Resolving Intergroup Conflict

As occasionally hired as a referee. Two groups were at loggerheads, “Could you please resolve the conflict.” More frequently conflict arose during a change project.

My approach was to interview people on both sides and bring the combined group together and feedback what ia had learned. In a change project, where leadership was on board, this was enough to get everyone working on compromise.

Often these conflicts were about decision rights, information sharing, or who was supposed to do what. So simple tools like meeting ground rules and responsibility and/ or decision charting (RACI and/or RAPID) were more than adequate for the task.

A few times of times in my career I stepped unawares into a conflict that had raged unresolved for years. One was a battle between two different salesforces. Another was a longstanding conflict between maintenance and operations in a large chemical plant.

When two salesforces might not be better than one

Theoretically these salespeople were meant to be calling on different buyers and selling different services, but over time customer companies had merged, buying departments had consolidated and the services sold by the two salesforces had been “enhanced” so services weren’t differentiated and your biggest competitor was across the hall.

The two salesforces were led by men in their late thirties who had joined the firm at around the same time and were allegedly once close friends. They were each described as hyper-competitive. A year previous firm hired a general sales manager from the outside. Everyone described him as a “young hot shot,” so often that when I met him I was surprised that wasn’t on his business card. He was three or four years younger than his direct reports, but did look much younger.

“I don’t see the problem. A little internal conflict is good for sales. There have been some pranks, sure, but that’s just salesmen having fun.”

I had been hired by his boss who was disturbed by some of those pranks, lighting wastebaskets on fire, jamming the copy machine on purpose when one of the other team was preparing for a rush presentation.

“This isn’t innocent fun anymore – its is totally out of hand.”

 “We get the product out the door!” “You break stuff or blow us up!”

During a continuous improvement project, you couldn’t have maintenance techs and manufacturing operators on the same team without a lot of yelling. A few years previously, after a high profile process safety incident, a consultant reorganized the plant.  There was a new department of process safety, which reported with a solid line to corporate headquarters and a dotted line to the plant manager. Maintenance, which had  reported to manufacturing, now reported to process safety.

The plant made a commodity feedstock for fertilizer and for other chemical products. we We were hired because foreign competition were cheaper and continuous improvement was expected to reduce costs.

After two of the improvement teams broke apart the project manager asked the client for an extension to resolve the conflict, and I got the job.

The Two Way Mirror

In both cases I used an organization development exercise called the Two-Way Mirror to surface the conflict. (The exercise is attached to the back of this article.)

This exercise surfaces negative images and stereotypes that each group holds of the other, which cause them to fail to listen, or even address the conflict. In both cases, a long pattern of a name-calling, passive aggressive “jokes” or “pranks” and defensive reactions (“Yeah, well what about___?”) got in the way of any serious attempts to resolve the problem.

In both instances the exercise worked to start a discussion which ultimately led to a resolution of the problem. Lest I paint myself as some kind of conflict resolution superhero, the exercise would probably not have been as successful  without leadership support verging on mandate, “Figure out how to fix this!”

The exercise plays with US and THEM, but avoids the words as divisive. It deals with group self-perceptions and perceptions of the other group, It doesn’t address solutions to the problem. That comes later.

Managers met separately in a facilitated session with their boss and were coached to listen during the exercise rather than be defensive of dominate. Two Way Mirror starts with each group working on their own, discussing and recording for later presentation:

• How do we do we think of us, (strengths and weaknesses)
• How do we think you view us,
• what do we think of you
• what do we think you think of yourselves.

These were facilitated sessions, but the groups first decide who will present and who among them will scribe. The role of the facilitator is to drive for honesty and clarity, to avoid or shorten war stories and generally keep the group on track and on time.

In the sales groups I broke into two small group sessions and two large group presentation sessions. That took longer but might have been better given the vitriol between the groups.

When the groups came together they each presented on.one of the bullets above. We decided who went first with a coin toss and switched after each section. In what do we think of us in both cases there were a lot of nods.

In each case, what do we think you think of us, was quite negative and people, said things like “No, wait we don’t think that about you we see your strengths and don’t think your weaknesses are that bad.”

By the time we got to the final section presentation, “What do we think you think of yourselves,” there was  a lot of self-deprecating laughter in the room. “Oh, that’s how we come across? Oops.” This wasn’t the conflict resolution.

This only began to break down stereotypes.

Later after much work the sales teams stayed as two teams but revised territories and the services they sold. They created a territory/prospect dispute process to resolve ongoing conflicts.

Ultimately operations and maintenance reorganized. Both reported with the solid line to the plant manager again, but both had a dotted line to corporate process safety. They first aligned production and process safety goals and invested substantially in equipment renewal and replacement. Our continuous improvement project actually raised costs short term (ouch), but the plant made improvements that offset the investment that produced lower costs and safer operations longer term.

Below are the exercise instructions.

Two Way Mirror: Exercise Instructions

This exercise is a famous organizational development structured experience first used by Dr. Richard Beckhard to resolve conflict between the marketing and engineering departments at Mobil.

Objective:

Used in intergroup relations. To become clear of the views and stereotypes held by two groups in conflict or in potentially conflicting roles, which interfere with intergroup communication and working effectiveness.

Group size:

Unlimited, but for larger groups may require multiple facilitators for breakout teams.

Timing:

60 –90 minutes -10 minute facilitated introduction, 20 minutes in small groups, 30 –60 minutes small group presentations and facilitated large group debrief.

Instructions:

1. The facilitator explains that the purpose of the exercise is to understand how each group views itself and the other group as a prelude to establishing working ground rules.
2. Each group is sent to a separate breakout room with flipchart paper and markers and told to prepare 2 flipcharts for presentation back to the group. On the first chart, labeled “US”, they should list descriptions of how they view themselves as a group The descriptors can be separated into specific categories: e.g. Strengths and weaknesses, or characteristics and typical behaviors at the discretion of the facilitator.

On the second chart, labeled “How we think you view us”, the group should list how they believe that the other group views them.

(Resist the temptation to ask for a chart labeled “THEM” or to ask people to comment negatively on the other team as this can destroy trust in a way that would be difficult to recover from in the context of the exercise.)

3. The groups return and each group presents their view of themselves and their view of the other group’s view of them.
4. The facilitator asks the debrief questions in order to move towards some ground rules for intergroup behavior

Expected Results:

What usually happens is that groups are reasonably self aware (though often with a decidedly positive skew). Many groups are somewhat accurate about their own strengths and weaknesses

.Most often groups are somewhat less accurate about how others view them. In this case, the facilitator should bring out these differences and ask what impact they have on interactions between the groups or individuals  of the groups.

In the event that one group  is somewhat “beaten down” (with a negative self image or perceived perception of others) the facilitator should comment on that and ask how that affects interactions between the group. Similar process is also appropriate for unrealistic self image or perception of others.

 

Debrief Questions:

1. Starting with “US” charts later moving to “Their View” charts ask what similarities do you see?” –record on a flip chart.
2. Ask How that “helps interactions” –record on a flip chart.
3. Then ask “what differences do you see?” (first with “US” then The “Their View”) –record on a flip chart.
4. Ask “how does this hinder interactions?” –record on a flip chart.
5. Finally ask participants to suggest ground rules for interactions which would alleviate this problem.

Process consultants ask questions

Content consultants, experts provide answers. They assume the client knows what he is asking and knows what to do with the information. Process consultants ask questions. Their mission is to help the client understand the problem, arrive at the solution, and implement it.

I started my consulting career as a content consultant. I researched markets with beginner eye; and I looked at trends in customer needs and competitive response and made recommendations about new products or sales channels. 

I quickly learned that the success or failure of the project depended on leadership. In short, if the client was engaged and interested in learning he would implement; if not, the report sat on the shelf gathering dust.

To be fair, I drew this conclusion on two data points. Extrapolating from incomplete data is a danger in all consulting, but this observation proved to be true over thirty-seven years in consulting. My initial conclusion pushed me to get more education in leadership and organizations development at Teachers College Columbia under Dr. Warner Burke,  and to work behind Dr. George Litwin for ten years including working with many well-known OD consultants that George partnered with.

I don’t hold myself out as being in that league, but I did work for a long time as a process consultant, a change guy, and so developed this list of favorite questions. I never used them all with one client; the objective was to get the client talking.

Engagement

1. I am excited/ pleased/ intrigued/ concerned to be here because______; how do you approach this project? This question starts the engagement process. It works if you authentically express your feelings about the project (hopefully more pluses than minuses) and allow the client to express emotions around the engagement).

Problem definition

2. What problem are we trying to solve? Be aware that some clients will recoil at tge word “problem.” Allow for the redefinition to “opportunity” or “initiative,” but you are really trying to get the client to describe why they want to hire you.

 

3. What is happening? This is especially helpful if the client is having difficulty describing the problem or if you sense that there are many problems. Prompts include:
   1. What is happening that should be happening?
   2. What isn’t happening the shouyldn’t be happening?
   3. What is happening that shouldn’t be happening?
   4. What isn’t happening that should be happening?

These prompts are from the Is/should matric, which I often use to visibly  display the answers. I start with the positives because those are constraints for the project – i.e. , “don’t mess these up!”

 

4. What is your part of this problem? This is a disarming question to many clients. I use it early, especially if they client as defined the problem as caused by “them.” If they continue to blame others, I say, “OK I get their part of the problem, what is your part of the problem. If that still doesn’t work, I knew I had a controlling client and I could adapt my approach.

 

5. If you found a brass bottle in a cave and released a genie, what three outcomes would you wish for this project? This is a classic “vision of success” question. I like the fanciful set-up because it is engaging and the ‘three wishes” because it moves beyond the – “fix the problem dammit” answer often to move qualitative outcomes

 

6. What is your worst nightmare about this project? Or alternatively “What keeps you up at night about this project?” This surfaced concerns that guided me at all stages in the project.

 

7. Whose help will we need? Alternately,  what person or group of person’s (besides you) is critical to the success of this project? I often asked this earlier because it mapped the  client system. Another place to use it is after diagnosis, before solution implementation planning.

 

Pre-implementation

8. What are the forces that will support or encourage this solution?/ What are the forces constrain or oppose this solution? Many will recognize these questions are Kurt Lewin’s Force Field Analysis. While force field analysis is usually conducted as a facilitated group process, it can be used informally in discussion. Remember to create next steps especially for forces against.

 

9. What is your part of this solution? I always came back to engaging the client personally pre-implementation of the solution.

 

10. How will we know this is working? Mid- implementation? At project end? In one year? In five years? This is a metrics question and you are looking for process metrics to know if the implementation is on track, end of project results metrics, and sustainability metrics.

The point of all these questions is engagement, to get the client thinking and talking about the project and outcomes. Notice that they are all open-ended question (what, where, how), which require more than one word answers and not closed ended questions (do, Is,, should), which shut down conversation and feel like interrogation if overused.

Leadership and client engagement turns out to be one if not the primary success factor in change. Many leaders approach change with a “think – talk – act” paradigm. Your questions can help them move to action.

 

Some Just “Don’t Get Continuous Improvement (CI)”

I was always dumfounded. I used to say “Continuous Improvement (CI) isn’t rocket science; it just takes a little discipline.” Then a solid fuels scientist told me how “hard” CI was for him. I began to realize that comparing CI to anything rarely worked. The process is deceptively simple.

Measure-Improve- Measure gain, (repeat).

It helps to think in process terms to see tasks in terms:

Inputs — Activities —- Outputs

Still some people didn’t get it. “We do this all the time>” “Ah yes. . . but are you improving?” “Er.”

Then I realized people might think about how they do their work when they first start. They might even track how well they are doing each task then, but soon work is a collection of habits. You “feel” whether it is going well or poorly and adjust.

At the front line work documentation was seen as “busywork.” A point brought home with my favorite line of all time given by a maintenance tech at a chemical plant:

“Paperwork never turned no bolt!”:

At the top level, executives often didn’t view their work (management) as a process and as a result saw the absence a series of tasks -some that workers did and some that they failed to do. When the plant manager heard the maintenanc3e tech above he completely missed the opportunity to show how documentation of maintenance, “paperwork,” allowed him to improve mean time between equipment failure. Instead he sputtered “It’s part of the job!”

I needed a way for people to “feel” improvement, to feel the excitement of practice focused on improvement in a team setting.

The Tennis Circuit Exercise

I hit on this simple but powerful exercise to introduce the concepts of Continuous Improvement (CI) to a team or in an introductory CI workshop. I even used this exercise in an executive overview after which more than 50 percent of the executives signed up for additional training.

In this exercise, participants experience continuous improvement success and failure. As a result, teams understand how process focus and teamwork leads to improvement.

The exercise starts by sharing this objective:

Objective: To create a process and improve it in a sustainable way

Timing:

35-45 minutes. Some groups have such a good time that they will want to keep “playing,” but if the exercise extends to an hour some may lose interest and learning declines.

Required Materials:

One set of three tennis balls for each team (teams of six to nine each work best, but try not to have less than five members per team) plus one stopwatch and flipchart  or whiteboard large enough to make the recorded goal and results visible for each team.

Set up:

Introduce the exercise by saying, “I’m going to give you a chance to experience Continuous Improvement. Please form ___ teams of ___ people each.”

Then show the first instructions:

Create your current-state process – a pattern of how three tennis balls will go through a circuit of each team member, returning to the first person.

You must practice the current-state process at least three times, recording cycle times, before making any process improvements.

Practice each subsequent process improvement at least three times, documenting improvements and times.

Then say,

“Let me ask team 1 to demonstrate.  Form a circle with each person three feet apart.”

Throw the three balls to one person, saying: “Move the balls one at a time from person to person. Remember who you pass to and who you receive from. Okay, have you got that?  Now that is your ‘current-state process.’ Let’s time it.”

Record the time on the flipchart for all to see.

(Note: Throw the balls to the first person. This often sets a pattern of the group throwing the balls between people, which they soon discover isn’t required and limits improvement.)

Continue by saying:  “Okay, now I want each team to practice your current-state process three times, timing it each time before you make any changes.”

Then share the rest of the rules:

• Balls must move independently, i.e., one ball at a time.
• Transfer must take place (i.e., one person should touch each ball one at a time).
• The metric is total cycle time. Cycle time starts when the first ball leaves the first person’s hand and ends when all three balls are back with the original person.
• Everyone must touch the balls in the same sequence in the original pattern of the
  current-state process.
• If a ball touches the floor, or skips a team member in sequence, the circuit must start over with the first ball. The clock continues to run.
• Record current-state cycle time and improved state(s) cycle times on a flip chart.
•  When a change is made, write it down next to your times on the flip chart.

Let the groups compete: 15 minutes

After one or two rounds of changes tell them that the record for this activity with groups of this size is_____ (Pick a number about 50 percent of the average group’s performance to spur the group on. Keep track of records as you conduct this.)

Then after another round read out the times and say, “The fastest I have ever seen is ____”.

Again, pick a number that is 50 percent of average group time to spur the group on.

The actual record I observed was .78 seconds for a seven-person group (a controlled drop) with each ball touching everyone’s hands. You can choose to give this record at the end or just use your own observed records, which is better.

At the end, hand out debrief sheets and ask the teams to fill them in.

Debrief:  15 minutes

Ask groups:

• Starting time, last time, highest time, lowest time. (If the highest time is not the start time, what happened? If the lowest time isn’t the last time, what happened?)
• What changes did you make?
• What waste was removed?
• What factors had an impact (benchmarks, writing down the times, visible metrics, everyone participated, competition, fun, etc.)

What typically happens?

Times usually start out at around ninety to 120 seconds and drop to under ten seconds.

Groups usually figure out quickly that the current-state process is very inefficient if they throw across the center of the group. They typically rearrange themselves in the order of the process (like an assembly line) and move closer.

If a team loses time by dropping a ball and having to start over they may create some kind of “ready signal.” Comment that this is like the pull system called “Kanban” in Lean.

About midway through, teams realize that the rules don’t say the balls must be thrown, just that each person must touch them one at a time in order. This realization leads to creative ways to accomplish that and times drop dramatically.

The debrief

Like any structured experience, most learning comes in the debrief discussion.

The secret is asking questions to connect the groups, e.g., “Did anyone else experience (or try) that?” Did anyone have a different experience?”

At the end of the debrief discussion ask, “What internal processes does this exercise make you think of?  What could you do about that?”

Variations

Goal setting

One variation is to include a goal-setting step after each round. In the beginning, most teams either grossly underestimate or overestimate improvement capability in the next round. Over several rounds the teams tend to get betting at estimating.

Changes to materials:

Bean bags or kushes don’t roll but are harder to catch; the times are about the same. Groups often spend time perfecting the “catch” and fail to move on to creative ways to “touch” the balls.

Baseballs and softballs often start with too hard a throw. Things get broken and/or people can get hurt. Also, people take the balls home to their kids. Using Superballs is just mean. People spend all their time chasing these mega-bouncies and don’t improve much.

A gutter ball is a 1/2” ball bearing and three pieces of cove molding joined to progress the ball bearing from the beginning of one to the end of the third. Good for novelty with those who’ve seen tennis balls, but not as flexible. And improvements tend not to be as dramatic.

Mechanical assemblies. One of the best variations I ever saw was a pressure valve-like assembly that had to be put together with wrenches, micrometers, and feeler gauges. The assembly was used to train maintenance mechanics in a chemical processing plant. The exercise was run the same way except the metric was cycle time and a quality metric arrived at by an “auditor” spot-checking with a micrometer and feeler gauge. Data was entered into Excel, which then produced a graph that showed optimum cycle time below which quality deteriorated rapidly.

Competition vs. cooperation

Often the teams get quite competitive, checking on each other’s cycle time. It’s good to emphasize that you are competing against yourself and draw out the improvement score of the teams in the debrief discussion.

Try stopping midway and give teams an opportunity to share best practices and track high/low and average group time before and after.

Sometimes after debriefing and a thorough discussion of best practices, it’s good to let the teams have “one more go.”  Use the high/low and average group score again and there is almost always an improvement. This shows that there is no plagiarism in CI. So “steal with pride, but share the credit.”

 A simple but effective tool

This exercise isn’t original, some of the positioning and some of the variations are.  It does work. I’ve used it in manufacturing, oil and gas, chemicals, insurance, back office payments in banking. I’ve used it with front line workers to C-suite executives. (In my experience execs are the most resistant to start, but want to keep the exercise going long after the point is made.)

In the chemical plant described above, the maintenance techs themselves  ended up taking responsibility for improving the mean time between failure metric and maintenance documentation ceased to be a problem.

The plant manager said afterwards, “That by itself was worth the fees you charged.” The Tennis Circuit doesn’t get all that credit- it was a five month project, and the maintenance team were stars, but “feeling” continuous improvement was a good start.

 

 

That is the question

Frameworks, models, matrixes, and matrices (and yes, both plural forms of matrix are correct) are favorite tools of consultants. They are used in strategy, marketing, operations, finance, and change, in fact, all consulting disciplines, to structure and guide analysis, and as hooks to hang gathered data on to make client presentations memorable and (allegedly) understandable. They are also a great source of consultant humor for clients as the picture above illustrates.

Data Analysis Frameworks: Spreadsheets

Wait, Excel is a framework? Yes, it is columns and rows and you define the analysis based upon them. Let’s say columns A-E are annual customer volume for the last five years, and column F is the five year average customer volume. Column F would give a picture of the most important customers over the past five years. You could show that in a bar chart to indicate visually which customers to focus on retaining, but that assumes the product mix by customer over time is similar.

What if some customers are buying more or if new products were changing who the most important customers over time? Then you would have to analyze trend lines by customer over time and/or compare with new product volume.

I started consulting in 1980. Excel was launched in 1985 in response to Lotus 123, which was itself a response to VisiCalc. Most of my early analytics were done on literal spreadsheets, large green accounting paper, with calculations done on a hand calculator. The work involved made us extra careful about the assumptions our analysis was based upon, and what the output would show. So I am very sensitive to things stick projections (“and in year five a miracle happens”) which have been worked backwards from the result you need.

NB: Just because you can analyze something on Excel doesn’t mean you should. Be very careful of advanced techniques like exponential analyses or multivariate regression. I had a project manager who promoted the “8-year-old test” – if you can’t explain the output to an eight-year-old it is too complex.

Data Display: The 2×2 Matrix

Perhaps the oldest  and most frequently used tool is the lowly two by two matrix, which is used to compare and ultimately sort against two criteria. The most famous matrix compares business impact with ease of implementation. This simple filtering matrix is sometimes called the Boston Box or the Boston Square (after the Boston Consulting Group, which popularized its use for prioritizing strategies in the 1970s). This matrix usually leads to the prioritization of “quick wins” high impact easy strategies, improvements, innovations, etc.

The two by two can be used to compare many different criteria. Key customers volume versus products per customer can help define which customers are key to retain and where cross-selling efforts might increase revenue. Product revenue versus product cost will show core products that drive profitability

There is no physical limit to the number of cells in a matrix. Three by threes are common. Four by fours, see some use. In my experience five by fives and above reach diminishing returns on clarity quickly.

CAVEAT: You must carefully define the scales. What is business impact? What is the mid-point and why did you choose that? Does cost include just unit cost or allocations? If it includes allocations on what basis?

Conceptual Models

There are many different kinds of conceptual models in consulting. They are used to direct data analysis and to structure data display. They may have emerged from academic research or they may have been invented by some smart consultants. Some may be based upon detailed analysis; some may be more mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (MECE) in what they look at.

What these conceptual models have in common is that they explain the consulting approach. Clients may or may not acre about the detailed research that Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter did on industry structure and the nature of competition to come up with the Five Forces model. What they care about is how the consulting firm will use their analysis of their industry context to suggest strategy as in the case of the media company, which put more emphasis on trying to overcome supplier power by selling higher and wider at advertising agencies.

There are other strategic conceptual models Igor Ansoff’s product market matrix, Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne’s Blue Ocean Strategy, an innovation framework. The Balanced Scorecard is Robert Kaplan and David Norton’s simple conceptual model that says a business should measure four areas, customer, internal capability, Innovation and learning and financial, but they may have spawned the explosion of metrics infecting today’s organizations.

Conceptual Model Example: Change Models

Among the many types of conceptual models, I think about change models because I was in that business. In my observation there are two types of change models, the phases of change models and change requirements list.

The Change Phases models

Kurt Lewin, American social psychologist came up with the first change phase Model I studied.

Unfreeze———Change———-Freeze

Signal the reasons to change and get people ready, make the changes you need to make, and then institutionalize the changes with new procedures and processes. Many people misquote Lewin on the name of the last phase calling it “Refreeze,” but I’m told that he said “’refreeze’ implies going back to the way it was and you can’t do that.”

Many people talk about phases of change, though not always three. There are four phase models, Reframe, Restructure, Revitalize, Renew (Francis Gouillart), five phase models, six phase models and more. The point of the phase models is to describe the timing and the work of change. These frameworks are loosely order based and often identify the major work of the phase.

At right is a model I have used:

There are also capabilities requirements models that describe hat you need for a change. One of my favorites is John Kotter’s model below.

 This model does show a process for change,  an order, but it   includes elements that are required. Kotter’s concept of the   guiding coalition of leaders across multiple functions and l   levels is helpful.

 I find the two types of models helpful in describing change. But then I find frameworks and models helpful generally as a way to structure my thinking.

I have discovered that, as one client said to me, “Alan, you think weird.”

Fred meant it as a complement, but it certainly applies here. And that leads me to some warnings and caveats.

Be Careful Using Frameworks because:

Most people don’t think in frameworks.

I don’t remember when I was first exposed to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), but I learned that it is a well-researched way to describe differences between people.

For the record, MBTI is a self-report instrument and so for an individual is only as accurate asself-knowledge is (not very). It shouldn’t be used to recruit or staff, but I’ve found it  useful as a learning discussion among people who work together.

The instrument is based upon the work of Carl Gustave Jung and developed by Katherine Briggs and her daughter Isabel Briggs Myers. Without getting into the entire instrument there are two variables that define the way people take in information (Perceiving) and make decisions (Judging).

People perceive by Sensing (S), taking in hard facts and sensory observations in a particular order, A,B, C,D,.E or by Intuiting (I), making connections between unseen things, regardless of order, C, A, E is reordered mentally as A, B, C, D, E.

People make decisions (judging) by Thinking (T) placing items in an order (think Plus/Minus charts) or by Feeling (F) by comparing options to firmly held values, often  about people, (think greatest good for the greatest number).

I am an NT an intuitive thinker. I take in information from many different unconnected sources, and I make decisions by structuring those data, often into a framework or model. It turns out that almost 80% of management consultants are NTs.

It also turns out that only 26% of the general population are NTs.

“Aye, there’s the rub,” as Hamlet said. So while all us NTs love to put data into models and frameworks, Three quarters of the world doesn’t think that way.

So use frameworks and models carefully. Take your time. Explain everything multiple ways.

Also remember:

“The map is not the territory!”

Polish American philosopher  Alfred Korzybski coined this phrase to describe the human tendency to take frameworks and models as gospel truth rather than the loose metaphors that these tools must be.

I have seen people deny what is actually happening in the real world because it didn’t fit what a computer model said it should be. So whatever framework or model you produce consider it as a tool for discussion and not Truth,

That also applies to the decision of when to use a framework. Some consultants turn their preferred framework, model, or matrix into the ONLY way to describe the world, or solve a problem. (If you’ve ever witnessed a LEAN vs. Six Sigma battle you will know what I mean.)

As my kids used to say ”Take a chill pill!”  A model or a framework is a tool; if it works use it. If not that’s why you carry the tool box.

 

“Consultant for thirty-seven years? What? You couldn’t find a real job?”

Bada bing.

I was at a wedding yelling to be heard over the band’s bass, turned to teeth-rattling volume.

“You know what the definition of a consultant is?” Shouted this friend of the bride’s father. “A guy who knows a thousand ways to make love, but doesn’t know any women.”

Bada boom.

“As you might imagine, after thirty-seven years, I’ve heard all the jokes.” I half-smiled and asked him what he did.
“Zinc recovery and remanufacture.” I didn’t know any zinc jokes so I moved on.

Consultants get a bad rap.

I didn’t know that when I joined the field, but it soon became apparent because at every client site and every backyard barbeque somebody had the killer consultant joke. “A priest, a rabbi, and a consultant stood at the Pearly Gates. .  . .”

Some people have no idea what a consultant does and peppered me with question after question resisting every attempt to change the subject, “How ‘bout those [insert sports team here]?” And for me that would be a sign of true desperation because I don’t follow sports. No, I mean, I really don’t follow any sports.

So many people think that consulting isn’t real work that I used to introduce myself at leadership workshops I ran like this:

“I’ve been a consultant for many years. Aside from running my own business, most of what I know about business comes from observing and talking to people like you. As a result I’ve become quite good at ‘Talking about Work.’” This has given an abiding respect for people who actually Do Real Work.”

It always got a laugh and I think people cut me some more slack than they might have otherwise.

I came to describe myself as being in the business of helping companies change, that is helping them innovate or helping them improve. That often led me to the pieces of what I did, running initiatives, training, measuring results, etc. That, at least, the zinc recovery guy could understand.

I asked myself why people both understand what consultants do. People may not know the law, but they understand what lawyers do. Sure there are a lot of lawyer jokes. They may accuse lawyers of being dishonest, but they don’t accuse them of not having a real job. People may not want to be an accountant, but they know what they do and don’t hesitate to hire one at tax time.

Perhaps, the only professional I heard have similar difficulty explaining his work was an actuary. A client of mine had a business that sold pensions to companies. As an actuary he looked at the age and health statistics profile of a company’s workforce and estimated how much money the company would have to contribute to their retirement plan each year. At a party, I once heard him say,

“Actuary. It’s like an accountant, only more boring.”

One problem with people not understanding what consultants do is that there are so many different kinds of consultant. After all, a consultant is someone who gives advice or assistance. (Pay attention to that distinction, advice of assistance, I’ll come back to it in a minute.)

Advice or assistance at what? Could be anything, strategy, manufacturing, data mining, recycling. Consultants often get past this by describing who they work for, “I’m a management consultant.” Most people have heard of the large management consulting firms, like McKinsey & Company, or the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). If you look at the websites of those firms and didn’t really understand business, you might still have difficulty understanding what they do, apparently everything.

So if you are a consultant and you want people to understand what you do, you probably need to describe the part of a business you work in and what outcome you are trying to achieve.

“I help manufacturing plant managers reduce cost through managing inventory turn.”

“I plan new business to business marketing approaches to increase sales.”

“I help senior leaders implement strategic change, getting everyone on board, planning new processes, training new skills, and measuring results.”

Advice or Assistance

I did say I’d come back to this. Advice or assistance is one way of describing two different kinds of consultant, the content consultant and the process consultant.

The content consultant typically works in one industry, like airlines, or banking,  or group of industries, like transportation, or financial services. As a result of this specialization they have expertise and can offer advice. They provide answers through industry research and knowledge. They may also have functional expertise, strategy, marketing, or operations.

A content project begins with a client question and ends with a consultant report, recommendations, advice.

The process consultant provides assistance. The process consultant may also have some experience in an industry or a function or both, but the orientation is different. The process consultant may ask many more questions. The process consultant may seem more like a teacher or coach. The process consultant may work in many different industries and typically stays with the client longer than the content consultant.

The process consulting project often starts with an outcome, something the client wants to do.  A process consulting project often ends when the client has either achieved the outcome or at least is well under way and knows how to proceed. The client no longer needs assistance.

Help

Both content and process consultants provide help. Content consultants provide helpful information. Process consultants teach the client how to do something.

Carl Rogers, the American psychologist, said “Help is defined by the recipient. Help that isn’t asked for is usually perceived as interference and not help.”

A Real Job

Earlier in the piece I whined about consultant jokes and the “bad rap” that consultants get. The bad rap (negative description), the bad rep (poor reputation) that consultants get may be due the Rogerian definition of help.

A consultant who doesn’t listen, but is quick to offer advice or assistance isn’t perceived as helpful. He is seen as arrogant, a know-it-all. A consultant who offers advice when the client wants assistance is perceived as “a guy who knows a thousand ways to. . .” a talker not a doer.

So if you are a consultant, be clear about what your client wants, listen more than you speak, and wait to be asked for help. Then provide what is asked for.

This won’t stop the jokes at parties, but at least your client will know you have a real job.

Strategy consulting has a golden aura.

Strategy consulting has a glow, a mystique, and definitely prestige for most new entrants to consulting. If we come back to earth for a moment, a strategy is a plan:

• What are you going to do and Why?
• How are you going to do it?
• Who will do what by when and at what cost?

That’s it – just a plan. More specifically strategy is a plan to grow revenue of profit or both in the face of competition or other uncontrollable variables, (like available supply, changing technology, or government regulation). It’s a collection of decisions of actions you will take and, maybe more importantly, actions you will not take.

The word strategy comes from the Greek word, strategos, which means generalship and  military warfare was the first use of the concept. Most people trace the widespread use of the word to Carl Von Clausewitz, the Prussian general who wrote On War describing the strategies of Napoleon and Frederick the Great. Von Clausewitz gives some credit for his observations to an ancient Chinese text  Sun Tzu’s The Art of War written around 500 B.C.. While he never uses the word strategy, Sun Tzu is prescient in concepts easily translatable to business. In one of the most engaging strategic planning projects I ever ran, the leadership team compared Sun Tzu descriptions of battlefields, “Ground. . . death ground. . .downhill and uphill. . . the mud or swamp” to the Michael Porter Five Forces model of Industry structure and the nature of competition. The group went on to find winning niches where they compete even today.

Is business war? Some like the military model and many of those people elevate strategy to its exalted  position. I like to remind those people of the words of one  very successful general Dwight David Eisenhower, commander of Allied Forces in western Europe in World War II (and 34^th President of the United States).

“In preparing for battle, plans are useless, planning is essential.”

This quote speaks to the value of thinking in advance of action, but hints that action “on the ground,” will need to be adapted to changing circumstances.

The Plan

Strategy is still just a plan, what and why, how, who and when. The thinking behind the plan should prepare the business to adapt as needed.

There are a lot of strategic planning frameworks. The consulting firm you work for has one, and you will use it, but here is a generic framework to think about.

Strategy must be based upon information about something new in the environment.  Often when a client decides that they need a new strategy it is usually because they missed the changes in the environment – new customer needs or they didn’t anticipate the competitor response. Sometimes the firm doesn’t notice until revenue drops substantially.

If an expert strategy consultant is brought in, that firm may arrive with much documented evidence of those changes based upon their experience in the industry. Or the strategy firm (content consultant) collects data and analyzes it and delivers recommended actions.

The strategy process consultant may have some experience in the industry, may even have opinions about the best course of action, but works with the firm’s leadership to do the research and analysis. The strategy process consultant may even create an environmental scanning function so that the firm doesn’t get similarly caught flat-footed again. The strategy process consultant often works alongside the client to execute the strategy.

Implementation: Strategy Execution

A McKinsey senior director once said to me, “implementation is the client’s responsibility. We would never usurp our client’s responsibility.” My other favorite quote from a military general is from Brigadier General David Sarnoff who was on Eisenhower’s staff and both before and after te war was the CEO of RCA:

“The ‘B’ quality plan executed in an ‘A’ quality fashion will always beat an ‘A’ quality plan executed in a ‘B’ quality fashion.”

I believe that process consultants have an advantage in strategy execution, but even content consultants can succeed if the client is engaged throughout the project. My first project was a new product feasibility study for a heavy duty truck company in the United Kingdom. The project lead engaged the client in the analysis by conducting weekly updates. By the time the client got the recommendations, “build the eight wheel truck, stay away from distribution box vans, there’s no available premium for “heavy duty,” he was convinced and implemented everything.

My second project was with the same project lead who convinced the client to sponsor a study of the market for automatic transmissions in the bus market in nineteen developing countries. However, the client insisted on a “hands-off approach,”  only attended an abbreviated presentation, may not have opened the detailed report, and never implemented anything, though there were seven of those markets ripe for his firm’s transmissions.

I think that even Newbie consultants in a content firm can help the client execute strategy, if you are on-site ask your project lead to allow some feedback of the analysis you are doing from the people in the client system who would be most likely to act upon it. You will need to approach this delicately as some project leads may feel threatened or worry about “leaking” the answer before the big presentation,  If you get shot down remember the idea for when you are managing projects

Business strategy has progressed in the 1970s from the BCG analytical matrices to the models of Michael Porter of Harvard to the value engineering approach of Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, in Blue Ocean Strategy. There will always be new glitzy frameworks from rock-star B-School professors and big and boutique consulting firms, but strategy is always just a plan and a plan must be implemented to be worth anything.