Bad Consultant
What does it mean to be a badconsultant?
Well, here we are at the Human Capital Institute Summit 2009
[networking - woo-and-indeed-hoo!]
soaking up some of the latest thinking in the management sphere and testing the boundaries of our own reality. Does that sound like an odd thing to happen at a conference?
[unlike hot-tubs]
Come on, let’s have some fun with…
Economic SUPERNOVA!
Technorati Tags: Business, Innovation
In What if – Part I, we introduced the term ‘economic soufflé’ - you might have wondered why? Well, now that we’re into year 2 of the end of capitalism as we know it
[we feel fine]
Free Agent Nation?
It used to be that talented people expected to have to compromise their talent.
We’ll let that sink in.
It used to be…
OK. Let’s explain.
What if… Part I
What if your customers made your selection decisions?
Technorati Tags: Business, Innovation, Leadership, Management, Tactics
BadConsultant has a small number of primary absolute favourite questions
["what did you do with that seaweed exactly?" is but one of them]
the numéro uno of which is “WHY?”, or more precisely…
Thanks to the good folk at…
http://www.wordle.net
Here’s a Wordle of the BadConsultant blog. Make of it what you will, but we think this is a really cool tool!
Economic Catastrophe and Bipolar Disorder
End of the world… or a chance to hit the ‘Reset’ button?BadConsultant has been observing and listening hard over the past few months. Economic downturn became crisis became catastrophe became disaster became bailout became… Well, you get the picture.
[and are likely living the picture]
And much as it’s been painful to watch the sob stories and human impact of the crisis
Here’s a new game you can try…
… and it’ll really stretch your imagination after the first few times
Technorati Tags: Engagement, Inclusion, Innovation
BadConsultant has been indulging in our favourite game these past few days. It’s something we stumbled over a few years back that just plain tickled us, and still does.
We call it
[drum roll]
“Sincere but Unfounded Praise”
Here’s how it works – and, as with all the best things in the world (like picking ear wax), it’s really not that complex. Basically, you have to praise someone with absolute sincerity – you really have to mean it. Not just saying the words… meaning it. But, and here’s the catch, the praise can’t be based on a single justifiable example of performance or contribution. It really has to be unfounded.
So, none of the typical “that report was really great”… Or the classic “thanks, you really got me out of a tight spot there”…
Instead, walk past someone’s office and, with absolute sincerity, raise your arm in the air and high five… For no reason.
The first few times you do it, people will look at you oddly, with an only semi-present chuckle. But after a while, people will get the joke and get into the habit. Pretty soon, your empty, but oh-so-well-meant, praise will begin to raise a smile even before you say anything. And if you use Kapelikov’s manoeuvere (based on the rule that you can never use the same praise on the same person twice) then your imagination will be really stretched.
Here are some of our personal favourites:
- Great! You REALLY made a difference!
- Thanks, you give great meaning…
- Yes, you did!
Remember, none of these should be connected in any way with anything your target did. It has to be unfounded, or the game doesn’t work.
Why play?
Well, you know when someone gets a glint in their eye? When there’s an in-joke that everyone understands? Well that’s what the “Sincere but Unfounded Praise” game creates in a team.
Now, go and play… And if you invent any variations or manoeuvres, please drop us a line here or at badconsultant.com and tell us about it.
Hasta l’huego,
BC
Don’t look now, CORPORATE MAKEOVER!
Well, it worked for Philip Morris…
Technorati Tags: Consulting 101
Hot on the heels of the release of Jobinions (have you told it like it is yet?), we here at BadConsultant have revamped our mother-ship to bring it kicking and screaming into the present day.
Gone the flat-look.
Jobinions, jobinions, jobinions…
www.jobinions.com… What happens when BadConsultant brings honesty, transparency and respect to the working world…
Technorati Tags: Consulting 101, Innovation, Leadership, Management
If you read our new year post, you would know that we here at BadConsultant towers decided 2009 is the year to start the ball rolling.
[we aren't the type to gather moss]
If you’ve been around us long enough, you’ll know we take great fun bringing s*** and fan together. Yes, we’ve had our fun trying to teach our consulting bretheren how to practice their art
[dearly beloved, we are gathered here to today to join this consultant with this beautifully proportioned statement of work]
and leaders and managers how best to actually do the right thing for their business. We certainly have had some fun. But we wanted to go further. And here’s where we ended up… Jobinions. Where we tell it like it is. Honestly. Transparently. With respect.
Because BadConsultant is committed to improving your life, and the place we all can, and should, start is where we spend the majority of our time – at work. It is time for companies to wake up
[you can't hibernate your way to growth, even if there is an economic crisis to feed your denial]
and smell the coffee. The bolus of the boomers is moving through the system, the pressure of the global economy is forcing fault-lines of competition deep into many corporations. The challenge has never been greater. And the solution rests in one place. People. Nothing else.
People.
Got that?
People.
And that’s where Jobinions comes in. Because we don’t believe that working life has to be the masochism that we’ve been led to believe. It is possible to enjoy your work. To enjoy your job. To enjoy your colleagues. And more than that, it is possible for companies to actually believe that your talent is something they should solicit, encourage and reward. So, Jobinions is here for you to help others know just whether your company, or a company you interviewed with, is living up to the challenge.
We want you to tell it like it is. Honestly. Transparently. With respect. Dish the dirt. What works? What doesn’t? Where does your company get it just right? And where do they act like making you want to work there is the last thing they ever wanted to do? Do leaders inspire you? Does your manager want you to succeed? Do you find joy with your team-mates even in the hardest of times?
C’mon… What do you really want to share about your company? Tell it like it is and share your Jobinion today.
Together, we can reshape the world of work.
Time to tell the other story…
… in 2009, we’re about to get real
Technorati Tags: Consulting 101, Leadership, Strategy
OK. It’s late on New Year’s eve. Or is that early on New Year’s Day. Maybe somewhere in-between the two.
Let’s do the time warp agaaaaaaaainnnnnnn…
It’s all relative anyway
Badconsultant has been enjoying some meetings of late with a project team that has spent many months planning for a reasonably large event
[cue reality shock]
which can really be described at best as a semi-serious fart in the middle of particularly noxious and virulent hurricane season. Of course, the team has taken it all very seriously, planning to the last crossed ‘T’ and dotted ‘I’, contingenizing
[made up words are cool]
every contingent with a contingency plan of contingentious proportions, just plain-old working the microsoft project to death.
They have every reason to be very proud of what they’ve achieved and will achieve in the weeks to come.
Except.
Some bastard called Einstein had to go and intrude with his general theory of relativity.
Roughly speaking, time and space is governed by the perception, not by reality. The observer makes the rules. Anything and everything has happened, will happen and did happen all at the same time.
If we’re wrong, don’t bother telling us, there is no such thing as right and wrong.
Which is why this team held another meeting today. To discuss the outcomes of the previous meeting. And the decisions taken two meetings’ ago. Which were based upon guiding principles that had to be restated four months ago because the team had forgotten that they’d drafted guiding principles at the start of the year. Which in itself was odd because the project had been running for a year by then.
And then, to cap it all, someone uttered the immortal phrase:
“Do we have a business case for this work?”
A multi-year endeavour. Millions of dollars of investment. Blood, sweat, tears in no small amount of buckets. Imminent implementation and true business impact.
“Do we have a business case for this work?”
“Er…”
“Um…”
“Well, obviously not!”
Silence.
[except for the bells ringing every time the dollar signs flashed in badconsultant's Tex Avery eyeballs]
Because no-one would call the behavior. The avoidance. The just plain fear of actually getting stuff done. We have written recently about People Innovation (®), and of the fact that only about 1 in 4 of a company’s employees bring in the majority of the earnings each quarter. And it is this statistic, this small piece of relativity that sent this project team into free-fall.
The observer makes the rules.
And the project team, on the verge of major success, suddenly became very aware of the observer.
We’ll give you one clue.
They have grandiose offices, do very little and earn mega-bucks for creating the illusion of hunky-doryness.
Got it? Of course you have, you’re a connoisseur of everything badconsultant by now.
Project teams would be able to get so much more done if they just didn’t have to work with leaders. Because as soon as they do, the general theory of relativity kicks in. The observer makes the rules.
And the project team knew that the executives that had signed of the project at the start, and who are still in role now, would have no latent memory of ever having discussed the project before. And that, despite one of the best laid plans ever laid in the history of plan-laying, the project team would be accused of dereliction of duty, falling asleep at the wheel and, worst of all, not considering its executive stakeholders.
No wonder the project team started retracing its steps, revisiting its decisions, reconsidering its intent. The observer makes the rules and, in this particular case, succeeding in actually making time go backwards.
Einstein’s general theory of relativity stands as one of the great theoretical constructs in scientific history. Many eminent scholars, and even more not so eminent armchair physics professors
[hey babe, want to come back to my place and discuss quanta?]
have spent countless hours trying to make sense of the abstract nature of Albert’s theorem.
When all they needed to do was watch the impact an executive ego can have on any well-structured, well-planned project.
Update to our literature search – Part I
Just thought we’d check…
Technorati Tags: Business, Consulting 101, Management, Tactics
7 months’ ago, we carried out our proprietary literature search to inform Difficult Truths, Too Big to Swallow – Part I. We thought it timely now to update the search. Number of books in November (April in parens):
Innovation isn’t just for things – Part IV
So, you know what they are – now how many of them do you have?
Technorati Tags: Business, Engagement, Innovation, Management, Strategy
I bet you thought we were going to start with a stat.
Reverse evolution
Only in corporations…
There is a film due to be released sometime around now: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, in which Brad Pitt plays a man who begins his life as an old fellow who then proceeds to get younger as he grows up.
[It's a David Fincher film, so worth seeing... Remember him, he gave us the best movie about Generation X you ever saw... Answers on a postcard, please]
The joys of paradox
You say yes, I say no
You say stop and I say go, go, go
A short meditation today, my learned friends, on the joys of navigating our paradoxical corporate world.
Innovation… But only if you can sell it past the enshrined culture.
