Client to Consultant: Why I decided to join Fluxx

After seven years of muddling my way through the financial services web, I finally ignored my parents’ advice and escaped the warm embrace of my safe corporate job to find something that I loved.

I’d previously worked with Fluxx as a client. I remember visiting the office for a training day and leaving feeling exhilarated but also slightly depressed that I’d never work at a place like that. And yet here I am, sat in the loft of the Farringdon office as a new member of the ‘loveable misfit’ family. And a family it absolutely is.

Take the traditional family dinner table. I was surprised to find most Fluxxers have lunch together, gathered around a single table, catching up on projects, sharing ideas or simply enjoying each other’s company. It was around this table on my first day that I made my first friend. After finding out I’d studied statistics at university, a long-standing member of the team asked me to co-create a dummy’s guide on sample sizes with him. He didn’t know it at the time, but it made me feel instantly welcomed and valued (thanks Daniel!).

This is what makes Fluxx pretty special. It’s full of ridiculously smart people, who are all disarmingly humble. There is a brutal honesty combined with unwavering support that you only find in true friendships. I admit, it took me a little while to adjust to a new culture where diverse or peculiar opinions are celebrated, almost mandatory. Yet it’s just the way I speak with my own friends and family, where we enjoy stoking the fire without worry of offending or damaging our relationship.

My previous employer promoted a core value to ‘Treat People Like Family’, but it’s only now that I’ve truly seen this in action within a business. And it’s not just in the office; it transfers completely in to how we treat our clients. Through our work we have real, frank and fun conversations that uncover ideas and new ways of working that genuinely excite us all.

For example, in my first week I was thrust into a two-day RapidStart about tax. Fortunately for me it wasn’t my first — as a client I had worked with Fluxx to do a similar event for the equally fascinating subject of pension advice.

Despite the unglamorous topic, the energy, ideas and experiments developed over just two-days were incredible. It was mildly amusing to watch the team go through the same emotions I previously had. Will people ‘get it’? Will they come up with good ideas? How are we going to get this done in just two days?!

And of course, people did get it, they did come up with awesome ideas and we did (rapidly) test and present our findings back to ‘the dragons’ in just 48 hours. In fact, the idea from the team I helped facilitate was so good, they were offered investment there and then to take it into a 6-week lab cycle. Boom.

It’s only been 7 weeks but I’ve already had the pleasure of being part of several breakthrough conversations, some of which felt uncomfortable at first, but all of which have the potential to be transformative. And I’ve been gratefully pushed out of my financial services bubble to look at other industries, from exploring consumer reaction to a national newspaper’s new product launch to facilitating a network event for a digital awards agency, I’m well and truly out of my comfort zone.

And that’s exactly why I decided to join Fluxx. We encourage each other to stay open-minded and to apply our skills across all industries and problems. It means we stay objective, curious and optimistic, and it definitely keeps us on our toes.

So don’t worry mum and dad, this risk was totally worth taking.

Interested in working at Fluxx? Look out for our next meet-up or get in touch at talent@fluxx.uk.com