who voted leave and that was basically completely unfounded. But since then, it's been absolute chaos. Nothing's getting done other than talking about this, flip-flopping going from thing to thing. I think I've definitely got Brexit fatigue and I know it's the numbers rising throughout the year. Okay, and I just want an answer now and with this upcoming election and it's all for December as well it's just going to be another step in the wrong direction. I think I’d just like to get on with important things again now because I feel like it's been going on so long that the power of it, the potency of Brexit, is now slowly fading, which I'm very grateful for and I just want to get back to politics where differences are being made to individual lives
Ed Kless 48:30
As a libertarian, though, there is one advantage of a distracting issue like this and that is they can't do any more damage in other places. So that's the way to look at it. But it is interesting to me as an outsider looking in what I can't fathom is there's even talk about another referendum on it, that just seems bizarre to me, like you do a referendum vote. Well, we didn't like the results. Let's do it again. On what basis?
Tom Hall 49:03
The issue with this is there shouldn't have been a referendum to begin with as this was a massively complex issue and to put it to a people's vote where the people don't have all the information, and the information can be twisted one way or another on both sides. It was a silly decision from David Cameron in 2016 or 2015, in an attempt to win the election, which he did, but following resigned shortly after the Brexit result. And to put it to another one, I think will just cause chaos. I now believe that. If it went to another people's vote, if there was another referendum, there's no doubt that there would be riots of sorts. People would complain about the lack of democracy, and it's a slippery, slippery slope. I just think this bad decision was made early on. We have to read the consequences. And if we have another referendum, why should anyone listen to it? Which I'm surprised I thought this because a year ago, I wouldn't have thought this.
Ed Kless 50:18
And of course, we have something similar in the US and that is while the impending impeachment of Donald Trump has really caught the imagination, I can distinctly remember there was talk of impeachment of Donald Trump before he was even sworn in as president. So just to some extent we're experiencing the same thing, this slow burn on impeachment and people are like, it's enough already. Well, yeah, either do it or don't but let's just stop talking about it. What's the perception? Do you think, especially among your peers, among young folks, on what's going on in the United States, is that something you guys even pay attention to? Or you know, is it the latest football game that really is the most important thing?
Tom Hall 51:08
We definitely pay attention to it, my friends. It's always in the news. Donald Trump is every single day that he's done something, he said something. And whilst I think he's a bit of…, I don’t like him, but he's, I think personally, I think he's going to win the 2020 election. The economy's doing well, the ISIS leader got shot. He is winning, despite all the shouts from social media especially, and I am dying left wing, but I'm definitely more central than most left wing individuals at the minute. But I just think that the shouting at him, the impeachment inquiries, they're just doing him a favor, that’s just helping him gain more and more support.
Ed Kless 52:00
I do think it's interesting. One of the things that I've thought for quite some time is that he has hacked the media. He's, and and Ron has said this often, he's not a creation of the media since he was already famous long before he decided to run for president. So since they didn't create him, they really can't take him out. But one of the best books that I've read on the subject is [Win Bigly] by Scott Adams, the guy who wrote Dilbert, and he just said that Donald Trump has, his phrase and I love it, has weapons grade persuasive ability. And it's not because he's right. He’s right on some things, of course, we're all right on some things, but it's just that he, his methodology is just hack the media. And people just get tired of them slamming him even when it might be justified.
Tom Hall 52:56
Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly the same thing with Brexit. The whole thing about remote earners is exactly the same thing that mirrors one another, both in the US and the UK. The exactly same political sentiment going as a country.
Ed Kless 53:11
Yeah. So we're still we're still more tied than we thought, you know, he despite what happened 225 years ago. One of the things I have said though is, if we could come back as the colonies again, the 50 colonies, would you give us the same tax deal that we had back then, which I think was a whopping 3%. I think we might be willing to come on back if you'll have us at 3%. Well, it's been fascinating talking to you, Tom, any parting thoughts? We got about a minute left? We want to thank you for being on the show.
Tom Hall 54:00
Just thank you for having me and just having emailed I really didn't expect your response, I thought you were very busy individuals. So even to get that first response, and then what's developed from that, it's been great. And I'm just really grateful to be able to talk about this and talk about this to two people who know probably more than anyone else currently on this sort of issue.
Ed Kless 54:26
Well, we thank you and we'd love to continue to keep in touch with you and maybe we'll have you on in the future when you get your next gig. So definitely looking to a great future to run. What do we have coming up next week, Ron?
Ron Baker 54:39
Next week, we're doing live from Cleveland, Ohio, and it's a pre-record we did earlier this week with Reginald Lee also there. So it was a great conversation.
Ed Kless 54:53
Yeah, look forward to it. Well, see you in 167 hours.