Barrier:
Have business advisors now made developing strategies too complex and too clinical for clients to get real value?

By James Mason - Managing Director at Mindshop

September 23, 2010 at 10:44pm

implementation

simple

Strategy development

strategy

Moonshots

Retool management for an open and borderless world

Summary

Have business advisors over the years analysed and reverse enginered strategy / management thinking to such a point that it has now become too complex and too clinical? If we listened to most clients the answer would be....yes!

Description

The rapid rise of 'business coaching' and the 'coaching' movement since the early 90's and the pace of technological change have accelerated the rate at which new management thinking is being 'commercialized' and taken to the broaded market. Small to Large businesses are struggling under the weight of years of seminars, web casts, books, training days, workshops, guru's and coaches feeding them new management thinking and tools at an ever increasing rate and unfortunately higher level of complexity. Managers / Owners are now struggling to be a great leader, motivator, strategist, lean specialist, innovator, implementer, finance specialist, coach whilst on the personal development side they are also being pushed to have great life balance, family time, health / fitness and energy levels. How does the manager or owner of the business know what to use and when to use it when everything continues to get more complex and clinical?

Illustration

If you google 'business advisory tools' or 'coaching tools' you will get hundreds of thousands of sites claiming their own trade-marked strategy processes and 10 steps to business success style presentations. The business tools and business thinking continue to get more complex and more detailed when in fact we as advisors should be going the other way and seeking ways to make them simpler.

Root Causes

The barrier to making management thinking / strategy simpler rather than more complex is at odds with the commercial push from the coaching / advisory market-place to trademark their own processes or create a perceived point of difference with their methodology over another advisors methodology. Many still percieve their is a 'magic bullet' process or multi-media tool which will diagnose the issues of the business and set them instantly on the path to large growth andf profits. This is rarely the case. Thus businesses will continue to struggle to gain the right advice and thus adapt their core approaches to doing business without a change in the focus of advisors to differentiate through outcomes delivered rather than the tools they use.

Solution

The solution to retool managers / owners for the business environment of the future is to change the model by which we train and support them. Currently the typical process to up-skill or train managers / owners is quite point and shoot where by:

1. Manager identifies training needs
2. Manager seeks training
3. Training is delivered
4. Manager attempts to implement
5. Manager hits hurdles during implementation and then gets distracted
6. Manager goes back to old habits

A changed model would be:

1. Manager identifies they have an issues for which they need training / support
2. Manager is challenged on is it the real issue
3. Manager is challenged on their vision / direction to get some scope to the issue being discussed
4. Training provided for the REAL issue with simple tools / methodologies
5. Manager attempts to implement
6. Manager hits hurdles during implementation and then gets distracted
7. Manager draws on their support coach for assistance on over-coming hurdles and importantly is trained to learn a simple tool-set for driving strategy themselves
8. Manager starts to make solid progress but still is only hearing advice from one person
9. Manager gains support and guidance from a network of peers to challenge them further
10. Manager gains solid ground in achieving their targets and builds their natural skills

So the key adjustments that advisors need to make in the way they provide advice are:
1. Simplify the tools / support provided. The tools are just that tools and shouldn't be the focus
2. Challenge the thinking of businesses as to whether they are seeking to fix the REAL issues
3. Get some scope to the size of the issue
4. Facilitate rather than consult

For business managers and owners they need to:
1. Learn a simple tool-set that makes strategy development and problem solving easy internally
2. Fix the real issues not the symptoms
3. Only seek to address between 1-3 issues at any one time
4. Have a three pronged approach to the strategy development / support:
   1. Online: Gain new skills / training rapidly via the web rather than waiting for face-to-face courses
   2. Support Coach: Find a trusted advisor to help you overcome hurdles to implementation, keep focused and challenge strategies
   3. Peer Support: Seek a solid sounding board of peers to be surrounded by who can challenge your thinking and push you to new heights.

Credits

James Mason - Managing Director of Mindshop - jmason@mindshop.com

For more information see:

http://www.mindshop.com

or watch the video:

http://www.web.mindshop.com/Video/MindshopIntro/Introduction_James_Mason

Videos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pj-QCQzSJg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCPlKHuYwRY&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bY5DjnjUg4&feature=related

You need to register in order to submit a comment.

Sort By: Latest Oldest Likes Replies

September 27, 2010 at 12:15pm

Ellen Weber

Well stated James, and thanks for the thoughtful case you build for the importantance of communication.

You raised a good point here - about the increasing use of pretentious prose , James, and I am wondering if we should look for a more respectful language for many business issues. To use words that few can unpack - is to work against the very community building proposed by so many leaders here.

Refreshing support systems in your solutions:-) This may be an area MBA programs could tackle with community business leaders, to create a language that builds innovation across silos. Think it could work?

September 28, 2010 at 4:58am

James Mason

Hi Ellen,

Thank you for your response. I believe a lot of MBA programs and other organizations have begun adopting the mixture of Online Learning, Peer support and a Support Coach / Chairperson ive suggested in my solution to greatly improve traction with strategies (rather than just each element in isolation). However the challenge for these groups is that they are still required to put so much academic rigor behind each element and ensure the outcome is as perfect as possible. This is then a disconnect with the reality of running a typical business where owners / managers just want to get momentum and determine what three issues they should address first. We always get feedback that larger consulting groups are blowing companies strategy budgets performing an analysis of where an organization is NOW and thus have no funds left to get into WHERE they need to be and HOW they will do it. So there are big opportunities opening up in the consulting market with many large family businesses and innovative SME's that want to get momentum, keep it simple and start the wheels turning after years of spending a lot of money being told all their issues but nothing happening. I however don't feel there will ever be a 'perfect language' that all agree on for simple strategy implementation and people will always have their own preferred methods but we do need to keep heading down this path. Overall it will take the corporates at present beginning to demand a simpler approach without all the 'complexity' that will drive changes as whilst there is still a perceived demand for this 'complex must be more clever and expenseive' logic the MBA's will deliver it. We however are starting to see the start of this occuring in the markets we work in around the world.

regards James