Category Archives: Consulting Philosophy

Here’s how you schedule time to get things done. Let’s say you want to write an article or position paper.

1. Choose the audience you seek to influence, probably those most appropriate for your value proposition. (5 minutes) [Bank lending officers]

2. Choose a topic that will be provocative and timely. (10 minutes) [Identifying the best candidate for safe loans and repeat business]

3. Choose a working title, not something for all the ages. (5 minutes) [Behind the Interview: The Prospect Within]

4. Select 4-6 key points. (10 minutes) [1. The lessons in the first greeting; 2. How to assess behaviors in an interview; 3. The key questions to ask to appraise the business proposition; 4. The key questions you want to be asked.]

5. Write an edgy opening paragraph. (10 minutes) [Why do lending interviews reveal so little about the customer and so much about our own fears? If the objective is to increase business, then we should first increase our own probabilities of identifying and welcoming high potential prospects. That's not usually done with a shaky wooden chair and a bare lightbulb overhead.]

6. Write about each of your points, making sure to include your rationale, an example so that it’s not merely conceptual, and a graphic if it helps explain the point. (20 minutes per point)

7. Write a closing that’s a call to action. (10 minutes). [The next time prospects walk into your office, invite them to sit in a comfortable chair, offer them some refreshments, and remind yourself that they represent opportunity, not threat. Ask yourself how they might speak positively of the experience, no matter what your ultimate decision. That, alone, might increase your business more than you can imagine.]

8. Reassess the title to see if you want to now adjust it. (5 minutes) [The Human Banker—Stepping Out from Behind the Green Curtain]

That entire process above, with six points, requires about two hours. Spread it over four days, and it’s a half-hour a day. Put that in your calendar at 10:30 each morning, and don’t change it, no matter what.

That’s how you get work out. I’ve probably taken a week off the process above for most of you! Stop fooling around, discretionary time is wealth, and you are eroding yours.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

There are certain words and phrases that, while originally well intentioned, have become hackneyed and trite. “Have a nice day,” “meaningful,” “impactful,” and “good to great” all come to mind.

I’m not merely fossicking here, because “We want to go to the next level” has become one of those tendentious phrases that seems to mean so much but results in so little.

Whether that “next level” is financial (which it usually is), or competence, or repute, or anything else, I’ve found that it’s less a matter of action than one of thought. That’s because you seldom reach new heights by merely doing more of the same of what you’re doing now. You have to change your mindset and thought patterns if you truly want to metamorphose into a new being.

Fortunately, that’s not physically difficult—there are neither cocoons nor hibernations required. Unfortunately, it can be quire difficult mentally, because different frames of reference and perspective are required.

Earlier today a woman wrote to ask exactly where in Los Angeles my June workshop would be, since that would depend whether she would go. (This is a workshop that would normally cost at least $1000, but I’m doing for $100!) Upon investigation, I find that her days are totally filled, primarily because she is “selling all day” and feels obligated to run at 4:30 or so in the morning. If you’re in a rut that doesn’t allow you the time to explore how to leave the rut, guess where you’ll remain? (Hint: Not on the next level.) This is why doctors who schedule back-to-back patients every day all week can’t improve their practices.

Here is some quick help:

1. Who are you? How do you define yourself? Are you a consultant, or are you someone who dramatically improves sales results or ensures strategic goals are exceeded?
2. What do you do? Do you “coach” or “consult” or “facilitate”? Or do you improve your clients and help them reach results unattainable without you?
3. Why are you doing this? Is it to make money, or to salve your ego, or to implement a methodology you love? Or is it to make a difference in the world and create a legacy?

Look through a telescope, not a microscope. Change your mentality so that you’re thinking big and not constantly stuck on trifles and trivialities. There is a hebetude around people who immerse themselves in the granular and specific. There is an excitement around those who forge new paths and provide new ideas.

If you want to arrive at “the next level,” start aiming for three levels above that.

© Alan Weiss 2012. All rights reserved.

People often fail to achieve goals because they don’t “run through the tape,” don’t have the wherewithal to get past the finish line. What I call “resolve” is beyond accountability, beyond priorities, beyond discipline.

I’ve created four free videos for anyone interested. Simply go to this page and you can watch my introduction to the four and arrange to receive one every two days. In about a week and perhaps 30 minutes, gain “resolve”!

http://www.summitconsulting.com/resolve/

I was driving by a well-manicured expanse of lawn covering perhaps six acres. In one spot, about 150 gulls were sitting on the grass in a large cohesive group, conducting a meeting on the drizzly morning. Just a few yards away, about 100 geese were holding court. Apparently, the Avian Aviation Authority had grounded all flights due to weather.

There were no gulls among the geese, no geese among the gulls. Neither ruffled the feathers of the other, but there was no interaction whatsoever. They each stuck to their own kind.

Too often people do the same. We stick with people who look like we do, think like we do, dress like we do, comport themselves like we do. I remember the New Yorker cartoon in which a man behind a desk talks to a job candidate on the other side of the desk who looks exactly like him and says, “I don’t know what it is about you, but I really like you!”

Yet we are sentient creatures, and our DNA does not require that we all look alike and act alike and congregate as one. We have free will, and our futures are mainly in our own hands, our daily behaviors totally within our own purview.

A Fortune 100 client once assured me, while hiring me to look into their diversity practices, that I would wind up using them as a model of diversity and inclusion. Yet when I walked into the massive cafeteria to look around at lunch, I saw all the gulls, geese, blue jays, robins, and sparrows—clustered together in their own groups.

Too many trade and professional associations appear to be birds of a feather—the same people saying the same things in the same way. There are no divergent opinions sought, no provocation, no exploration. I once facilitated a group of high-powered, male, insurance executives from 24 different firms. Every one had on a blue or grey suit, a red or blue tie, and wing-tips; all had hair that was grey, white, and/or balding. The topic was innovation, and why the insurance industry seemed to lag behind.

“Look around,” I advised.

With whom are you hanging out? At meetings, might you as well be peering into a mirror? Does anyone around you provoke, confront, upset, push back, or find irony? Are you walking away energized or merely content, agitated or merely reaffirmed?

My money is with the gulls. The geese fly in formation. The gulls fight for food. To me, all geese look alike. But the gulls have diverse colors and markings if you look closely.

The problem is that I shouldn’t have to look too closely at you to tell you’re your own person.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.

As consultants, we have to guard against the insidious dynamic of “not being able to win enough.” It’s often an external stimulus: “Nice sales job this year, but of course you didn’t break that record set in 1988.” Or: “It’s wonderful that Stanford accepted you early admission. Your cousin, Rachel, did that with Stanford AND Harvard, remember?”

However, this is often an internal issue, especially with people whom we coach. When Jim Collins’s fine book appeared, everyone was talking about going from “good to great,” but very few knew what that meant, or how they’d know when they made progress toward “great.” Remember Michael Hammer and “reengineering”?  Everyone wanted to “reengineer,” though few would know it if they tripped over it, and some probably believed it meant running a locomotive.

When coaching clients say they want to be “extraordinary leaders,” “outstanding managers,” “state-of-the-art financial experts,” or “world class strategists,” ask them exactly how that condition would differ from their current one. I just completed my second annual Thought Leadership Workshop for two dozen people, and one major issue is: What are the traits that describe and typify a thought leader? With that knowledge you can tell what you should be achieving and measuring.

Do you want to be regarded as the top consultant in supply chain management? Or does your client want to be acknowledged as the finest sales executive in the industry? What would that look like and how would others know?

If you don’t pursue that level of specificity, you wind up in tendentious discussions about “best” and “ahead of the curve” and “innovative.” But those contribute to an amorphous mess if you can’t really specify what the “best” would be compared to “non-best.” When you are specific—with yourself or with your clients—you create the environment for clear objectives, crisp metrics, and obvious value, and concomitant high fees.

You can also discriminate among the important and not so important. A pharmaceutical firm needs world-class chemists, but probably not world-class accountants. The book that you write doesn’t have to be a best-seller, but only has to get you into a few dozen key new clients.

TIAABB: There Is Always A Bigger Boat. Don’t pursue grandeur for its own sake. Pursue reasonable growth goals. If you do that consistently, you’ll be in a very comfortable boat, with the wind and spray in your face, and others in your wake.

© Alan Weiss 2011. All rights reserved.