Category Archives: Consulting

September 11, 2012 · 10:26 am

Strategic Planning From Mike

Today we take our business cue from the noted executive Michael Gerard Tyson.

Mike Tyson at SXSW 2011

Mike Tyson at SXSW 2011 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You might know him as Mike or as “The Baddest Man On The Planet.”  Hopefully you were well aware of him before the “Hangover” roles (which didn’t make a lot of sense unless you were aware of him!).  One of Mike’s quotes is something every businessperson should keep in the back of their mind:

Everyone has a strategy until I punch them in the face

There are variations of that quote out there but you get the gist.  It’s about the best summary of strategic planning I know.  While long-range planning is a good idea, those plans need to be etched in sand and not in cement.  Being agile and working with the flow is critical in an environment where it seems as if most of what we thought we knew becomes untrue.  Like a boxer, a business’ ability to take the punches, move away from the trouble, protect itself and recover is the manta.  Stick and move, indeed.

There’s something to be said for perseverance.  On the other hand, when a plan of attack isn’t working and you’re catching way too many punches, one of three things is going to happen:

  1. You’re going to get knocked out
  2. Someone is going to stop the fight
  3. You’re going to change your strategy

Doing the third thing early on while maintaining the same goal (knock out the competition and win) is really the only route (see companies under buggy whips, internet 1.0, and airlines) to success.  Many of us ignore the surprising things that happen, writing them off to “lucky punches” and only focus on what we expect.  Big mistake.

Getting hit in the face can knock you out or it can wake you up.  Your choice.

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September 5, 2012 · 9:49 am

The One Man Band Battle

I got a note from a regular reader of the screed who was kind enough to send along today’s topic.  I’ll let him tee it up (not, it’s not golf) for you. He’s a smart developer who works solo, like so many of us do these days.  Here’s the situation:

I will be provided with an RFP shortly, along with 4 other entities. Although I think I have the inside track, I am battling the perception from the CEO that I am a one-man-band. My estimation is that the project is 4 man-months of work if I do it single-handedly but the CEO wants to go from RPF to implementation in 2 months.

To win this contract I must partner with others to combat the one-man-band perception and to get the project completed within the desired time-frame.

As a sage man of business, you could probably  give me some good advice on how to battle the negative perceptions so I can win this contract, which I would appreciate. I also think my predicament might serve as good subject matter for your blog.

Indeed it does!  My advice to him was to do a little sales jiu-jitsu – turn the negative into a positive.  In a time when it seems everyone I meet is either a consultant, a contract employee, or even a short-staffed manager, none of us are one man bands.  Everyone I know pulls in additional folks from time to time and I’m willing to bet the CEO (or his managers) do that as well.  A big advantage we independent folks have is that we’re no/low overhead operations.  You’re not paying for a nice building, multiple layers of staff, or large benefit programs.  Most of us are generally very senior and have been fully vetted and battle-tested.  There are no junior people on your account and it’s much easier for us to adjust to the right size team whilst people with entrenched staff can’t just up and hire and fire.

Another big advantage is the trust factor.  Those of us with lengthy high-level careers can generally be trusted to get the job done within the allocated time frame and budget and to let you know ahead of time if it’s going to be an issue.  If the CEO in question is dubious, build in some safeguards – penalties if the job isn’t done on time or additional fees if it’s done ahead of schedule or under budget.

Am I being self-serving here?  Maybe.   Then again, perhaps one can be right and self-serving at the same time.  Hit up the comments and let me know, and keep those topic suggestions coming.

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March 22, 2012 · 10:45 am

Me Or Your Own Eyes?

You’ve probably heard some version of the 18th century joke about a wife who, caught by her husband in bed with a lover, denies the obvious and adds: ‘Whom do you believe, your eyes or my words?’ The Marx Brothers used a variant of it in Duck Soup when Chico, dressed up as Groucho, asks “who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?” Obviously people believed their own eyes since the quote is usually attributed to Groucho.

Groucho Marx

Groucho Marx (Image via RottenTomatoes.com)

I thought of that quote as I was trying to explain a report to someone. They kept telling me the same story about what was going on in their business even though the data was saying something quite different.  Who was I going to believe: them or my own eyes?  Or my own data?

One of the big trends these days is a discussion of “big data.”  In a nutshell, almost everything we do these days in business generates data, and most of the managers I know are drowning in the stuff.  Despite that, most of the companies in which these managers work are not what I’d call a data-driven culture.  In fact, they suffer from the same issue mentioned above.  The will often fit the data to the story instead of letting the data help them solve the questions raided in the telling.  McKinsey stated in one of their reports that:

By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills as well as 1.5 million managers and analysts with the know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective decisions.

What’s needed is change management with a goal of developing a data-driven culture. Maybe that’s too strong – how about a culture in which data isn’t subordinated to the role of being used selectively to reinforce or justify bad decision-making?  At some point, people have to learn to trust their own eyes – the data they see – and not the stories they hear.  That’s what I think – you?

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