Who best knows how tall a building is?

The owner of a Chicago business wanted to know exactly how tall his building was. He recruited two employees, one an Engineer from the Production Department and the other a Physics Doctorate from the company’s QC Department. They were each given a $100 budget and told to find out the exact height of their building.

The Physics Doctorate used the money to purchase three stopwatches, a calculator, and several golf balls. He then asked some friends to help him. He asked his friends to drop the balls from the top of the building. Using the stopwatches, they timed each ball’s fall to the ground. He then calculated the building’s height using the calculator.

The Engineer decided to wait until sundown. He took out his protractor, plumb line, measuring tape, and a scratch pad. Next, he measured the length of the shadow, found the angle the building's roof made from the ground, and used trigonometry to figure out the height of the building.

The pair did not know that after they had left the owner’s office, he invited a consultant to do the same task.

Later the two employees compared notes and prepared a report to give the owner.

They were surprised to learn he already had the height. In fact, the consultant had given him the answer after just 10 minutes.

How did he do it? 

As soon as he was asked, the consultant went to the doorman knowing that doormen always had answers to tourist and passersby questions about the neighborhood and especially about the building itself. The doorman provided the precise answer and the consultant immediately returned to the owner’s office with the correct answer.

One advantage a consultant brings to an organization is a pair of fresh eyes. This allows the consultant to un-complicate requests. Consultants know that many times answers lie within the organization itself. There is usually an expert that knows the solution to problems but is overlooked or not listened to by those in the decision-making roles.

Diversify the people on your problem-solving teams with those from different job classification cultures and you will find some great problem-solving techniques.

Life Lesson: Consultants, despite the jokes, typically add value.

Rick Weaver has half a century’s experience in leadership development in retailing. He founded Max Impact Corporation, a leadership and business development consultancy company in 2002. His major accomplishments include working himself from stock clerk to director at a Fortune 50 retail chain and building a $40MM+ construction company in under 5 years. Today he works as an Executive Search Consultant with Patrice & Associates matching management talent with the job culture for which they are uniquely wired.