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This is where all third party firms and most consulting firms believe you as a client should reside- in their stable. Once they weasel their way in to your inner circle or directly to you (disclosure- of course I also have to do this part) they want to “own” you like a Kentucky rancher. Any use of you for any reason that has to do with their connection, in their scheme, requires a fee. The more valuable you are to the other ranchers the higher the fee. This might work for raising horses. For consulting it makes no sense to you or to the consultants who can provide service (the actual solution) to you directly (note the ranchers were left out of this sentence).
Enter the non-compete clause.
This is the fear clause that staffing firms, employers and (IMHO) paranoid consulting firms put in their contracts. For an excellent post on this as an issue look here- http://tinyurl.com/4ddpd. Thankfully here in California that clause according to CA code 16600 is unenforceable and often illegal. In my dealings I choose to sign and ignore (although now I am reading of firms that use the court process to bleed/victimize the secondary party knowing full well they themselves are in the wrong).
Why is this important to you the client?
- A barrier (and a big one) has just been placed between you and your solution. If any continued work with you has a 40% fee cut included you will either have to increase your budget or lose the consultant to higher paid direct roles.
- Someone else is trying to screen your decision making process.
- Someone else is keeping resources at arms distance (or more) from you.
- You begin with a consultant who may not be too thrilled with the contracting arrangement.
- You build in a permanent “telephone game” with an unnecessary person(s) inserted into all of your communication with the consultant
- You add time. For interactions with clients that take a day or two I have often needed a week or more with third parties. How long do you want to wait to begin that engagement?
Time, money and control all taken away from you by the needless fear of non-competes. I am guessing those are three things you hold dear as a client and business person.
Technorati Tags: Buyer, External Consultant, Fees, Value, vision to work
When consultants are “on the beach” (the inside term for not on client engagements) they react completely different from employees who feel close to losing their job. They dig in, retrench and create. Most consultants are itching to have a chance to build collateral, increase their thought leadership and learn. The economic crises has proved fertile ground for just that.
That collateral for you as an executive is the foundation for effective, efficient delivery of business objectives.
Consultants are by nature restless, enjoy a challenge and thrive in the most difficult of situations. Their sweet spot is to have the tools and collateral, the time to think and just the right environment of confusion (and possibly fear). They like to accomplish things that others are too slow, too scared or not qualified to tackle. When they see a clear path with all those parameters they get things done fast.
Every one of those parameters is now lined up. Consultants have had plenty of time to create, think and learn. Now they are hungry for the chance to apply. For you that means a quick start from the backward slide of the last year or so.
Before you begin dreaming of business objectives and end states finding clear, quick paths to success look closer at what the use of those resources means to your organization and your culture. Your employees are likely fearful. They now worry about their jobs and their roles (and don’t expect that to go away for a long time). An energetic consultant with little baggage and a clear focus on goals is a serious threat. The more the numbers tilt in the direction of external resources (some firms were close to 50% even before the economy tanked) the more threat there is to the culture of the organization itself. And while unfounded (IMHO) those employees may think that the externals could actually replace them.
Your warning is
that too much reliance on external resources can weaken the fabric of your organizational culture. To rely on those resources when your culture has already weathered a storm (without the camaraderie of conquering adversity) can potentially effect those initiatives that happen after the first wave of success.
Why not strive for speed and success while at the same time transitioning your employees from fear to action. Pick a consultant (or small firm- you will not get this from the big firms) who understands what needs to be mended, wants to transfer that built up collateral and knowledge and is looking for challenge rather than maximum possible revenue (hint that would be the big firm- in fact just about any with employees). You will pull your employees into the new reality, accomplish and prepare all at the same time.
Technorati Tags: business objectives, C level, CEO, change awareness, change management consultant, change management strategy, engagement, External Consultant, strategy, Value
I have seen and heard lately the term “over qualified”. In my own context I take it as a compliment, albeit a strange one. In forums it sounds as if this is a nasty symptom of the last tough 2 years.
Over an over I have turned this term to make sense of it. On a run this morning I got the “aha”. It has nothing to do with qualifications really, it has to do with potential for influence. Someone brought in for one of the new pseudo-consulting roles (an actual role is created that looks much like an employee position with the same type of requirements and the client also expects genuine consulting at the same time- like two people wearing the same hat) can quickly become a threat to the very person who brought them in.
I get it, especially in this cutthroat environment where it appears careers will remain at a stand still for years. Everyone is fighting for the next or at least a different spot.
Here is why it makes no sense-
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Good consultants are always working themselves out of the role
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They do not want your job (if they are overqualified presumably they could be in your spot if they chose to)
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They are there to help you- the leverage they might have is to your advantage (assuming you shoot for end states in the case of CM consultants)
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You and those on your team are probably deliverable based whereas a qualified consultant is solution based- err on the side of consulting with externals and let them use deliverables for leverage
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Clients are price sensitive, consultants (good ones) refuse to compete on price- when a consultant is willing to meet in the middle you get value and price (now thanks to s sluggish business environment)
Senior executives tend to understand all these internal to external role to consultant connections. And therein is, perhaps, a lesson. Did they figure this out and use it to climb to their positions? While the fearful resisted?
Technorati Tags: change management consultant, External Consultant, Fees, Value
I googled change management this morning to see the latest hawked wares and approaches. Since I am a spatial learner and love pictures I chose “images of change” as my first stop.http://tinyurl.com/245t9s5.
Wow.
Could the approaches be more overwhelming? Change itself has a tendency to be the same. As a practitioner wouldn’t you want to make the process easier? Although if I am selling snake oil…
Here are some observations from my image journey-
- Change practitioners adjust their approach to their own perspective (strategic, OD focused, PMO based, Leadership oriented etc)
- Change apparently either revolves around a hub (yes I am guilty with my spider web article-http://issuu.com/garrettgitchell/docs/prosci2010paper), moves along a torturous curve or follows clearly from step to step on a timeline (oh and it could look like an iceberg which is really helpful for the whole fear of change thing)
- You need phases, must have phases
- They are all heavily influenced by historical gurus
- Change is funny (I admit I did like the pictures and cartoons)
After a couple hundred blog posts of my own (maybe I need “the book” to get there) I still can’t quite explain this, but they all feel like they are forcing change into a funnel that magically comes out the other end with a solution. I can picture what an engagement would look like about 3 months in having followed one of these pretty pictures (you can bet the practitioners are inextricably entwined with their own drawings). If I were to ask at that point, “what will this look or feel like when it is all over?”, odds are the answer would not be there (for the practitioner, the leader and especially for the stakeholder).
For that to happen, assumptions, perspective and history usually have to be unraveled, looked at and then rebundled into a change approach that works back from the goal rather than forward to …. can’t resist…. infinity and beyond.
Technorati Tags: Buyer, change awareness, change failure, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, Value, vision to work
As an external consultant there is always a fine line between honoring “the way we do things here” and pushing for and guiding change. Many, if not most, organizations have a tie to processes, structure and communication that is hard to break. Here are some areas to keep in mind in terms of the status quo of cultural loyalty:
Group Think
Group think helps people with consistency, clarity and sameness (which is comforting if you keep your viewpoint narrow). It homogenizes to the point where almost everything is predictable. The longer the tenure for an employee the greater the need to stick to the norms-cultural loyalty.
It is surprising how many times at an individual level cultural loyalty (CL) is questioned. The questioning typically (especially if drawn out by a CM practitioner) produces smart, viable alternatives. If that person does not have authority or leverage those alternatives die quickly.
Internal Politics
Patterns appear over time in organizations that are a direct result of the jostling and wrestling for position by individuals. That positioning tends to work the best when the jostler follows the path of least resistance. That path is the road to the way we do things here. So you end up with a structure that rewards and reinforces the status quo.
Functional Loyalty
The same patterns but much harder to break occur at a functional level. Certain functions tend to have more leverage than others (usually because they bring in revenue which, on the surface at least, makes sense). Those functions then match their group think against others. What you end up with is a secondary level of loyalty to culture-functional loyalty. Which is a synonym for a silo.
Founder(s) Influence
The majority of the time the patterns that replicate within the silos and cultural pods in an organization are the result of the founder(s) initial vision, values and business direction. Emulating that package tends to move individuals up the ladder. The more that spreads the more group think builds and the harder to break the way we do things becomes. Another secondary level exists here when the organization gets big enough for the functional leaders to steer their own vision and approach.
Guiding change at the transformational/horizontal level requires the ability to frame the “make sense” communication in order to replace the CL that is holding back change and growth. In my own practice I have found that I must take the difficult step of working with leaders to tweak structure and process before trying to touch cultural and functional loyalty. The same pattern happens with the change process itself. Often there are underlying structural and process weaknesses that will make complete fulfillment of the end state close to impossible.
The fine line approach is to draw out the CL that makes collaboration, negotiating and compromise possible.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, CEO, change awareness, Change Design, change management, Change Strategy, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, resistance to change, stakeholders, vision to work
Good start. The primary competency of a change management consultant, I am beginning to think, is anticipation. Or ,so you do not confuse this with some fight or flight tendency (also well honed in CM practitioners) intuition might be a better word. We can tell you what will happen as each little action reverberates across the change web. We have probably seen something like this before, people are people and because of that, mistakes are consistently repeated from organization to organization and person to person.
Odds are you are not thinking of:
- How your assumptions effect your approach
- The true effect the change will have on operational efficiency
- The true effect operations will have on the path to the end state
- Importance of placement of change process- usually too low in organization
- Importance of timing of CM- usually too late
- The effect of leadership (different than the “importance of”)
- The power of one (how well is your approach going to acknowledge at the individual level)
- Context and big picture- will a stakeholder know where they fit and where you are in the process?
- Your performance system and its stranglehold on change
- Your leaders and their stranglehold on change (see previous bullet- not necessarily their fault)
- How you are dealing with assessment and measurement
- The difference between training and awareness
- Leveraging transformational initiatives for succession and professional development
- Accountability, responsibility and “ownership”
It is a much longer list, but you get the idea. Or do you?
If you really want to “transform” your organization looking at a much bigger picture is essential.
If your approach is the typical one of firing CM into the fray and hoping for little fall out this is an unnecessary list… until the next time you try to make a big change.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, C level, CCM, CEO, change awareness, change failure, change management consultant, End State, engagement, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, resistance to change, stakeholders, vision to work
High level change management has two or three spots in the timeline/process where I always feel it is essential to call a conference room late-morning-into-lunch meeting to wrap our arms around the big picture. I do not take forcing the invite lightly. One of the reasons I can be bold enough to take a chunk of first or second horizontal executive time is that an interesting thing always happens…something new, something potentially “viral” (in a good way), something specific to the client organization appears. It appears in the form of a new word (languaging at its core) a diagram, chart or picture.
One of those meetings (4 hours long) at a Fortune 50 firm created all of the above- a chart, a diagram and a picture. It was a picture that bore a striking resemblance to a camel. “It looks like we drew a camel”, I said on our sandwich break… that connection, that potential analogy, that unique to that organization picture, was all it took to begin creating a model. You might call that the second step of languaging.
The third step, now I hear a year later, after an all hands presentation by the client, was a wildfire spread of the analogy to different parts of the company around the world. Which has since morphed into functional and regional interpretations of the camel analogy, chart, picture and model.
It is nice that a camel can go a long time without water, can stand extremes of heat and has a face that takes a little time getting used to. All great languaging leverage points. Those up and down humps are also helpful to illustrate passage of time, levels of effort and participation. Carry that a little farther and you could say certain parts of the camel are better at carrying a heavy load (and certain camels are stronger).
This type of analogy languaging has happened a couple of time with clients… Maybe we should count them as deliverables…
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, C level, change communications, change excercise, change management consultant, Communications, Executive, executive communications, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, Insights, Value, vision to work
Contracting between the actual owner of the change and the external CM practitioner is a crucial piece of the foundation for success. That contract- both the formal written version and the informal initial interaction- lays out expectations, introduces the client to a new and better understanding of the change process and glues the owner to the practitioner in a people and business relationship.
The insertion of anything in the middle of this business and person to person relationship is always detrimental.
Some reasons-
Third parties want to “own” the relationship- their definition of ownership is revenue based. Their way to protect that is to always insert themselves between the consultant and the client. And that helps Who?
Third parties skim the budget dollars. Direct contracts are at or less than those with a third party. Experienced consultants know that. So you can either save (by splitting the difference) or you can feel good about compensating the talent that is tied to your end states rather than burning dollars on overhead.
By using a third party you turn consulting into a commodity. Commodities have a direct tie to pricing. So the consultant gets a direct offer from another client at 50% and you assume they will stay? You, as a client, chose to use a third party so you have broken the ethical connection. As you can imagine consultants feel very little tie to the third party firms…
Third parties (no matter what they say) do not “know” your business. I have interacted with recruiters, staffing firms that think they are somehow consulting, consulting firms that somehow became staffing firms (unbeknown to them), internal contracted recruiters and internal recruiters. Except for the last one (and maybe the penultimate) they “knew” what they needed, but did not understand the whole picture (as in you within this initiative and the consultant and what they do and provide) . If I were a client paying upwards of 50% for this work I would have huge expectations for the “relationship”.
They do not find your talent faster. If a consultant has a LinkedIn profile you can find them with a phone call. And you get the added plus of relationship building right from the start.
They certainly do not find the best. Third party work for the best consultants is always fill-in. Because of the compensation difference between third party and direct they will be focusing how to fill in the missing revenue.
This is an important post because there is a trend to using more and more procurement type situations for true consulting. I have had to go through the dance (and waste a lot of precious change management time) a couple of times for high level roles because the client organization insisted on it. Judging by my own experience this is an area where there should be some loud shouting from clients and consultants.
The contracting relationship, the core of the process, is being sanded down and it is having an effect on implementation.
Technorati Tags: Buyer, CEO, change management consultant, engagement, External Consultant, Fees, Garrett Gitchell, Gate Keeper, Insights, Value, vision to work
There are times that are pivotal opportunities for change.
Leaders must be just as aware of opportunities for change as they are for the need to change.
Let’s set aside the need to change, the desire to change and the management of change and look at opportunity.
First the obvious:
- a great idea that takes off (usually in a garage environment)
- growth- of revenue, size and number of employees
- a merger
- a very cool product, service or technology
- a new, respected leader
The not so obvious:
- crises
- employee resistance
- layoffs
- bringing on a high level external consultant
- retirement of a senior leader
- a corporate move
- a bad economy
And the questionable:
- new software enterprise wide
- new processed based solely on that software
- change based solely on a model (or worse a book)
- organic movements within functions
- a new, not so respected leader
As a leader pay attention to the opportunities around you to encourage, define and refine change innovation and process. If a light is shining on a spot or a place in your organization whether that light is glaring or pleasing take advantage of the illumination.
If there is “resistance” that is an opportunity to look at root causes. If there is a leadership move that is an opportunity to educate, make aware, question, strategize and dialogue. If the economy is tough use the fight together mentality to reinforce strength. If you have layoffs use it as a starting point and a chance for transparency and connection to work effort. If you have been smart enough to bring in an external consultant to shine a light on change itself leverage that visibility to make horizontal and circular communication and action loops.
Every change big or small is guided by or has a built in opportunity.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, C level, change awareness, change management consultant, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, horizontal change management, vision to work
Change tends to draw people into creating fortifications- walls, forts, moats and fences. Are they for keeping things out or protection? Do they create hilltop fortresses of safety or islands of isolation? Of course the answers depend on which side of the fortress you are on, inside or outside. On whether you stand to gain or lose by being on either side.
Change management practitioners must be adept at gaining entrance to the fortifications, introducing something of value and leveraging that to agreed upon relaxation of the barrier- maybe a time when the gate is open, maybe an elimination of the guard on the tower and in a perfect world open doors and a symbol left to illustrate possibility.
I get the wall thing.
But from my external perspective, especially when I have gained access in both directions, that wall is a daunting thing. Look at this post picture. Look at your organization. Are your walls this intimidating? As a leader with, I hope, the ability to have this view, think of the resources needed just to manage the fortification.
Or better, think of the resources you would have if you could prevent the building of the fortification in the first place.
This gets to the core of what I see as the problem with change management and organizational operation and strategy- wrong perspectives, wrong approaches. In our analogy what typically happens is that the walls get stormed (the core of the resistance perspective) or they get strategically breached. The first wears everyone out (by endlessly addressing symptoms) and the second creates an insidious kind of fear (spies are everywhere).
What to do then if you are a leader faced with existing or about to be built fortifications?
Well you might want to create an opening to your own fort as a start…
- Find out why there seems to be a need for protection and separation and address that need.
- Use an external resource who can move freely through the gates, in both directions.
- Use a sentry who is responsible to both tribes (potentially fraught with problems, but also a good succession builder).
- Evaluate resource needs and efficiency and balance the two (you will find a lot of the fear under the heading, “resource”).
- Be careful of creating the fortifications before they think about it- think committees, “hub and spoke”, functions etc.
Know always that fortifications are obstacles and barriers not protection and security.
Be conscious that fortifications are effective (in a bad way) barriers to the growth and development of people.
Get the gates to open. The walls and the forts can still be there to contain and corral energy and resources.
Technorati Tags: Big Picture, CEO, change awareness, change management consultant, change management strategy, engagement, Executive, External Consultant, Garrett Gitchell, vision to work
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