Executive-Consultant initial conversation - an imaginary exercise in empathy and building trust

This time of the year I usually find time to reflect on the past few months and sometimes even further back. And I rejoice in some successes and positive experiences that randomly (or is it?!?!) come to mind. I also cringe at some of the opportunities that I missed, sometimes despite the fact that they were staring me in the face!

So let's "rewrite" some of those "close encounters of the third degree" together over the next couple of pages right here.

Setup - consultant Ted walks into the office of Mary, Head of Line of Business XYZ at a large financial organization. Ted was recommended to Mary by another executive at a similar financial institution in the context of business improvements that resulted in clear, demonstrable positive trends on the balance sheet of the organization and specifically for a similar LOB.

The two are sitting in Mary's office, on a frigid Monday morning in early January. The view out the window is filled with the top of the downtown high-rises and a couple of thin columns of smoke punctuating the steely blue of the sunny clear winter sky.

"Welcome Ted! Our common friend Jim and I were chatting on the sidelines of a conference in the fall and he mentioned some of the work you've done for him for the last couple of years. It was interesting that the approach used is quite different that the norm out there. But he was very adamant that it made quite a difference!"

Ted picks up on it. "Jim is so kind, I'll have to thank him! We did some good work together - and we've definitely made a difference to his organization. It wasn't either easy or fast, but with the given patience and focus, we delivered".

Mary was unconvinced and very preoccupied. "Not sure this would work for us. There's so much work and we have no time, essentially. There are several projects that blew through several rounds of deadlines and of course, way over budget. And our Leadership's patience is really running thin. We need results right away."

"Well - let me try to understand the conundrum at hand" jumps in Ted. "I'm guessing you've got projects to build up the revenue streams, launch new products, capture new customer segments, resolve customer irritants. And then you also have regulatory and compliance-driven deliverables coming in without enough notice for us to properly plan for them. And these are seriously messing up with your plans. And then, any chance your delivery partners from the Tech org have, they bring up the overdue platform currency projects. And they have a hard time providing evidence of the business benefits for this work. How am I doing so far?" 

Mary hesitates for 2 seconds. She's having a hard time hiding her surprise at these insights. How can he possibly know this? Who has he been talking to in the organization? Why are people blabbering on about these issues with outsiders?

"Well, not quite. Our Tech partners and the CIO are keeping us up to date with their currency plans and barring small delays and adjustments, they are on-time with most of their items. I've seen their roadmap and it looks great!"

"And our business strategic roadmap is solid. Our project management office is managing it closely and we're reviewing it regularly".

At this point, the stage is set for Ted to recommend some specific first steps.

"That's great! One thing we've setup with Jim was a consolidated, visual method to align and prioritize several types of activities without overwhelming the Tech organization. We've worked on 2 complimentary aspects. One was to visualize all the required work from multiple sources - business strategic, tech currency & tech debt and regulatory and compliance. Second - was to improve the understanding of the realistic capacity for delivery for the Tech org. We set them up to be able to manage their workload and get into a position where they can realistically commit and stick with their commitments despite the complexities they are dealing with."

"On the first point, we described specific mechanisms to support both high value business initiatives and hard-timeline regulatory requirements from the internal and market regulatory bodies. So the priorities were determined in different and specific ways depending on their context."

"For the second item above - while we maintained the pre-existing metrics and measurements of delivery, we complemented them with additional ones that allowed the org to better manage variations in size of work items, their urgency and the inevitable dependencies occurring during delivery. For example, we've setup Service Level Agreements between the delivery teams and the IT Ops org, the Tech Infrastructure Support org and the Business Ops groups supporting launching of new features and capabilities. That increased the transparency and level of predictability of delivery."

Mary's eyes were starting to glaze over. "That will never work here. We have very specific expectations from our Business Leadership and our Compliance group is very unforgiving. And the Tech groups are over-extended with delivery work, so won't be interested in additional processes, metrics, etc. It's to sophisticated - we need something simple that will work for us ASAP."

Unflappable, Ted pivoted. "I see your point. How about starting by understanding the current processes in place in each part of the org, and introducing just enough change to begin with, to make improvements early on. Then we can help them evolve their system of work over time. That's why this takes time and cannot be done overnight. And especially because there is nothing out there we can buy off-the-shelf and install it to make it better."

Mary's still unconvinced... "Well, it makes sense in theory..."

Ted is bringing it all around. "This is how it worked out for Jim. He got his Leadership and organization to buy into the medium- and long-term vision and kept focusing on the early wins. That built up the momentum and allowed the org to evolve and get more and more benefits."

"I know you have different issues and constraints, but the conditions are there for this approach to work. Every time. I would look forward to the opportunity to demonstrate the same in your organization, of course!"

They plan for a follow up and exchange some pleasantries on the way out.

Now as an outcome, it is anyone's guess. Did Mary decide to bring Ted in, despite the perceived risks and the mismatch between the novelty of these practices and the pressure and constraints in place in the organization? Did she stick with the initial stance and ignored the value proposition on the table? Did they find a way to continue the conversation even if by deferring committing to start this work for now?

I'll leave it up to you, the reader, to decide...

I'll wrap up with an incomplete list of conclusions relevant in this context:

- Principles always work when adapted to context.

- Real change is required to see different outcomes.

- It is the norm to resist change - there are studies and statistics showing the vast majority of us are for some kind of status quo -, and still, one has to work through this.

Looking forward to hear your thoughts!