Lessons Learned for Better Leaders and Outcomes
Prologue
What you can’t measure you can’t improve has been a mantra for improvement initiatives for years. Several years ago, we wrote with the contributions from our friend Tony Ameo about performance measures. Another aspect of improvement is bench-marking. We are firm believers in bench-marking as ways of externally checking an organization. What do others do, how do they do them and what can we borrow from that knowledge to help improve the companies we consult with. We like to think we practice what we preach, but bench-marking a small consultancy can be a difficult endeavor (perhaps a topic for a future issue). However, we are continually on the lookout for lessons learned; when we saw Joe Bockerstette’s post on LinkedIn titled Ten Lessons Learned from Thirty-Five Years in Consulting; it hit home. We contacted Joe and asked if we could use his lessons learned as a backdrop for our 2017 UPDATE series and he graciously agreed. These lessons learned dovetail nicely into our last issue.
Introduction
Welcome to our 2017 UPDATE series. This year we are focusing on an article/post
we read that delineated Ten Lessons Learned from Thirty-Five Years in
Consulting written by Joe Bockerstette who is a principal at Business
Enterprise Mapping. While a relatively short post, it was quite powerful for us
because it validated many of our observations and topics we have written
about. Joe’s ten lessons seemed to form
a nice backdrop for our 2017 articles.
This being our first article, we will introduce the 10 lessons and then
drill down into the first two.
Often we face the question: why do we do what we do, which
is a very good question. We can tell you
what we do and how we do it, but answering the why is a challenge. One answer is independence. We believe we offer a very personal level of
professional service that does not carry corporate baggage or any ulterior
motives. We believe we can be clean and
honest with our clients and always reserve the right to walk away if we feel we pressured to compromise our values. Having been in this business for over 30
years we have the privilege of working with great people and companies, gaining
a breath of experience and fortunately a track-record of successes; but bench-marking can be difficult.
While we believe we are doing fine based on the longevity we
have with our clients, as well as a healthy new client influx, it is nice to
get an external perspective of how are we doing. Do our observations make sense beyond our
sphere? When we draft our newsletters,
we attempt to reach beyond the traditional, challenging ideas, thoughts and practices. Again, bench-marking is difficult. So, when we see something validating our
experience, observations and beliefs, we get excited. Our purpose in this 2017 series of articles
will be not to extol the virtues of consulting but to present important
lessons on effective leadership.
Ten Lessons
Joe’s post on LinkedIn caught our attention because the ten
lessons learned were spot on and validate our observations from years of
consulting. They are:
1. Success depends far more on the client than the consultant.
2. Figuring out what’s wrong isn’t that hard.
3. Leaders don’t know how work actually gets done.
4. Leaders and managers also don’t understand process.
5. Companies measure what’s easy, not what’s important.
6. Change is simple, just not easy.
7. Leaders would rather hire superstars to solve problems than
solve problems.
8. Industry experience is overrated.
9. Corporate politics stops improvements.
10. Great clients have a will that delivers successful
outcomes.
Addressing all ten in one article is not realistic for our
UPDATE newsletter, so we are going to address a few in each of our four issues
for 2017 from our perspective. Our first
issue focuses on # 1 - Success depends far more on the client than the
consultant; and #2 - Figuring out what’s wrong isn’t that hard.
In past Update articles, we have discussed how improvement
efforts depend on a true and active commitment at the top of an organization
and how active commitment sets the tone for participation by the rest of the
organization. Let’s look at the first of
these lessons:
# 1 - Success depends far more on the client than the
consultant
When we started consulting, marketing was a necessary endeavor
but not something we were particularly adept at. We felt that our job was to sell ourselves,
then our consulting approach.
Fortunately, most engagements were successful, but not all. In trying to understand the successful and
the not so successful engagements, we saw common threads realizing there were common
characteristics of our clients that affected the success of the
engagement. We realized in addition to
marketing ourselves we had to assess the potential client to ensure they were
the right people to drive improvements and the organization’s success. The criteria we developed for our ideal
client included:
- All aggressive –
These individuals were willing and able to take charge and make things happen. They were committed to the organization and wanting to make changes happen so the organization would thrive. - Variety of levels of Supervision –
We found that our success was not at any particular level within the organization. We found we were successful at multiple levels, provided these individuals possessed these characteristics. - Not risk adverse –
Willing to “upset the apple cart” to gain improvement. In our case, being a small firm carried risks, but one they were willing to accept to achieve organizational success. There have been times when we experienced challenges because we did not have deep pockets or bench strength, or the panache of a larger more recognizable firm. Our ideal clients focused on outcomes rather than perception. - They can “handle the system” –
These individuals could maneuver through their bureaucracies to move the agenda forward. They could sell the improvements to those below and above them in the organization. - Target individuals vs. Topics –
Jim Collins hit this characteristic when he stated in his book Good to Great, get the right people on the bus and they will be able to take you anywhere you need to go. Our Ideal Clients focused on getting the right people involved in the change effort both internally and externally.
Not everything went smoothly. Finding the Ideal Client was and is a
challenge. In businesses and or companies where we had connections we were able
to do some research in advance so we got as close to the person or people we
needed to, but that certainly had limitations.
So in order to qualify or get closer to the ideal person we had to do a
bit more work. In these cases, we
applied, selectively, the following criteria:
- Who
is the ‘right’ person –
It takes work to identify the ‘right’ person and it takes more work to ensure that person would be assigned the lead for the consulting engagement. - Do
you use outside services –
Is there an aversion to using outside services. If so, what can we bring to the table to show how an independent approach is beneficial? - What
current ongoing project –
Learning what work or endeavors were considered important helped us focus either our approach. - What
current anticipated projects/need –
How did what we were proposing integrate with other planned needs? - What
is the budget cycle and $ sign-off authority –
This item is keenly important. A few examples: If we were dealing with a senior executive, budget cycles and sign-off authority was a moot point. If they wanted something done or believed in a particular endeavor, it happened. In a more planned context of projects, budget cycles and sign-off authority became important. An Ideal Client could make things happen. Without this authority, all the good intentions meant nothing.
In contrast, engagements that did not fulfill our criteria
resulted in less than ideal conclusions, as stated above; fortunately, those
were few and declining over the years as we refined our process. Engagements where our clients and the people
we worked with met our criteria were interesting, engaging and beneficial for
both the client and us.
Why are we discussing the marketing of consulting work? Because these characteristics apply to
successful managers and provide strong leadership within any organization. An organization succeeds because of
leadership. We always try to focus our
Update articles on leadership. The 10
Lessons that are providing the backdrop to our 2017 Update articles are lessons
not just for consulting but also for building and growing successful
organizations.
#2 – Figuring out what’s wrong isn’t that hard.
Several years ago, we wrote an article that likened figuring out
what is wrong within an organization as misplaced pieces of a puzzle rather
than mysteries. In reality, the
challenges facing businesses today are not mysteries. We believe success in addressing the challenges
comes from a clear understanding of the issues. The issues and many of the answers reside
within the organization and are identifiable.
Therefore, rather than mysteries, which contain unknown components, organizations
face misplaced puzzle pieces. The pieces
are there; what we do, with our clients, is to sort and reshape the pieces so
they all fit together.
Frequently managers think they understand what is wrong in their
organization. Their definition of a problem
typically is the primary reason behind our engagement. Sometimes these definitions are accurate, but
sometimes leaders are not close to defining the real problems. One of our challenges and a key to the
success of the engagement is a clear definition of the problem. As we will address in our next article,
leaders don’t always know how work gets done.
To gain a clear and true understanding; those who “are in the trenches”
must be involved not just with the improvements and changes, but first with
helping to define what is wrong. These
“trench dwellers” may be wrench turners, accountants, first level supervisors,
customer service folks on the phone with the customers, etc.
Achieving this understanding involves tapping into the best
thinking of those who confront these issues and then designing the necessary
changes. In order to achieve this
insight, it is important to create both the environment and framework to identify
and sort out the issues, assist organizations regain a sense of purpose and
focus, establish an overall improvement design, create real and achievable
improvement initiatives and establish the whole picture of its existence. We
help organizations shape or re-shape their pieces to solve the puzzle,
facilitating tangible outcomes while institutionalizing cultural change.
As noted, rarely is it rocket science to figure out what is wrong
in an organization. It takes involvement
at all levels and more importantly listening on the part of the leader. After listening, the leader must separate the
facts from the “venting” and pull those facts together into a clear and
accurate problem definition. As
consultants, we work hard with our clients to gain a clear problem definition
that sets the stage to move forward with focused and effective resolution
initiatives.
Conclusion
When we first read Joe Bockerstette’s Ten Lessons Learned, we
thought they formed a great backdrop for us to provide our perspective on the
same lessons, interjecting our real world experiences in the context of
leadership. Another goal for this year
is to abbreviate the length of our articles.
Keeping them shorter and hitting the high points. Therefore, we will
address the next few Lessons in our next Update issue. Keep in mind we feel these are key leadership
issues and many that we have previously addressed in past Update articles. We feel these are important issues in
building strong and effective leaders at all levels of an organization.
