Commando Consulting: June 2008 - 15 Pillars Of Agile Practice Management - Part 2 Of 3

Or...

Practice Development Strategies From The Ultimate Professional Service Firm: The Military Commando

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan, Organisational Provocateur

Summary: In this issue I continue a series of concepts I've gathered over the years on what makes a great consulting firm. And for this I use concepts from agile project management and operating principles and practices of military commandos that are some of the most flexible and highest performing teams on the planet. No, no one is perfect, but the overall success rate of Special Forces units around the world makes them a pretty good role model to build top-performing consulting units. Audio Version (MP3): 35 minutes

And here we'll continue...

6. Offering A Fair Guarantee As Opposed To Dumping 100% Of The Risk On The Client

Using a guarantee is a great way of removing clients' innate scepticism. It also comes hand-in-hand with value pricing and premium fees. If clients get great value from our help and support, we deserve the dough. But if our work is useless and valueless for clients, then clients are entitled to get their investments back.

However, there is a serious consideration here. Some people may take you on your service, and after squeezing the last bit of value out of you, demand their money back. The good news is that we can recognise these people during the pre-engagement discussion and information exchange process, and filter them out with outstanding accuracy.

Most people who invoke guarantees make up their minds to do so right at the very beginning of engagements. It's the same as the people who keep buying stuff and keep returning them.

I believe a good service guarantee (Not guarantee for results) is part of a premium grade value-based consulting firm. Also, good guarantee justifies premium pricing.

Now we have to stop for a moment because some people may say, we can't guarantee anything in consulting. That's partially true.

While we can't guarantee specific results, and it would be unethical too, we can guarantee our services and the value we impart to clients. Of course, the value must be received, but that's up to the clients. Just because you send a FedEx package to someone, the person may not be there to receive it.

Also, turning the received value into results is the clients' responsibility. Only they have the authority to make key decisions that are required to turn value into results. This is why consultants can be paid for expected results not for actual results. They deliver value based on client's expectations of results. It's one target to aim to increase sales by 15% and another by 35%. And they require different "value packages" from consultants.

Consultants vary their consulting intensity (CI), that is, factors like, effort, intellectual firepower, accountability, focus, commitment, challenge, resources, energy, enthusiasm, passion, devotion to excellence, responsiveness, access level, interest (not number of hours of manual labour or poundage of deliverables).

Success Vs. Satisfaction Guarantee

An old Hungarian saying says, you can't ride two horses with one arse. Similarly, we can't focus both on client success and client satisfaction. We have to choose.

When we provide a satisfying engagement experience for clients, it may not lead to the clients' success. By success I mean long-term sustainable improvements.

The military knows this little detail pretty well. Boot camp or any other training programmes are not about soldiers' satisfaction. It's not about providing training which are enjoyable and satisfying for soldiers. It's about training soldiers such that they maximise their chances of winning battles and coming home alive.

The military focuses on the long-term success of soldiers not their temporary satisfaction and enjoyment of the training.

So, as consultants we have to decide what sort of guarantee we offer: Satisfaction guarantee or success guarantee. Are we going to offer a satisfying consulting process or a success-initiating process? They are drastically different. I've never met a woman who's been satisfied with her labour pains. But then after the pain, having the happy and healthy baby was a real success.

Personally, I'm more on the success guarantee side.

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7. Performing A Doctor-Type Diagnosis As Opposed To Canned Dog-And-Pony Show Sales Presentations

Once upon a time it was customary for consultants to operate as doctors operated. That is, before advising their clients on specific solutions, they would invest significant time and effort to diagnose their clients' problems. And they worked in close collaboration with their clients. That was the age of care, protection and guidance of the organisational fiduciary.

Then this has all changed. Consulting firms got greedy and started thinking about how they can outsource the unpaid business development and pre-engagement diagnosis and focus on the paid consulting work.

And this was great because partners managed to get rid of their dreaded responsibilities of drumming up business, and with their newly-found luck of zero responsibility they could no longer be beaten up for the lack of new clients. However, they could still retain the right to demand results from the sales folks and beat them up for something they themselves have proved to be incapable of doing.

But they had to do something because having salespeople in consulting firms would undermine the "trusted advisor" status of the firm. So, they come up with fancy names and titles for these salespeople, like account executive, sales consultant or even rainmakers.

But there was a problem. Before joining consulting firms, most of these sales folks sold cars, pots and pans, graveyard plots and secondhand coffins (This is the ex gravedigger speaking). They never sold consulting services, but partners thought that selling was selling. And these salespeople didn't fully understand what their firms were exactly doing. They were hired and then sent out on the streets to roam the land and sell.

And soon after having invented such a dysfunctional sales model where executive level staff of the buyer's company would meet the lowest level of the seller's company, the freshly hired salespeople, buyers responded by inventing an equally dysfunctional buying model, the dreaded RFP and the retarded bidding process. And since buyers regarded these new salespeople, basically solution peddlers, as a potential menace, they invented peddler fodders in the forms of procurement and purchasing departments.

And from that moment real consultants and real buyers stopped seeing each other eye-to-eye. Consulting firms got represented by salespeople and buyers by purchasing and procurement departments.

But then some consulting firms started thinking.

"Holy sausage, batman! Buyers have merely reacted to our action of flooding the market with peddlers. If we undo the action, the reaction is likely to seize."

And as consulting firms slowly return to the old model of selling their service, they can re-align four key departments involved in the sales process...

• The seller's business development section: These folks initiate contact with the buyers


• The buyer's executive team: These folks are the buyers for the seller's services


• The buyer's project management team: These folks work with the consulting team to implement the intended solutions


• The seller's consulting team: These folks help the buyer's team to diagnose the problem, develop a solution and support the project management team on the implementation of the solution

Now buyers and sellers see themselves eye-to-eye as peers. The fiduciary "trusted advisor" relationship can be restored, and these firms can step out of the moronic realm of bidding for projects through the protective wall of a bunch of laypeople who are more interested in protecting their turfs and the status quo than allowing enhancements to enter the company to improve the bottom line, including their own salaries.

8. Living By A Code Of Honour As Opposed To Bible-Thick Rulebooks

It's important that knowledge workers have high levels of discretionary latitude to perform their work. The problem is that when you see a knowledge worker sitting back with his feet on his desk and his eyes closed, he may not be goofing off but formulating something in his head that could be the next million dollar idea for the firm.

I've found over the years that in a culture of excellence, trust, respect, honour, commitment, accountability and discipline people don't goof off. They simply don't. Remember, every person is the extension of the firm's culture, which is the extension of the owner(s)'s values.

So what is the difference between rulebooks and a Code of Honour.

Rulebooks are usually written in an anal retentive manner to scare people shitless.

Codes of Honour are written in such a way that it moves something at the readers' very core to inspire them to step up to their higher selves and give their best to the cause they're engaged in.

Just think about it.

In books and other publications you can read the legal stuff, essentially...

"Don't you dare to use this stuff in your materials or we sue the shit out of you."

And no one cares. People still rip off other people's materials.

But, this is what I've found in some of the materials of Mark Silver of Heart of Business, a Portland-based marketing consultant. I can't remember the exact wording but the essence was that...

"Boys and girls, let's play nicely and respect each other's intellectual property. Thank you for your professionalism and integrity."

Another example is the military. Since human life is on the line, the tolerances are pretty tight and the rules are pretty strict. But the reason why soldiers adhere to the rules because is not that they are afraid of being punished. No, they adhere to their Codes of Honour which are in alignment with the Uniform Code Of Military Justice (UCMJ).

It's not a new fact that people cannot be ordered around, let alone forcing them to do their best, using rules and rulebooks. The reason why Al Qaida is so successful (sad but - let's get real - true) is because they have a cause: The hatred of America and its allies; and a Code of Honour: The Quran.

The other difference between rulebooks and Code of Honour is that while rulebooks require compliance with rules and regulations, Codes of Honour inspire and empower people to dig deep into their core values and step up to higher levels performance.

Just read the eight principles of the Bushido, the guiding philosophy of the samurai. It is often compared to the code of chivalry practised by the knights in Europe.

1. Jin - to develop a sympathetic understanding of people


2. Gi - to preserve the correct ethics


3. Chu - to show loyalty to one's master


4. Ko - to respect and to care for one's parents


5. Rei - to show respect for others


6. Chi - to enhance wisdom by broadening one's knowledge


7. Shin - to be truthful at all times


8. Tei - to care for the aged and those of a humble station

And people are more likely to live up to a Code of Honour than following some anal rules and regulations put together by some HR folks.

9. Managing Through Before- And After Action Reviews As Opposed To Constant Micromanaging

Look at most career ads for junior consultants and what you find is a detailed description of what skills are required and how to do something, but no indication of what outcomes are expected of this person. This is strange. It's like telling a sniper to keep shooting but not telling him what the target is.

So, when these new people come on board, many of whom with amazing skills, but they don't know what is expected of them. They just meet their managers and they receive their first tasks. And do you know what the tasks are? They are some tiny microscopic steps in a project, but they are not told about the big picture of the project. And since they don't know the outcome they are working towards, they get their "snoopervisors" who will breathe down their necks for the first few years of their careers.

These new associates are usually left out of key meetings, thinking that their snoopervisors can relay certain information to them on a need to know basis.

So, how to avoid this micromanaging madness?

There are some key ingredients about job candidates and later associates want to know about...

1. They want to know what's expected of them


2. They want to know if they have all the tools and materials to do their work


3. They want to know if they can do what they are naturally talented at


4. They want to know if they can expect praise and recognition for good work


5. They want to know if their supervisors / managers care about them as unique individuals


6. They want to know if their professional development is encouraged and helped


7. They want to know if their opinions matter


8. They want to know if their work tie into the mission, vision and overall strategy of the firm


9. They want to know if others at the firm are committed to doing quality work


10. They want to know if they can have regular feedback on their work

In most firms associates don't know the big picture of their contribution just some interim steps on an as needed basis.

David Maister established it in "Managing The Professional Service Firm", and I can only confirm that most consulting firms are very good at demanding results from their associates but totally useless at helping them to produce those results.

The other thing is that consulting is brain work, and it can't be closely supervised like a man shovelling manure. Consultants' productivity comes from their brains and it's impossible to supervise one's brain functions.

What snoopervision ought to be replaced with are periodic briefing (Before Action Review) and debriefing (After Action Review) sessions. This change also helps to achieve what we discussed in #2 last month - Culture Of Results As Opposed To Culture Of Busy-Ness.

Micromanaging focuses on rigidly assembled tasks almost regardless of the achievements. A few years ago with a client we exceeded our projected goal, but he still reprimanded me...

"If you had worked harder we could have achieved much more."

Then I told him that this was the target we were aiming at and this was what he invested in. There was no reason to achieve more. Hiring me gave his firm a great ROI. What else matters. Just because you run the Boston Marathon twice back-to-back, you don't get two T-shirts. Besides consulting is not about working harder and longer to achieve more. It's about doing things differently.

So, during the Before Action Review, establish what has to be done, who does it, time requirement, due date and progress indicator.

Then at the After Action Review discuss...

• What were the objectives?


• What went well?


• Why did these things go well?


• What could have gone better?


• Why did these things go wrong?


• What are the specific follow-up items to be accomplished?

And remember that consulting is a collaborative effort. Whatever happened - may it be good or bad - was the result of a joint effort between client and consultant. And here I also assume ethical, transparent, above-the-table behaviour.

10. Offering Instant Feedback As Opposed To Annual Performance Reviews

In the employment world it has become common - among other traditional retarded HR practices - to hire people, let them stumble for six months or a year, and to tell them at their annual appraisals they are not up to snuff.

At this point many people lose their jobs because partners believe that next time they can hire better people and the hiring process starts all over again. Of course, traditional HR practices make certain that the best and most qualified people have no more than a snowball's chance in hell to ever get hired by the firms where they could add the most value.

Back to annual appraisal. The problem is that by the time the appraisal comes up, people have established new habits of doing things the wrong way. Also, offering only annual performance appraisal is like driving somewhere but looking at your instruments and at the road only once a day. The problem is that by the time you've driven a whole day - and haven't crashed yet - you've made quite a bit of progress in the wrong direction, so you have to go back and start from scratch. And this undoing process is costly both in time, energy and money.

So, what is the alternative?

It's instant feedback on your people's behaviour and performance that matters, and taking the appropriate action based on what you see. And of course, let's forget about the traditional annual performance review. When people have instant feedback, there is no need for annual reviews.

Negative Feedback

Negative feedback and the accompanying consequences are not about punishing people for failing to achieve certain goals.

It's about having a clear consequence system in place for people who beak your firm's Code of Honour and foregoing the firm values in their work.

As Newton once said, for every action there must be an equal and opposite reaction. Similarly, for every action there must be a consequence. For positive action, it's positive consequence, and for negative action, it's negative consequence. And your people must know these reactions.

In the US military for instance, there is the Uniform Code Of Military Justice (UCMJ). And while soldiers don't know each and every paragraph of the UCMJ, they know their own units' Code of Honour, which are in alignment with the UCMJ, which is in alignment with the Constitution.

Soldiers don't get penalised for losing a battle or missing the target at shooting practice. But they get penalised for breaking their Code of Honour, thus violating the UCMJ. There are no hidden punishment schemes. Everything is played above the table. When soldiers break the Code, they go to court martial. Very simple.

Similarly, consulting firms can have consequence systems for people who break the firm's Code of Honour. I believe people can learn, therefore I believe, firing should be the very last resort.

What has worked for my clients is "sentencing" the Code breakers to specific length of time of hard labour. Here in Vancouver there are some agencies that provide temporary labourers for construction sites and other heavy industries for minimum wage ($8.00 per hour here in British Columbia).

When people break the Code, then they get suspended from their work unpaid, and must put in a predetermined number of workdays at one of these labour agencies. The most severe case we've had happened when a lawyer was sentenced to six months of labour. Of course, money got tight and he had to sell his car (700 series BMW) to make his mortgage payments. Off course, he got pissed off. He had a choice. Either stays with the firm and serves his sentence for his "crime" or he quits.

Luckily, he stayed and after his return he became a mentor and a role model for the new lawyers at the firm. And not only he started taking the Code seriously, but he also started teaching new lawyers how to live and work by the Code. I would say, this is the start of a great tradition where the respect for the Code is passed from generation to generation.

Some may say that the punishment is harsh. Yes, it is. But people know the consequences of breaking the Code. If they still do, it's the result of s conscious decision. It's like pre-meditated crime. And the punishment must fit the crime. That's all to it really.

That's it for now, and we'll continue with the next five pillars of agile practice management in July, including...

11. Fixed Price Service Agreements As Opposed To Itemised Menu Pricing

12. Collegial "No Promotions" Environment As Opposed To The Traditional Competitive Environment

13. Written Change Requests As Opposed To Whimsical Modifications

14. Chief Value Officer (CVO) As Opposed To Self-Assessment

15. Pricing Cartel As Opposed To Haphazard Proposal Writing Committees

... so stay tuned.