Escaping Your Company Echo Chamber

Another C-suite meeting. You’d think that I’d get used to them, being the CEO of Acme Corp for so many years, but somehow the meetings reviewing consultant proposals have never gotten any better. Our COO, Aanu glances across the table and gives me a look of shared commiseration. 

“Alright,” I say, “Give the run-down of the transformation proposals”. 

“Well, there’s one here from a small consulting firm run by someone named Kya that I’m very interested in.” says Santosh, our CIO.

I sigh. “We need a company with bench strength, not a small fish. We’re here to pick a consulting company who can transform our company and help us through this crisis. Didn’t the largest three consulting companies send us proposals?”

“They did.” said Aanu. “The main difference is price at this point. Two of them are in the same ballpark as each other and the third is substantially cheaper.”

 “You’re making my point for me.” said Santosh. “The content of their transformation proposals are almost identical. Doesn’t that tell you something?”

“I’m not following you. What are you trying to say?” I asked.

“You said we should not waste our current crisis.” Santosh replied. “That we should use it to finally motivate ourselves towards transforming our business in order to save it. We owe it to our employees and their families to make our company healthy. The only way we can improve our company is if we are willing to change. That means we stop with the groupthink. We get out of our echo chamber and listen to fresh and innovative ideas. Let’s at least spend a few minutes as an executive team to review her proposal.”

Bridgette, our Chief Human Resource Officer, chimed in. “Why not review the proposal from the small company? I’m game to discuss it.”

“I think that means I’m up.” said Doug as he shared his laptop screen with everyone in the meeting. He’s the newest person on the senior leadership team and has made me question some of my long-held leadership beliefs since he joined as our VP of Continuous Improvement (CI). 

“Kya’s proposal sticks out substantially from the others. As a point of comparison, the big three consulting company proposals all recommend: mass company-wide training; cost reduction projects aimed at headcount and supply chain; new software; weekly Change Management newsletters; tiered oversight committees; and at least a dozen full-time consultants on-site for 3 years.”

“Seriously? More committees?” I respond.

Doug continued, “Kya’s proposal is titled “Lead by Example” and is aimed firmly at us as the leadership team. To be honest, I’ve been doing this job for a long time and I’d like to think that I’ve been successful as a result of how I lead and make decisions. Kya’s proposal was a gut check that made me second guess myself. At first I got defensive when reading it, but I think she’s shining a light on something I’ve missed. For example let me ask you Aanu, you’ve been doing this job for decades and have even worked with those big consulting companies when you were with other businesses. Tell me, what happens after the big consulting companies leave?”

Aanu pauses to remember and then gives us her honest assessment. “Okay. I see your point. Their transformations never last. After about a year things always just go back to the way they were before. Then, well, leadership changes and in about 5 years we have another big consulting company show up and we do the dance all over again.”

“Wow Aanu. I’ve experienced almost the same dance.” said Bridgette. “Now that I think about it, we normally blame the consulting company for not completing the goals in the contract. The consultants in return blame us for not following their recommendations. Millions are spent along with a lot of our time and emotions. I for one am sick and tired of playing that game.”

As Bridgette spoke, I noticed Nick becoming visibly agitated. As our CFO, he takes his job very seriously. The current crisis has the two of us working nights and weekends trying to balance the budget without cutting more staff. When Nick hears that we wasted millions of dollars because we bought the brand promise of a large consulting company, then I know he is thinking the same thing as me. How many of our loyal employees could we have kept employed with that money?

Nick spoke up: “We will be more careful choosing our dance partner this time! Doug, please walk us through Kya’s proposal.”

Kya’s transformation proposal is based on combining Behavioral Science with CI. At a high level, Kya’s “Lead by Example” proposal involves directly coaching the executive team 1 on 1 to develop mastery with specific CI skills; while also creating a structure in Acme to apply them. This pattern is repeated with everyone to help set them up for success. The byproducts of these skills are improvements in safety, quality, and finances.

I decide there’s been enough debate. “Look, we’ve all heard the worn out saying that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results. I for one do not consider hope a strategy, and hoping we will get a different result this time using yet another large consulting company is not a risk I’m willing to take with our company, our employees, and our community. Call Kya. I’m skeptical but I’ll commit to testing this for a 3 month contract. If she is half as good as her references, then that should be enough time to see if her approach works.”

Authors: Edward Blackman, Hannah Hutson

[email protected]

https://www.keldaconsulting.com/

Conference Video: Simplified CI https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/edward-blackman-0733a45_rubifying-your-improvement-approach-and-kata-activity-6677205489580814336-TyUe/