Eschewing the Touchie-feelie Nonsense
In the first article we examined why it’s important to be perceived as a peer of the line buyer. Now we’ll talk about how. And the key aspect of that how is understanding what not to do.
Consulting is, by definition, a rather amorphous profession at worst, and multidisciplinary at best. That is, there are no simple templates and models that apply to most situations, and if you asked 12 quite adept consultants about the proper approach to, say, strategy formulation or population sampling, you’d likely get 18 respectable answers.
That’s because there is no one royal road that forms the ideal consulting model leading from client need to resolution, or from today to tomorrow. There is, rather, a complex map that differing people can utilize for differing purposes: speed, safety, view, efficiency, and so on. But even on that varied map, there are dead ends, tortuous routes, and dangerous curves.
The bad roads on internal consulting have largely been the poorly designed, shabbily constructed, and soon-abandoned routes created by what I have termed the “touchie-feelie brigade.” These are self-appointed gurus, one-trick ponies, former executives (whose success makes them think they have a magic formula to share), detached professors, aggressive consultants, and a host of others who have cutsie phrases and pseudo-research, but who never have to actually do the job, and whose work is never held up to empirical or longitudinal scrutiny.
Many of you aren’t going to enjoy hearing this, but the issue is so important to the success or failure of internal consulting that I’m going to run that risk with the hope of building your career. Here are just a few vivid examples of the bizarre and the pointless.
Right Brain/Left Brain Thinking. People are far too complex to be simplistically relegated to such superficial cognitive approaches. The most vocal advocate, the late Ned Hermann (creator of the Hermann “brain dominance” instruments) had to change his tune somewhat and cite his approach as a “metaphor” once the scientific community debunked much of the claims. This turned out to be another labeling exercise to help some people explain why they were better than others.
Future Search. Presumably a method to help planning and strategy formulation, this calls for participants to engage in an examination of seemingly unrelated events and times, going back in their history to consider their pet’s name or their early habits. The trouble is that it’s more than seemingly unrelated, it’s totally unrelated. One of my clients, then a subsidiary of the Times Mirror Corporation, spent what I calculated as more than $400,000 of salaries trying to make this work, only to come up with complete garbage and a nearly mutinous group of otherwise rational managers. The highlight for me was when the two facilitators actually started arguing in front of the group about what to do next.
Diversity Training. First of all, diversity is not something anyone can be trained in. This is about beliefs and behaviors (as described previously with culture). Second, no one should be a diversity consultant. Diversity is an aspect of organizational effectiveness, no less than team work or problem solving. Anyone specializing in diversity without knowing basic organizational development is like someone trying to ski who only knows how to use the poles. Third, beware of any industry that grows up around a cause, and this is a primary example of one, with most practitioners having no special expertise or credentials other than leaping into the pond. Diversity issues and awareness should be an aspect of every organization’s self-assessment, evaluations, performance goals, and so on, but not some isolated specialty. One great example occurred in the Federal Aviation Authority, where trainers asked participants to partially disrobe and smell each other’s clothing, as well as require males to walk a gauntlet of females encouraged to shout abuse at them. The training was halted when employees, in a rational moment, filed suit.
Outdoor Experiences. These may be a lot of fun, but there isn’t a scintilla of evidence that the results are transferable to the job, and most companies make an investment based on that premise, not on having fun. Tony Robbins, for one, has made a fortune, and is an engaging advocate, but walking on hot coals and rappelling down mountains does not translate to corporate needs.
Empty Motivational Rah-Rah. I love the speakers who tell you they used to be poor and now they’re wealthy, and we’re supposed to be improved by that fact. The reason they are now wealthy, of course, is that people are hiring them to go around telling that story, not because they’ve developed sophisticated, transferable skills for the audience. Most motivational workshops, courses, and speakers are of the sugar donut school of diet—a brief high, followed by zero lasting wellbeing or nutrition.
Nonvalidated Tests and Behavioral Labels. If you want to call me a “high D” or a “driver-driver,” or an INTJ on the cusp of Virgo, you had better do it with a running head start. Here’s an eyeopener: To be valid, a behavioral or psychological test must have demonstrated construct, content, and concurrent validity, the proof of which must have been published in scientific, refereed journals. And even after that crucible, the test often must be revalidated for your particular organization and environment. Most of the popular tests on the market do not pass those criteria. As a result, we have internal trainers walking around giving feedback and diagnoses that a clinical psychologist wouldn’t dare to offer. My favorite abuse: At Marine Midland Bank I found such an internal analyst asking executive questions that the former was trying to answer the way his deceased mother would have, so that the former could provide insights on the nature of their troubled relationship. I wanted to turn on the sprinkler system.
Pick your own favorites, but you get my point. You must avoid at all costs the fad-of-the-month, cute cliché, newest wonder book, and hot seminar. This business is about intellectual breadth, not jargonistic shallowness.