Everywhere you look, someone is talking about technological change. AI is here to stay. AI will change the way work gets done. Workday itself releases two major updates a year, each bringing new capabilities and opportunities for organizations to improve how they operate.
As I mark my 20th year in the Workday ecosystem, I keep coming back to a different observation: many of the things that matter most haven't changed at all. If anything, they've become even more important.
Culture Still Wins
As a consulting firm, one thing hasn't changed in two decades: strong culture drives strong results.
At the end of the day, professional services are still a People business. The quality of your people has a direct impact on the experience your clients have. Hire, develop, and retain great people, and good things tend to follow.
When we built our first Workday practice, the philosophy was simple: hire great consultants who were also great people, train them on Workday, and trust the process. It worked. When we launched The Groove, we carried that same philosophy with us and refined it based on everything we had learned along the way.
Of course, we look for functional and technical skills. But the deciding factor has always been how someone works with others. Do they make the people around them better? Do they genuinely care about helping a client succeed? Are they willing to step up when a teammate needs support?
When you get enough people like that in one place, it starts to spread. New team members learn from those around them. Expectations become habits. Habits become culture.
That's the part people often miss. Leaders can talk about culture and define what they want it to be, but culture only becomes real when people live it every day.
The data supports that idea as well. Gallup's research has consistently shown that organizations with highly engaged employees outperform those with lower engagement levels. That's not hard to believe. People who care about their work tend to do better work. In consulting, where success depends on relationships, collaboration, and problem solving, engaged teams create better outcomes for clients.
Client Satisfaction Is Still the Whole Game
Making clients successful has always been critical to the long-term success of any consulting firm, and AI doesn't change that. If anything, it raises the stakes.
We've all seen examples where a partner gets a customer live, checks the box, and moves on. The project may technically be complete, but the customer is left struggling to manage the system going forward. That's a short-term win that creates a long-term problem.
Client success should never be viewed as the finish line of a project. It should be the starting point of a relationship.
That's why references matter so much. When a client is willing to tell another organization, "This team really helped us succeed," it carries more weight than any marketing campaign ever could. People trust the experiences of other people.
You can see this every year at Workday Rising. The most effective marketing The Groove does isn't a booth, a presentation, or a piece of collateral. It's a client talking to a prospect about their experience working with our team.
That kind of credibility can't be manufactured. It has to be earned, one engagement at a time.
Innovation Was Never Just About the Tool
There's a temptation to think AI is the answer to innovation. In reality, it's a huge accelerator, but it's still only part of the equation.
The organizations getting the most value from AI are usually the same organizations that already encourage curiosity, experimentation, and continuous improvement.
AI can help teams move faster. It can uncover insights, streamline work, and help solve problems in ways that weren't possible just a few years ago. That's incredibly powerful.
But people still have to ask the right questions. They still have to challenge assumptions. They still have to decide what to do with the information AI provides.
Technology matters. A strong AI strategy matters. But the people using technology matter just as much.
Companies that have built a culture of learning and innovation will get more value from AI because they're already wired to adapt and improve. AI helps them move faster.
The tool is new. The mindset required to get the most from it is not.
Knowledge Sharing Has Always Mattered
This is where culture and AI intersect in a meaningful way.
AI has tremendous potential to help consultants access and share knowledge faster than ever before. Lessons learned, project experience, best practices, and solutions can be surfaced almost instantly.
But AI can't create a knowledge-sharing culture on its own.
People still have to be willing to share what they've learned. They have to document lessons from projects. They have to care about helping others succeed. They have to view a teammate's success as a win for the entire organization.
That's culture.
When that mindset already exists, AI becomes a powerful amplifier. It helps people find and use knowledge more effectively.
Without that mindset, AI simply helps organizations move information around faster. Technology can accelerate knowledge sharing, but it can't create the desire to share knowledge in the first place.
So Where Does That Leave Us?
Twenty years in, I'm convinced the firms that will thrive in this next chapter are the ones that can do both.
They'll embrace AI and build thoughtful strategies around it, because the technology is simply too important to ignore. Organizations that fail to invest in AI will find themselves at a disadvantage as the pace of change continues to accelerate.
At the same time, the most successful firms won't lose sight of the fundamentals. They'll continue investing in their people, their culture, and their client relationships.
AI will absolutely change how work gets done. I don't have any doubt about that.
What I do question is whether AI will replace the things that have always separated great consulting firms from average ones. My belief is that it won't.
The organizations that combine strong people, strong culture, strong client relationships, and strong AI capabilities will be the ones that stand out.
I'd like to hear what others think. Will consulting be fundamentally different because of AI, or fundamentally the same, just faster? And is there something beyond culture, client satisfaction, innovation, and knowledge sharing that deserves a place on this list?
AI is changing how organizations work, but great people are still what make the difference.
Partner with a team that invests in its culture, develops its people, embraces innovation, and brings that commitment to every client engagement.
Contact The Groove today.
