Replying to LO29004 --
Hello Kenny
Nice to read about your thoughts for the learning organization. I am a
consultant myself and can possibly give you some hints based on my
experience.
You are right that it is not a good thing to have a consultant basically
become a permanent member of the organization, or to take over a specific
task. That's almost like an employee. For one, there are rules (laws) that
should normally not allow this to happen. The more important aspect in my
experience is the fact that the consultant needs to be able to keep the
outside perspective. That is, after all, the main reason to hire him or
her. This can be achieved in two ways.
One way would be, as you suggested, to utilize the consultant to "teach"
the employees and then monitor their progress (including management), or
second, to come in at regular intervals to do something I call
"independent evaluation". You look at the organization and its progress in
a specific area over time and report the results to the organizations
leadership. Since you are not constantly in contact with employees and
management you retain your independence and ability to recognize and judge
developments.
You are right that changes, especially in the culture of an organization,
are hard to achieve and take a long time. The real question for a
consultant has to be: Is it my task to achieve these kinds of changes?
I believe it is not. The consultant wants to plant the seeds in the minds
of the management and employees, department heads, etc. To be able to do
that, the problems that might exist need to be accurately identified, a
plan developed and approved and then steps for implementation found. When
this process is completed, the consultant initially becomes a coach that
keeps the participating parties on track to the new ground they seek.
Later on the consultant returns at regular intervals to re-energize the
efforts, re-focus the players on the original - and sometimes changed
goals, and analyses the progress.
As you might know from your own experience changes typically don't stick
on the first try. People tend to go back to their old habits and behaviors
and often show resistance to try something new. Even if you successfully
train them so they promise to implement the new steps, you will see a
fairly low rate of actual change unless you reinforce the information, the
training and the goals.
For all these things the consultant needs to retain his/her independence
from the organization.
In my experience the consultant is often ask to create massive changes in
the organization when interviewed and hired. I always offer to first
analyze the situation based on the claims management makes about the
problem. Very rarely have I found that management analyzed the situation
correctly or completely. The consultant is asked to come in mainly because
a problem has developed for which no fitting answer could be found. Only
by looking at the bigger picture, the goals, vision, mission, etc of the
organization can you find what is really going on and what the underlying
causes for a problem might be. The consultant has the benefit not to be
saddled with all the daily baggage that typically exists in an
organization. The real trick is to convince management to give you enough
time (and money) to go through this process. Often they look for an
immediate solution to be able to go on. Provided you get a chance to do
what is needed to find what is wrong, you will be surprised how often the
real problem is much more trivial and basic than what had originally been
presented by management.
A good example is one of my clients, where the problem was described as a
lack of customer conviction to buy the products although every
presentation leaves the decision makers of the customer side extremely
excited. Management concluded that the marketing and sales department
didn't know how to close the deal even if the grounds had been prepared as
well as humanly possible. Even though this problem actually existed it
turned out that the underlying cause was much more basic. The company
sells most of its products to government agencies. The purchasing process
there is typically more than 1 year from the time of deciding to buy
something till the contract is made, because monies have to be allocated
in the funding plans for the fiscal year, which can only happen before
budget plans are finalized. This again only happens once a year.
My client had tried to serve their potential customer better and better by
bringing more and more people to presentations. Before I began the
analysis they typically went with 3 people including the president to
product demonstrations. That incurred a lot of cost and typically had no
results, although the customers were excited. The other thing it showed
was that some customers saw the company to be desperate, since they
brought the president to the first meetings and didn't wait till something
was ready to decide or sign.
Overall the whole plan for marketing and sales needed to be revised. The
staff needed to be educated in the procedures and timetables of the
government customers as well as the determining factors and the timing
through a whole fiscal year. The materials needed to be changed and
developed in a step by step program. Now the company does briefings and
presentations 3-4 times a year with the potential customers, all scheduled
to coincide with the different budget processes. When the time comes to
sign a contract the president travels to the customer site, otherwise it's
only one person instead of 3. Now the company can service and offer more
potential customers. The additional effect nobody had accounted for was
the fact that the president was at the headquarters much more time than
before. Now goals were re-adjusted on a regular basis, trainings could be
planned, employees has access to top management, etc. These are all things
that didn't have anything to do with the original problem. It also shows
that the cause was nothing really in the company but rather the budgeting
schedule of the customers. (Naturally you could argue that the marketing
and sales people could have known the difference between selling to public
companies and government agencies, but then again, it's not realy very
obvious and depends on the employee background)
To achieve the changes, and analyze the problems and causes in the first
place, I wasn't at the company all the time and even now I only do limited
time assignments to keep my independence. This example also shows that the
consultant should always try to look at both sides of the coin, the
company and the customers.
Senge's models and thoughts are very helpful to understand what can go
wrong, how to analyze it and what steps can be taken to illustrate the
problems as well as the solutions. On the other hand it takes experience,
patience, as well as the ability to communicate successfully on all levels
of an organization to become a successful consultant. I often say: If it
would be as easy as some people make it sound like, everybody could do it.
As you know, that's not the case.
I hope these thoughts help you with your questions as well as your goals
to become a successful consultant.
Axel
--"Axel Meierhoefer" <ahsfamily@cox.net>
Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
"Learning-org" and the format of our message identifiers (LO1234, etc.) are trademarks of Richard Karash.