Karen Phelan - I'm Sorry I broke Your Company

Poor-performance action plans Unfortunately, Jans career has caused her to move quite often, resulting in many school changes for her kids. Fortunately, Jans children are quite intelligent and adaptable and usually adjust easily to their new schools, so their academic performance hasn’t suffered. However, after this last move, Jans oldest daughter is miserable, and her grades are terrible. She says it’s because her new school is obsessed with football and cheerleading, two areas she has no interest in. This daughter complains that all her teachers use these sports in their classes as examples. Jan also suspects her daughter is being bullied because she doesn't attend any games. As a good parent, should Jan outline an action plan to get her daughters grades up to passing before she looks for a different school?

Leadership assessments and development programs I find the state of American politics quite distressing. Some of the candidates don’t seem at all qualified to lead. Why doesn’t politics take a cue from business? Before graduating from high school, every student should take a leadership assessment. Those people who score well should be picked to go to an Ivy League school to study law or public policy. This way, we can ensure we have a continuous supply of qualified candidates.

Last ridiculous scenario: consultant selection You’ve been married for over a decade and have two small children. You and your spouse seem to be arguing over everything lately — finances, chores, lack of intimacy. After yet another argument last night, you began to cry uncontrollably, and the two of you finally started to talk about your problems. You both concluded that you still love each other very much, and you want to make it work, especially for the kids, but you need outside help. You decide to try marriage counseling. The two of you do research and ask for recommendations for a good counselor. You get five recommendations:

• Counselor 1 has a surefire five-step program to resolve all marital issues and will lead you through the program. The first step is on a website, so you can get started at home.

• Counselor 2 specializes in marital strife with young kids. She knows exactly what your problems are due to her work with other couples. She'll provide you with a manual outlining what to do and two consultation sessions if you have any questions on the material.

• Counselor 3 has a proprietary assessment for the two of you to take. Based on your results, he will formulate a custom solution based on his standard set of marital solutions.

• Counselor 4 is a famous author of several well-known books. She is also pricey and not readily available for counseling sessions. She recommends you buy her software program, which will lead you step-by-step through all the aspects of marriage counseling.

• Counselor 5 wants to sit and talk with the two of you about your problems and take it from there.

Which counselor do you choose?

Thinking exercise 3: Mean what you say and say what you mean

The root cause of many business problems is the conviction that business is something other than a group of people and that business issues and solutions are something other than what they really are. Much of this fallacious belief system is due to the way we talk. We all know business is full of obscure jargon, and I know that I have been guilty of relying on jargon in this book. Although we often joke about it, I don't think we spend enough time thinking about the consequences of the words we use (me, too). The words we use shape the way we think, which is why spin doctors are popular in politics. The easiest way to start changing how we think about business is by changing how we talk about business.

I am amused by the two overused phrases I hear in reaction to some of my ideas. When I explain why I think strategic plans are limiting, my colleagues often argue that I have it all wrong: «Strategic plans are supposed to be living documents.» Living documents? Other than in Harry Potter movies, I've never seen a living document. And that’s the problem. Rather than assigning resources to update the plan or putting a process in place to do so, management just dismisses all the work required to keep a strategic plan current with an «It’s a living document.»That’s a complete abdication of responsibility in favor of reliance on magical paperwork. When I explain how numerical targets and incentive compensation encourage bad behavior, the reaction is, «How else do you hold peoples feet to the fire?» Yikes! Why are we trying to torture our employees? The problem with torture is that you get exactly what you torture for, regardless of the truth, which is exactly what these systems do. We really need to pay attention to the language we use and start talking the truth rather than using euphemisms and aphorisms, or we will continually address symptoms rather than problems. «Creating efficiencies» means firing employees. «Restructuring» means firing even more employees. Unless we call things what they really are, we will never be able to fully understand them or respond appropriately.

Table 2 shows the topics I've discussed in the preceding chapters with alternatives for how we should describe them. Notice how the change of words changes what you think.

Table 2 Translations of business jargon

The jargon phrases either warp or limit our thinking. When you call it what it really is, the problems become obvious. The other phrases we need to banish are «Manage the bottom line,» «Maximize shareholder value,» and anything similar. As in the weight-loss-versus-healthy-lifestyle analogy I used in chapter 3, we don’t actually want to do these things. What we really want is to create and maintain a healthy company. Creating and maintaining a healthy company is completely different from playing around with numbers on a spreadsheet. A healthy company has to have a healthy organization full of healthy people with healthy relationships in a healthy environment.

This problem of using words to obfuscate what we really want is endemic throughout the business world, and we really need to stop. Many of my consulting colleagues hate the jargon as much as I do, but the blame lies squarely on the management consulting industry. We are the ones who coined the phrases. Much of the jargon can be traced back to a book or a method conceived or popularized by consultants. The crux of the problem is that consultants are expected to be thought leaders and are rated and compensated on thought leadership. What exactly is thought leadership? Thoughts are things we make up in our heads, and leadership is persuading everyone else to follow them. We've done a good job at that.

On behalf of all the management consultants everywhere who have filled your lives with meaningless jargon, delusional programs, and misleading models, I am truly and deeply sorry.

None of this means that you should avoid hiring management consultants. In this age of very lean companies and outsourced workforces, it is almost impossible not to hire consultants. Using consultants has many benefits, especially on projects that are not part of normal operations. In my corporate career, there were as many times I wished we had hired outside expertise as there were times I wished the management consultants would disappear. Moreover, like hiring a personal trainer or a nutritionist, you tend to follow the advice when you have to pay for it. Sometimes, a company just needs the fresh perspective an outsider brings.

As a management consultant, I've occasionally found myself in lose-lose situations. Typically, this happens when clients have hidden agendas or are shirking their responsibilities. The worst thing a client can do is to hire someone to do their thinking for them. We can provide analyses, recommendations, expertise from other areas, and new ways of looking at situations, but the success and failure of the company needs to be with the leadership team, not the advisors. The other lose-lose situation I hate happens when clients don't trust the advice of their own people. As soon as I walk in the door, everyone resents me. Worse is when top executives don't like what their team is telling them so they hire consultants to buoy their own opinions. Remember, you can always find someone willing to say what you want to hear if you pay enough.