Run to the fire

Almost 30 managers, from all over the globe. 2-day workshop, downtown Amsterdam. The workshop had been in the making for a long time and was extremely visible. A bunch of SVP’s and pursuit tourists circling above the campground. The CEO of the customer wanted to make his global management team move into a new direction. His direction. He had it all figured out in his mind, A to Z. He hired our firm to tell his story, get his people aboard. Just about a week before the workshop, the main workshop lead dropped out. The pressure got to him, too much internal twisting his arm to turn the workshop into a sales event. So I was made to volunteer. With no time to prep, read, or research. Just a high-level idea of what the customer wanted and the motivational speech of my manager: This is a million-dollar deal for us; do it right, or it will have career-limiting consequences.

The start of the workshop was at 0900. As I had no slides, I just explained the plan using the easel and added a few personal stories to explain the process. The CEO took over and told about his big idea, the end goal needed to survive in their market. We all listened to him, talking for almost an hour. After the break, I started to ask questions. This vertical was all new to me, so it might well have been a bunch of dumb questions. And as I asked my questions and the CEO answered them, I could see that a lot of the people in the room also had no idea and were happy for me to ask the questions. The questions triggered new questions, and the atmosphere changed into a workshop. Asking dumb questions, ask if you don’t understand something is what you do as a workshop lead. The morning progressed, and I moved into the suggestion part. As the goal was business continuity in a changing market, I invited the group to make suggestions of what could be done. To kick it off I started with some suggestions. Some good suggestions, some bad, some again really dumb. All my suggestions came out of the genuine desire to make the situation better. And the rest of the group chipped in. More suggestions, some good, some not so good. Interesting enough nobody really cared about the less useful ideas. They ignored them and moved on to the better ones. Making dumb suggestions is not so bad if the desire to improve the situation is leading. No need to act like the all-knowing consultant. 

During the lunch break, I cleaned up the room. Coffee cups, paper, clean desks again. We continued at around 13:00. The SVP of marketing restarted one of the discussions from earlier that morning. Made it clear that he always had said that change was needed, and he was not to blame. Marketing had nothing to do with the poor preparation and the lack of slides of the workshop. The rant went on for a few minutes. You could see the audience zone out. Trying to look down, wait till the awkward moment would go away. I walked to the middle of the room and told him he made me feel uncomfortable. How I could see that he tried to do the best for the company and at the same time lost me in the process. Clearly, the poor preparation was on my plate, not on the team. So I asked him what we could do to progress. And slowly the rest of the group switched on again. Don’t shy away from uncomfortable situations, step right in the middle of it. Seek out and engage in the wackiest situation. Run to the fire has to do with the need to deal without fear with any issue that everyone else is afraid to address. After the workshop, the CEO asked the firm I worked for the make a proposal. My manager asked my workshop scribe how I pulled that off. Well he said, Wiemer asked a lot of dumb questions, made dumb suggestions. He confronted lousy behavior of an SVP, directly, on the spot, in a kind way. And whenever there was an elephant in the room he ran to the fire and talked about it. The only outcome he achieved in the 2 days was the next step, on Monday, only A to B. He did not act like a proper consultant at all. For whatever reason they trust him.

I told this story to a friend of mine. We were discussing the guiding principles for his new consultancy firm. He did not want a rigid rule book, just some high level guiding principles to explain what he had in mind as the optimal behavior of his consultants. As we exchanged stories, we created the first draft list of principles. Most of the principles, ideas, leitmotivs started in something each of us had done terribly wrong in the past. Lord knows I made plenty of mistakes in my consulting life. Still do. And the list became fascinating. Don’t sell, start consulting right away. Ask dumb questions, make dumb suggestions. Tell the truth in a nice way, but tell it. Run to the fire, own the uncomfortable situations. Be vulnerable. Be servant, do the dirty work. Build enough trust to take the first step. Start with enough trust to let the client realise the sheer complexity of any transformation and recognize that small steps are needed. Let the first step from A to B replace big analysis and full scoped plans, ignore Z. We will continue working on his list. Not the typical consulting behavior, not by a long shot. Feels like his new consulting firm will have a great future. 

If you feel this blog has value for your contacts on Linkedin: please comment and share! [email protected] / +31614848938 / Earlier blogs

#66