Category: Flawless Consulting

Partnership – Great goal; Insufficient word

Posted on by Jeff Evans

As we work and live with others, the word partnership seems to be a common goal. We want to partner better. We want to build business partnerships. We want others to partner with us. Partnership is a good word, and a worthy goal. The questions I ask myself are:

  • What does partnership look like?
  • Who do I want to partner with?
  • How do I achieve partnership?
  • What can I specifically do to build partnerships?

These questions seem easy to answer on the surface, but I find that the goal of partnership eludes me more often than I want. I have conversations with others, and we seem to want a partnership together, but most often I don’t invest the time to understand and act on what partnership could look like.

For example, one of my former bosses asked me to help her organization build “strategic business partnerships” with their internal business partners. I loved the idea and started changing the way I interfaced with other leaders. I asked more questions. I delayed my recommendations until I knew more about the issue they were facing. I worked to co-create possible solutions with them instead of quickly implementing their solutions or mine. It didn’t take long for one of these leaders to call my boss to complain that I wasn’t being cooperative and that I was delaying decisions. My boss came to me and asked what I was doing. When I said I was trying to build “strategic business partnerships,” she said, “That is what we want, but don’t upset the clients. Just do what they ask you to do”. It’s clear my boss and I had different ideas on what these partnerships would look like.

Building partnerships is not complex. In fact, it can be simple to understand. We create a common understanding of what we are going to do together (short-term or long-term) and we share what we want from each other and negotiate an agreement.

The challenge in building partnerships comes when I actually have the conversation. I may even avoid the conversation all together. I get in my own way. My desire to be right, to minimize my risk, to be safe, and to gain a predictable outcome get in the way. There is also a sense of urgency to get things done and act. Unfortunately, nothing about partnerships is predictable or risk free, and urgency is the enemy of quality – quality of the outcome and quality of the relationship.

So, what do we do?

There are many aspects to building partnerships. I have found the easiest and most beneficial is to minimize assumptions and vagueness in our language. When we ask for something we want, we need to be specific. I had a mentor years ago who told me to avoid “goodness” words. That statement itself is vague, so I asked, “What’s a goodness word?”. He said, “Goodness words describe things we want, and they are good (things like support, buy-in, partnership, respect, etc.), but they are not sufficient for a meaningful agreement.” The antidote for the goodness word is to ask myself, and share with you, “What does it look like?”. If you are giving me support, this is what you would be doing. If we are going to have a partnership, this is how we will treat each other. This is what respect looks like to me.

Asking these next level questions takes time. I need to pause and get specific with myself and others. I assume you know what I mean, and I think I know what you mean. These assumptions are recipes for poor agreements. I am learning to share with others the behaviors I am looking for and to ask them what behaviors they want from me. Having this next level of conversation is a small investment in time, that pays big dividends with agreements that last and partnerships that thrive.

Moving Past Persistent Resistance

Posted on by Beverly Crowell

Years ago, I was partnering with our organization’s IT team to outfit a new computer lab. There were a lot of details to work out. I was approaching the project with the learner in mind. My IT counterpart was focused on minimizing the cables that would be crisscrossing the room. Unfortunately, my want for the learner was not lining up with his want for the scope of work needed to get the lab ready.

After a few conversations that seemed to go nowhere, I remember looking at my colleague and asking, “Is it that you can’t do it or that you don’t want to do?” He looked at me stunned and admitted, “I don’t want to.”

It was a real breakthrough moment in our work together. The resistance I was feeling was laid bare and we finally were able to work together to get the lab built. In the end, it looked a bit different for both of us, but it worked and worked well.

At the time, I didn’t realize that we were in the middle of a foundational part of consulting. We were contracting and admittedly not very well. We were stuck and I knew we were stuck because neither of us were willing to move away from what “I want” with little consideration for what the other person might want as well.

Thankfully, we did eventually move past our persistent resistance. The lesson learned however is that it didn’t happen by accident. I had to walk directly into the resistance and be prepared for what might happen. I’m not so sure I did it perfectly, but it was effective. Once I acknowledged the resistance, we were able to have productive and collaborative conversations so we could get the job done.

From that point forward our conversations changed. We started listening and stopped trying to have “my way be the only way.” It was not easy to do. I was the customer and I consistently had to battle the feeling that he should “just be doing what I want.” As I look back now, I realize that I wanted a pair of hands to do my bidding. It’s funny really, I’m no IT expert, but I certainly tried to play one. At the same time, he was doing very little to understand what I needed to do and why. There was little effort to understand the problem I was trying to solve. After all, he was the expert with all the answers, right?

The experience highlights the greatest challenge most of us face as internal consultants. And, make no mistake, you are consulting any time you must influence another person where you have no direct control. I had none with my IT counterpart and he had none with me. We were giving no thought to influencing the other. Instead, we were on the “do it my way” train. It’s a wonder the computer lab was ever finished.

Our relationship only started working when we started looking at it as a relationship. We shifted away from listing our demands to a conversation about what we both wanted from our work together and what we were willing to give the other to help make it successful. There was negotiation, but we became clearer in not only what we were trying to accomplish together but how we were going to do it. And I’m not just talking about the technical stuff. We also talked about the way we would communicate with each other, how best to respect the other person’s ideas and even how we would disagree moving forward.

It was never a match made in heaven, but we made it work. Chances are, you must make it work everyday at work too. When you do, ask if you’ve taken the time to contract with each other on the “what and how” of your collaboration? If you don’t know, there’s work to do. Ask the question, “So, what do you want from me?” and be prepared to share what you want from them too. Be simple, be direct and above all else, be real. You won’t always get what you want. Life is like that. But you will get further, faster when you both know how to show up for the other.

Business Partnering: The Secret to Influence in the Workplace

Posted on by Steven Lozada
What is Business Partnering?
To understand business partnering we’ll start by identifying who are Business Partners. This may help you determine whether you are one or should become one.
Here’s a start:
Business Partners are practitioners of critical business functions like HR, Finance, IT, Legal, Project Management, and others. They’re internal consultants. These professionals act as a bridge, linking their critical functions to other business units, clients, managers, and even C-suite executives.
 
Business partners seek to operate in partnership with other stakeholders to effectively address the real and current concerns of the business. Their purpose is to create a space of shared ownership for generating positive results.
These are professionals who have the potential to greatly improve the power of integration within the organization…when given the space and opportunity to do so, of course.
 
They maximize the effective and efficient deployment of their skills and expertise within a shared understanding of business priorities.
 
If this describes you, then continue reading because you’re about to uncover some keys to unlock some doors that lead to greater influence in the workplace.

What Business Partnering (done well) Requires

Business Partnering requires the consistent application of TECHNICAL EXPERTISE and TRUSTING RELATIONSHIPS.
 
Please read those two virtues again. Refuse to ignore them at all costs. I learned about their powerful combination at a Flawless Consulting workshop. They’re simple but mighty.
Here’s why:
If you want to become a valued partner, then the sole use of your technical expertise and experience will be insufficient. You may give excellent advice and even create stunning slide decks that can mesmerize executives. But if they don’t have a trusting relationship with you, then your power to generate desirable change is a mere illusion…a dandelion in a windstorm.
To avoid this miserable situation, you must multiply your technical expertise with an unrelenting persistence to build trust.
 
CAUTION: Without the power of relationship and relatedness, your technical expertise may become a disposable commodity.
Trust is likely the missing secret ingredient in many previous failed attempts at strategic partnership because without trust there is no influence.

Some necessary skills

What follows are some skills that you can incorporate to keep from becoming a commodity. Imagine the benefits of leaping measurably closer to being a trusted business partner when you develop consulting, communication, and negotiation skills.

Consulting skills

At the heart of consulting is the ability to have conversations that matter most. It’s about creating meaningful connections with others while moving the business forward in the face of mounting complexities.
This is contrary to the common misconception that consultants impose an elevated business acumen, impressive credentials, and vast experience to give credibility to their own opinions, above anyone else.
Consulting is not something you do to and for someone, it’s a service you offer to do with someone.

Communication Skills

The adaptive ability to speak clearly about ideas, issues, and opportunities. If you’re going to generate agreements and coordinate actions with others, then being specific, descriptive, and measurable about what you want is essential.
 
For example, when requesting a report from someone, avoid saying: “Hey, I know you’re busy, but it would be great to have that report when you get a chance.” This is too vague to make an agreement. Instead, be specific, descriptive, and measurable by saying: “Hey, I know you’re busy, but can you get me the finalized report tomorrow by 4:00 pm?” This is a minor detail, but a major difference.
 
Speaking with precision is critical to communication, but deep listening is the often neglected part of communication skills building.
 
If you want to be more influential, then listening beyond the words into the spaces of silence, and listening without judgment, is necessary. You can achieve this by not jumping to conclusions and into advice-giving. Just listen with compassionate curiosity. This non-superficial type of listening will position you to discover what’s going unsaid, and explore what’s possible.

Negotiation Skills

The ability to create a social contract with people by offering them a psychologically safe space to explore risks, share control, and commit to shared action. This opposes the common view of negotiation. Negotiation does not have to be an adversarial exchange where two parties struggle with one another until they ultimately agree to “split the difference.”
There’s a better way.
Instead of preparing for battle, prepare to explore what you and your “client” want from one another in order to achieve success. As risks and concerns emerge during those discussions, give your support to one another, and model the behavior you want to promote in your partnership. You can do this all while seeking mutual benefit. This is how to be successful in being useful and valuable.

Why Business Partnering Matters Today

The role of HR, Finance, IT, Legal, Project Management, and other internal consultants has changed. These functions used to be about managing employees, managing resources, and providing compliance services. Today, it’s about building relationships with clients, navigating challenges, and creating value with them. 
 
Business Partnering is about leveraging your ability to:
  • Develop trusted connections with authenticity by putting your experience into words.
  • Handle resistance with compassion and diligence.
  • Be willing to sit with ambiguity for longer than many feel comfortable with.
  • Slow down to truly “sense” the situation without a need for a fast resolution of issues.
Your business and professional influence will grow as you increase the effective use of business partnering on a consistent basis.

You Don’t Need An Expert. You Need a PARTNER.

Posted on by admin

When facing change, you don’t need an expert. You need partnership.

Your company probably looks at change with a mix of excitement and fear. And while you may want certain parts of your organization to change, it is scary to take on the actual responsibility of making it happen. It is much safer and easier to delegate the actual transformation to someone else. This typically is where consultants come into the picture. And why not? Experts are constantly touted as the only ones knowledgeable and powerful enough to lead.

But there is a catch.

Relinquishing responsibility to an expert breeds an unhealthy dependency. When problems inevitably come up again you won’t know how to confront them yourself.

There is also a problem for the consultant. If you’re the consultant, this tendency also makes your job harder. Removing the client from the problem-solving process makes it more likely the changes you recommend will be resisted.

So what is the way forward?

The Promise of Partnership

The answer is opting for partnership instead of relying on experts.

Experts merely seek to solve the problem. But partners bring change in a way that makes you take ownership not only for the solution but for the problem itself.

Partners effectively and compassionately dissolve unhealthy reliance on the expert. The result is that clients gain sufficient expertise to diagnose and solve future problems on their own.

But how does this partnership consulting work?

How to Make Pearls

A partner’s first task is to confront you with the true nature of your problems. Often you already know this, but you either don’t realize it, or you find it so hard to deal with that you struggle to admit it without provocation. This confrontation is often uncomfortable. But new wisdom cannot be formed without it.

The best analogy for this is how pearls are made. Two things are required to form these valuable prizes: sand and oysters. Sand gets into the oyster and rubs it the wrong way. The oyster reacts by trying to get rid of the irritant. But in the process, something beautiful and precious is formed.

Don’t get the impression that this is easy. Bringing any kind of meaningful change to an organization requires a high investment of emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and physical rigor. The culture and habits sustained in an organization are often ferociously rooted and feel “right” from the inside. And so the only way to shock the oyster out of its comfort is to throw a little sand in its shell.

Partnering consultants must first, therefore, bring the sober truth about the organization’s dysfunctions.

This is a painful process. But the reward is invaluable for the organization.

The Perils of Partnership

Just like making pearls, partnership is difficult to practice. First of all, it is hard to convince clients that they are getting their money’s worth. They often have a rigid expectation that they are bringing in an expert who will simply fix things and move on. On the other hand, it can be just as hard to convince consultants their task is anything but fixing things themselves. The secret here is to accept that as a partner you have to sacrifice that latent desire to take full credit for creating the solution. That’s not sexy, but it is ultimately better for both parties.

Another common pitfall is what is known as professional codependence. Just as clients can become dependent on the expert, the professional can become codependent on the client.

Professional codependence when the professional–consciously or not–begins to create client needs in order to prove their own worth and make ends meet.

One way that this manifests is when, rather than identifying opportunities for growth, consultants begin to see client needs as deficiencies. This is more than a labeling problem. This often leads to anticipating problems that don’t exist. Such a dynamic all but guarantees dependency because it presumes that the client lacks what they need to get rid of the deficiency. And even more than this, it then positions the expert as the only one who can determine whether the solution has been effective.

So how can you pursue partnership without the pitfalls?

Acting in Partnership

Developing partnership while avoiding dependencies on both sides is challenging. Let’s explore this challenge through the lens of parenting. To raise responsible adults, parents experience the tension, on the one hand, between protecting their children by sheltering them and telling them what to do…while on the on the other hand allowing their children to have self-discovery and learn on their own. Choosing partnership will often feel the same for the consultant.

It is essential to guard yourself against your client’s codependency even if this seems unloving at first. If not, you run the risk of getting lost in your expert role and short-circuiting the client’s growth and freedom.

Become Your Own Expert

Perhaps more than ever, society constantly reinforces the notion that experts are the only ones who can be trusted to solve your problems. But blindly signing over authority and action to experts only stunts your growth. You can’t learn how to think for yourself when you constantly rely on others to tell you what to think.

This doesn’t mean you will never need assistance. What it means is that you need to do the work to become your own expert even while you seek expertise from others. This is the promise of partnership.

How Useless Are “Performance Standards” In The Workplace Today?

Posted on by admin

There is a common belief that for change to occur in an organization you must set high-performance standards and develop clear measures against that standard. These performance standards, we’re told, must be consistent across the culture and approved by top management, otherwise, they will not be effective. This belief is so ingrained that it has become the standard operating procedure, and questioning it might seem hopelessly idealistic.

But have you noticed that some of the things the world values most RESIST STRICT MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE STANDARDS?

Consider the “softer” values such as trust, integrity, and creativity. You’ve likely noticed they’re often the ones with the most power to shape the world around us, yet these seem to stubbornly resist being subjected to a standard of measurement.

So, how can you reframe the conversation around needing measurable performance standards as a pre-requisite for producing the kind of results and the type of workplace that promotes the common good?

What’s wrong with Performance Standards

If you’re operating on the assumption that change is driven by measures and standards, you’ll set new performance standards and create universal measures against those standards. Perhaps you would establish an oversight committee to measure performance standards and adherence to those new standards.

In the case of unsatisfactory performance, you might conclude that efforts failed because the standards were not high enough and the measures were not sufficiently accurate.

This happens time and time again until a change effort is made, creating a new set of standards and measures to drive-up performance. You’ve likely seen this cycle play out in the proliferation of high-stakes standardized testing in public education.

Let’s reframe Performance Standards

To be honest, we need measurable performance standards. We all want to know what is required of us and how we are doing. We’re not proposing getting rid of measurable standards altogether. Instead, we propose a shift to focus on who sets the standards and measures and how they are used.

Too often measurable performance standards are used as a control device, not a mechanism for learning. This flows from a particular mode of thinking grounded in problem-solving. It is the engineering mind that elevates standards and measures to the level of dogma and ideology. This is fine for engineering projects.

But the idea that we can engineer human development is more mythology than fact.

Standards-setting has become part of the class struggle in society, where one class of people is setting standards for another. Legislators set them for teachers, management set them for workers, professional guilds set them for their members. They may start with sincere intent, but they soon become exclusionary and punitive. They become a way to limit access to membership, force compliance, and keep those who were first through the door in their positions of power.

What Performance Standards matter to YOU?

The solution to over-surveillance, isolation, and protecting the status quo is to have people close to the learning and development, the work, or the service struggle with installing proper performance standards for their local environment.

Ask people to define the performance that will have meaning for them. Then have them talk about how they want to hold themselves accountable. This reduces the possibility that measurable performance standards will become punitive. Once measures become punitive, people will work to outsmart them to survive; learning decreases, and energy that should be going toward achieving the work is replaced by subversive efforts to “beat the system.”

How does this work?

Instead of a centralized mandate that is rolled out across the culture of the organization, have the performance standards designed by those who are being measured.

Then a few guiding principles should follow.

Firstly, it is essential to be realistic about predictability. Secondly, value longer-term, qualitative measures. Remember: even if you cannot measure it, it might still be worth doing. Most often what is measured are people’s methods and behavioral style. But what if you were to stop measuring people’s behavioral styles and start measuring business results and real outcomes?

Do you risk Quality Control?

Wait! How can management maintain quality when each unit, each workgroup, each team decides its own measures and performance standards? Don’t worry, there is still quality control. The difference is that is it maintained by team members and peer-to-peer agreements.

Rather than typical carrot-and-stick tactics, what if performance standards were negotiated between peers and then with bosses as the means of ensuring that commitments get fulfilled? These contracts would be between partners, so the expectations and commitments go both ways, with equal demands placed on each side.

The intent here is to eliminate coercion as the basis for getting results. These performance contracts are not tied to pay or punishment, though they may be tied to termination in extreme cases. We can fire people if they do not deliver on their promise. What is different is that we stop trying to improve employee performance by threatening sanctions, manipulating privilege, or withholding pay.

Do what matters most:

  1. Rather than create a central mandate, have the people closest to the work decide the standards appropriate for their local environment.
  2. Ask members of the peer group or team to define the measures that have meaning for them.
  3. Have peer groups decide how to keep themselves accountable, with bosses and employees serving to ensure commitments are fulfilled.

How to Create “Organizational Cooperation” that Succeeds for Clients and Citizens

Posted on by admin

Pick your crisis: climate change, pandemics, political division, economic stagnation, international relations. When concerned members of society are faced with big obstacles, they cry out for like-minded groups to come together and effect a greater change. This clarion call urgently summons interdependent agencies together for meetings. The goal of this organizational cooperation is always to find ways of collaborating to solve the issue at hand. These meetings, these gatherings are innumerable.

So, why do people often complain and define the problem as one of little to no cooperation among organizations?

This complaint may hint at a classic consulting scenario that requires reframing.

If You Acted On This Definition

If you used the standard meeting model, you would invite the groups to talk and share their concerns, and ideas. Next, you would invite them to agree on common goals, shared projects, develop a cooperation strategy, work out a schedule of milestones, and decide on the next meeting date.

Reframing “Organizational Cooperation”

Here’s the thing: Communication and defining common goals are not the problem.

If these were the problem, they would have been solved already. The problem between groups is territory, territory, territory.

They each have defined their boundaries tightly around their organizational structures. They think their mission is to do a good job within those boundaries. As a result, progress toward resolving the issue is episodic, at best. For change to really happen, the reality is that each group will have to yield territory and control.

This is a sour pill to swallow. They must confront the question: “What are you willing to give up for the sake of the larger purpose?”

What things?

They have to be willing to give up projects, budgets, and a piece of their identity if anything beneficial is going to happen for their citizens or clients. This requires trust.

Trust is built from telling the truth and from acts of surrender.

There is no other way to build the relational capital necessary for organizations to partner successfully. Trust is the ONLY way.

Avoid the Risk of Motion and No Movement

One word of caution.

Don’t buy the medicine that better communication is all you’ll need to get a good start. It will be the start…one that leads to a lot of motion and no movement.

Instead, you need to first create a condition for making a partnering agreement: All organizations must make meaningful sacrifices to create trust. If they choose not to make this necessary sacrifice and perhaps lose something in the process, then you will become a puppet in their negotiation strategy. It would help if you take a firm stand on this point early in the conversations when you have the most leverage.

When it comes to organizational cooperation, refuse to settle for the thought that because a gathering occurred and words were exchanged that anything meaningful happened. Instead, reframe the nature of the gathering by focussing on the core issue of why barriers to true cooperation persist. Address “why” they’re protecting territory.

In this way, organizations can come to the table as partners ready to take ownership for what they will sacrifice for the greater good. The investment of each organization’s sacrifice will create the bonds of trust necessary to make a change.

To act within this frame:

  1. Recognize that the problem between groups is territory, territory, territory.
  2. Present the organizations with this question: “What are you willing to give up for the sake of the larger purpose?”
  3. Create the following condition of participation: All organizations must make meaningful sacrifices to create trust as the foundation of a partnering agreement.

Wanting Proof Positive: Reframing the “Measurable Outcomes” Problem

Posted on by admin

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measurable outcomes, sticks and rulers
Photographer: William Warby | Source: Unsplash

One of the core beliefs of modern management is that if you cannot measure something, either it should not be undertaken or it does not exist. This conviction arises from our faith in the scientific method and the results-oriented outlook of the engineer and the economist. Thus, whenever a change is discussed, there will be an immediate demand for measurable outcomes and hard data that the change will improve the operations.

But what happens when what you value cannot be easily measured?

In fact, many of the things that matter most in your organization defy measurement. Let’s explore how to reframe the cult of measurability in order to ensure you pursue not only what “works” but what matters.

If You Acted On This Definition

If you’re starting with the aim of measurable outcomes, your course of action would include performing research to evaluate the project, and you’d likely bring in independent evaluators to do a pre- and post-intervention study.

Reframing “Measurable Outcomes”

Stop to think. You can measure the impact of a project to the extent that the organization can measure itself, which is a very elusive proposition in a human system. So what about a third party? The problem with bringing in outsiders to evaluate is that the evaluation has its own impact, and this may bring more interference than enlightenment.

Yet the economist in us justly wants to know how much this will cost. The engineer in us needs a test to affirm knowledge, a ruler to mark distance, a clock to demonstrate time. We justly want to know how to measure and know how we are doing. We need to know where we stand. But the question of measurable outcomes ceases to serve us when we think that measurement is so essential to being that we only undertake ventures that can be measured.

Measuring What Matters

Concrete measures can determine progress, but they do not really measure values. We pursue what matters independently of how well we can measure it. It is important to measure what we can, but to raise this question too early, and to use it as a criterion that will determine whether or not to proceed, runs the risk of worshipping too small a god.

What will matter most to us is the quality of experience we create in the world, not the quantity of results.

The real cost of creating something of value is emotional, not economic. What is most valuable cannot be purchased at a discount. The price of change is measured by our effort, our will and courage, and our persistence in the face of difficulty. The shift here is from an economic measure of cost to a personal measure of will.

Dealing With Doubt

It is important to recognize that our obsession with measurement is really an expression of our doubt. Doubt is fine, but no amount of measurement will assuage it. Doubt, or lack of faith, as in religion, is not easily reconciled, even by miracles, let alone by gathering measurable evidence on outcomes.

The wish to measure tightly is the recognition that every project has its own risks. Why not deal with the doubts and risks directly by naming them carefully right from the beginning? We cannot engineer human development, nor can we know it with the precision we might wish for. We can generate some data about the change, but most of it will be putting numbers on people’s feelings–that’s what surveys do. Why not just convene people every once in a while and ask them how it is going? Ultimately, we will know how we are doing by assessing the quality of our experience. If experience is such a good teacher, maybe it also knows how to measure.

To act within this new frame:

  1. Act on what matters, not just what works.
  2. Ensure you pursue what you truly value by asking the “why” questions before asking the “how” questions.
  3. Focus on quality of experience, not just quantity of results.

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Where Else Is This Working? Reframing the “Guaranteed Success” Problem

Posted on by admin

Business is risky. There is no way around it. You need to try new things to advance and yet you also somehow want a “guaranteed success.” Thus two major impulses are constantly in conflict: wanting to innovate and at the same time wanting the reassurance that what you are contemplating has been tried before. This is the paradox of success and safety.

How do you convince your stakeholders, and yourself, that the risks of the new venture are worthwhile?

The most attractive proof, of course, is an example of somewhere else the idea has worked well. This provides tangible evidence that this new opportunity will give you all-but-guaranteed success. But this is a false promise based on a faulty expectation. The answer is to reframe the problem.

If You Acted On This Definition

Based on the desire for a “guaranteed success” you would research examples of where what you propose is working. You would look for organizations in the same business as your client. You might arrange site visits, references, and a feasibility study.

Reframing “Guaranteed Success”

“Where else is it working?” seems like it’s a valid and compelling inquiry. Who would argue against learning from others? The problem is that the question perpetuates the belief that others know and we don’t. This does not mean that we cannot learn from others. It is just that asking “how” is a poor method of learning.

We learn by bearing witness to how others live their lives. We learn from the questions others have the courage to ask. We are more likely to be transformed from dialogue about what is real and what is illusion.

These conversations are qualitatively different from seeking methods and answers.

“Where else has this worked?” is a reasonable question, within limits. It is dangerous when it becomes an unspoken statement: If this has not worked well elsewhere, perhaps we should not do it.

The wish to attempt only what has been proven creates a life of imitation. We may declare we want to be leaders, but we want to be leaders without taking the risk of invention. The question can lead us down a spiraling trap: If what is being recommended or contemplated is, in fact, working elsewhere, then the next question is whether someone else’s experience is relevant to our situation—which, upon closer scrutiny, it is not.

The value of another’s experience is to give us hope, not to tell us how or whether to proceed.

While it is prudent to try to mitigate risk and do your homework, guaranteed success does not truly exist. Even if it is working somewhere else, there is no assurance that it will work here. Every new idea has to be customized locally. Although it is tempting, you risk making a false promise if you support the idea that a change can be imported with little risk into your client’s workplace. Although there may be much overlap in some details, there are always hidden factors that may have allowed success in one setting, but which would prevent it in another.

The Root: Doubt and Anxiety

So what can be done? The role of the consultant, in this case, is to help the client understand that behind their question of where it is working are doubt and anxiety. They have a wish for a guarantee that this “risky thing” will be successful. It would be strange if this were not present. Yet as a consultant, working in partnership, you cannot make this promise, because so much depends on the energy and investment of the client. Part of the work, therefore, is to help the client see that while wanting reassurance is natural, the expectation of a guarantee is driven by fear and is not realistic.

On the other side of the table, consultants can also face the tension between selling and consulting. You are really doing both but lean toward the consulting. Selling means your goal is to make the sale; consulting means the goal is to help the client make a good decision. Because there is tension here, beware of any tendency to “oversell” a course of action, especially one that you have successfully pursued before. This inadvertently reinforces the false hope for “guaranteed success.”

Clients will make a better decision if they understand all that is required to make a change, especially at the local level. The field of consulting carries the shame of promising too much too soon. The search for what is working elsewhere might be useful, but can’t be a substitute for a willingness to try something new, with little more than your own faith as proof you are making a good decision.

To act in this new frame:

  1. Don’t assume that success elsewhere guarantees success here.
  2. Help the client and yourself by recognizing the place of doubt and anxiety in any new venture.
  3. Bring as much local knowledge to bear as possible. The more the idea is locally customized, the better chance it will succeed.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 401]

Taking It To Scale: Reframing the “Scalability” Problem

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Whenever a pilot project is successful, the question you can inevitably expect is “scalability.” How do you take this to scale and make the same thing happen across departments, or locations, or teams? It worked in one place, so let’s make it work in every place.

And let’s do it in a hurry.

For businesses under constant pressure to adapt and produce results, what could give a greater sense of safety than replicating “proven” methods?

But very often what worked in one place fails dismally in another.

This doesn’t mean the wish for scalability is wrong. But how can you reframe this classic problem in order to deliver the desired outcomes? Let’s explore.

If You Acted on This Definition

With the stated goal of taking the project “to scale,” your most likely course of action would be to standardize the elements of the pilot. Figure out the basic structure of the successful project and codify it into workable structures and procedures.

You would then obtain support from the top. Next, you would turn it into a program, hold a bunch of meetings, conduct training programs, set system-wide standards, and all the rest that has become stock in trade in change management.

Reframe “Scalability”

There is an underlying reason why this approach so often fails. Pilot projects work largely because people in one local site are engaged in creating them. Because they are locally engaged, they are able to act within the full scope of their own needs, circumstances, and knowledge. It is this act of engagement and creation that leads to high performance.

When you take something to scale and do it fast, the imaginative life is drained out of it. What you end up doing is to attempt to extract what is “universal” from what has worked locally. And usually, this means figuring out how to replicate certain outcomes rather than the creative processes which led to them. Therefore, when applied elsewhere, what once was choice becomes coercion.

Nothing can be taken to scale. The success record of proliferation is poor.

The way to think about it is that, like politics, all change is local. You can’t easily copy and paste results from one locality to another. But what you can proliferate is the possibility of local invention following some loose guidelines and statement of purpose.

Don’t fall for the trap of thinking that top management is simply to blame for problems in “scalability.” Support from the top is not necessary to shape an organization of your choosing. Let top management set the mission. But every unit should be able to express its own vision of how best to organize and train itself in order to achieve that mission. This is the only way that the mission can be instantiated at the local level. Otherwise, the top’s inherent distance from the local circumstances will sabotage the ability to replicate the intended results.

Lastly, be prepared for this to take time. The wish to do something quickly is really a defense against local choice. It is the argument that we do not have time to engage a lot of people.

Don’t buy speed as an argument. Speed is a defense against depth and meaning. Nothing important happens quickly. Choose quality of experience over speed. The world changes from depth of commitment and capacity to learn.

To act within this frame:

  1. Don’t assume what worked “there” will work “here.”
  2. Engage local workers in the creative process of creating a vision for their unit.
  3. Go in for the long haul. Although engaging more people takes more time, it will produce more meaningful and resilient change.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 398-399]

When we offer a service primarily because clients want it, we have chosen commerce over care.

Fix Those People: Reframing the “Behavior Modification” Problem

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Behavior modification (or behavior change) is a classic human predicament that is reflected in the question: How do I get those people to change their behavior?

You might be a parent dealing with a toddler. Or a government official looking for compliance with a new policy. Or a business consultant trying to implement change in an organization. Whatever the relationship and mission, you will have wondered how exactly to get other people to act in the way you want. Let’s call these behavior modification schemes. Sometimes they are manipulative. But most often they are grounded in a good desire for the behavior you feel is in the group’s best interest.

In the workplace, this problem often takes forms such as:

  • How do you get them to adopt the new mission, the new business, or institutional reality?
  • How do you give them the skills they need for the new world?

Most likely, such questions are being asked by top management with regards to local groups and how they operate on the ground. But given that such behavior modification is notoriously difficult, how can the issue be reframed to create a better possibility?

If You Acted on This Definition

If the goal is taken as behavior modification, then it makes sense to start the modification by communicating and offering training in a big way. You would spend time defining the desirable behaviors, then design or purchase programs to meet those competencies. You would then train managers to conduct the programs and get the top leaders to endorse them. The end result, you should hope, would be the new behaviors being acted out across the organization. Problem solved. Right? Well…maybe not.

Reframing “Behavior Modification”

The thing is that “those people” are very unlikely to be the real problem. To add injury to the insult, wide-scale training will cost a lot and redirect resources away from the real problem. Plus, focusing on people’s deficiencies only reinforces them.

Change is more likely to happen when we capitalize on, and bring to bear people’s capacities, and gifts, and strengths.

Despite the claims of consultants and their intimate organizational champions, large-scale training has had a poor record of changing organizations. There is an uncomfortable truth here. As the economic beneficiaries of the training movement, consultants are reluctant to be accountable for the fact that most large change efforts have led to little change.

Consultants often hold on to the belief that if they had more top management support things would have been different. But there is a false assumption beneath this belief.

The reality is that effective behavior modification throughout an organization is rarely dictated by a central mandate. It is much more likely to arise in response to circumstances on the ground.

Resist the “Fix” Mentality

This is why you must resist the “fix” mentality, where centralized control becomes the catch-all solution. Rather, local groups deciding what change and learning they need–with an emphasis on their underutilized capacities–is a faster and cheaper path to learning.

Here is the change in mentality you’ll need:

As a consultant, you are not in the behavior modification business, but in the community-organizing business: Bringing local groups together, engaging them in questions of purpose, allowing for local variation wherever possible. These practices create relational equity. And you can make the bet that this engagement effort will lead to a level of accountability that will make up for any “fixing” benefits that might accrue from the traditional strategy.

In summary, to act in this new frame:

  1. Focus NOT on people’s deficiencies, but on their gifts and strengths.
  2. Challenge the assumption that top management is what ultimately drives organizational behavior.
  3. Resist the urge to “fix” things centrally. Instead, let local groups decide what they need to learn to face their reality.

[Adapted from Peter Block, ‘Twelve Questions to the Most Frequently Asked Answers,’ The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook and Companion: A Guide to Understanding Your Expertise, 2001, pp. 399-400]