Posts Tagged change management
consultants consulting consultants
image by eqqman, flickr artist
it’s pretty easy when you’re working hard on a project to become engrossed in it. all your energy becomes focused on one thing, and one thing only: delivering results.
be careful, though, because you might be delivering the wrong results.
when we get that kind of laser focus sometimes it’s hard to break free from it. ”i have a deadline, i have to get this done, and i have to get it done right now.” so, being the good workers we are, we start to work towards accomplishing that goal. unfortunately, we sometimes go down the wrong path in getting to the finish line. instead of looking at our available options, we pick the one we know will work even if it has consequences. we’re not as efficient anymore. our processes can be improved. our tasks are disjointed. our products don’t provide value.
these things happen, and they happen often. it might start with priorities that all become worthless because every task now has ‘critical’ or ‘high’ importance. it might start with a demanding client who asks you to turn a demo into a fully functional work product within a week. but at the end of the day, it’s just something that happens. that’s why i think — especially for those of us who work as consultants — that it’s so important we don’t forget to turn a consulting eye on ourselves.
what meetings are we having? do they provide value? has the mission of our project team changed? do we still have the same goals in mind as we had 3 months before? 6 months before? 12 months before? does our leadership structure still serve the client well? does it serve the project team members well?
these questions and more are questions that need to be answered, but — perhaps more importantly — they need to drive tangible change. it’s really simple to ask the question (i just did!); it’s a bit more difficult to implement changes based on the answers you get in return.
sometimes you just have to look in the mirror.
this old house
my parents just bought a new house, and by new i mean old. in philadelphia, every house is old — many of which have not been renovated since the 60s. so the weekend before thanksgiving, i went up to philly to take care of some errands and, while there, to check out the house and paint the upstairs bedrooms for my parents.
not bad, right? wrong.
the new house has popcorn ceilings with … sparkles? in it. and both the downstairs as well as the back room upstairs have floor to ceiling mirrors which one can only assume is to ‘make the room look larger’. to me, it all makes the room look ‘horrible’. but such was the style back in the day (…i suppose).
there’s a slight problem, however: namely the fact that it’s now the future and such designs are way outdated, look bad, and worse yet are hard to change. painting the ceilings was not fun. first, the popcorn soaks up all the paint so you end up using far more than you would have used on a normal, flat surface. second, it falls apart on you. i know this too well. my brother and myself both had paint covered pieces of the ceiling fall off and into our mouths. (yes, it would have made sense to have a mask on, but we didn’t exactly have an OSHA approved setup.) the mirrors? they’re still up there. it would have cost too much money to have them removed, and then you have to worry about what’s behind those mirrors once you do take them down. beyond the cost to remove them, you may incur even more costs in fixing whatever is behind the mirrors. it’s not an agile design for the interior of a house.
much like designing a house, you may want to be careful when you are making design choices for your organization. you will be tempted to put a lot of processes in place and begin to adopt “industry best practices” from competitors in your marketplace. i say to exercise caution because the more processes you have, by definition, the less agile your organization is. processes reduce your ability to make changes, and therefore your ability to innovate.
don’t get me wrong – some processes are important. you do still need a ceiling, and you certainly need walls. before you go making choices, however, think about the future. are you making the same choices based on what everyone else sees as the newest fad, or trend? are you making decisions that are restricting your organization’s ability to adapt to changes? are you going to be stuck with popcorn on the ceiling that’s hard to change and mirrors on the walls that are expensive to get rid of?
don’t let “this old house” turn into “this old organization.” always plan for the future.
to get where you’re going…
image by elvez40, flickr artist
… they say you have to know where you’ve been.
i say, to get where you’re going — you have to know where you’re going.
stupid, right? or is it?
whenever you start some sort of new venture, you have to know what the end state is. you have to set some sort of goal. otherwise, when do you know that you’ve gotten to where you want to be? when do you call it quits and move on to the next challenge?
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