The answer is 42! Ah, what was the question again?
Being a consultant is far different than working in a corporation. One of first things that surprised me as I listened and talked to other consultants is the notion that they have the answer, without really having spent any time finding out what the question is. Since I am a Douglas Adams fan, I call this the “Answer is 42” syndrome. If you are a fan, you get it. If not, it’s worth reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Universe.
Most of the presentations I see lately start with the answer. Typical statements run something like, “We have this great process (or software) – let me tell you how it will make your life easier.” Or, “Here’s what you doing wrong, which is pretty dumb, by the way, and here’s our smart, intelligent answer. No, we haven’t worked in a company like yours before, but trust us, this is the answer.” Sometimes they plunge into the technical side of a software process – “Here the screen for order entry (show incomprehensible screen with 6 point font). You can see how user-friendly it is. You can POP data to this screen from SAP through an API, or drive it to a SCADA system using a TLA.” Huh?
Then comes the frustration and disappointment from not getting the business from this client. As we try to figure out why, we start by looking at others. “We weren’t talking to the right group – should have had more IT people in the room.” “I made it pretty clear how much better our solution is than what they are doing now.” “Now I know what they mean by the ‘Frozen Middle.’ Those guys must really fear change.”
It’s much harder to look in the mirror and ask if we could have done something different ourselves. The TOC Thinking Process taught me to start with understanding the problems the organization is facing, and then to search for the root cause problem. For this TOC process, this first step ended up with the Current Reality Tree (CRT), which listed the problems you gathered from the client (the Undesirable Effects, or UDE’s) and logically connecting that to the root cause. At the heart of the root cause was usually a conflict that a person or group of people where struggling with. The lack of resolution of that conflict was causing all the problems.
When covering the CRT logic with your client, you had better get agreement on all the UDE’s first – gain agreement of the problem before you go any farther. If you did not have that, stop! Then you logically went through the process of describing the root cause and the conflict. Then you start working on the solution.
One you have the solution worked out (another part of the Thinking Processes that I won’t cover, for now at least), you had to test that it addresses sufficiently the root cause, did not cause other major problems, and resolved the UDE’s. I’ve taken that method (reinforced with Solution Selling) to the sales process when I work with clients.
I try to establish those UDE’s from the first contact. I like to ask a question like, “What are the three things you find yourself worrying about at 2 in the morning?” No doubt about it, UDE’s keep you up at night. While there can be many different types of root causes from many types of business, the 80-20 rule seems to apply – we have tools that address about 80% or more of the problems our clients face. These UDE’s point to the solution.
When pitching the solution I thing will work, I go back to the UDE’s and ask for them again, or restate them, until I gain agreement on the problem. Then I talk about likely root causes, and make sure I get head nods and agreement on that before I start the next step. Then I talk about the solution, and demonstrate how it addresses the root cause, and then the UDE’s. After ensuring clarity on this, we usually get the nod to put together a proposal.
Failure is still a possibility, but you can’t get any work without a proposal. Using this methodology, at least for me, seems to have worked pretty well. It also can help me avoid pitching solutions to clients whose problems I can not solve, saving them time and me frustration.
The downside is that I am starting to get pretty busy – and I don’t have as much time to blog. That is especially true now that I have Guitar Hero III, but that’s another story. Keep on rockin’!
