on Fri, 04/15/2016 - 19:36 by Anonymous (not verified)
Well, not always, but you know what I mean. When I was a management consultant in Ernst & Young's Technology, Communications, and Entertainment Group many years ago, I had just received my MBA from Yale University. I basicallyhad 3 years of work experience in junior roles, and I was put in front of senior execs, with just a little E&Y training. My first client was a national brand in the midwest, steeped in tradition, 100 year old firm. I was to go in and help themimprove their business. It would have been a joke, if I wasn't being billed at $400+/hr (back when that was a lot of money).I am a quick learner, and was able to provide enough insight into their issues to protect my job when the client cut 90%of our team due to budget constraints. I was told my greatest value was my personal insights to their team culture, andspecifically, to my recommendation on how they could form and manage their teams more effectively across companyboundaries of age and race. It was an interesting 8 month assignment that won me many friends, and I learned so much I couldn't even begin to tell it all here. My point is that I was able to add huge value, despite no relevant experience. However, like the title of my post says, the customer is always right. A senior exec wants to talk with a senior exec. Now, we could talk them out of that, which may or may not work, or, we can do what sports teams do. The last time I watched anathletic event, there was at least 5 coaches standing on the sidelines team coaching. Why not provide a senior exec a teamof coaches. Sure, you get the 40 year experience coach, and then you get an OB coach, perhaps a junior coach that relates better to Millennials, and maybe a specific industry coach. Inevitably, one of them will emerge as the client favorite, andthat person becomes the point person, and coodinates the other coaches on the "team." I see from your study that cost of coaches came in at almost the lowest percent, in terms of how a client chooses a coach. Presumably, they wouldn't mindpaying a few times more for the whole team, and having rather outsized egos, which is almost a requirement today to be ina stressful, high profile, high expectation role, the client should feel very well cared for by their coaching "team" and notmind the higher price tag. The coaching gets delivered by each coach, led by the favored coach, and everyone goes homehappy. I would also guess that the resultant advice would be better by the team...teams usually outperform even the mostskilled of us individually. You would need to manage utilization rates and figure the economics on this, but my sense is thatthere is a strong business case and model to support this direction. My 2 cents. James@WhiteHotCloud.com
The Customer is Always Right
Well, not always, but you know what I mean. When I was a management consultant in Ernst & Young's Technology, Communications, and Entertainment Group many years ago, I had just received my MBA from Yale University. I basicallyhad 3 years of work experience in junior roles, and I was put in front of senior execs, with just a little E&Y training. My first client was a national brand in the midwest, steeped in tradition, 100 year old firm. I was to go in and help themimprove their business. It would have been a joke, if I wasn't being billed at $400+/hr (back when that was a lot of money).I am a quick learner, and was able to provide enough insight into their issues to protect my job when the client cut 90%of our team due to budget constraints. I was told my greatest value was my personal insights to their team culture, andspecifically, to my recommendation on how they could form and manage their teams more effectively across companyboundaries of age and race. It was an interesting 8 month assignment that won me many friends, and I learned so much I couldn't even begin to tell it all here. My point is that I was able to add huge value, despite no relevant experience. However, like the title of my post says, the customer is always right. A senior exec wants to talk with a senior exec. Now, we could talk them out of that, which may or may not work, or, we can do what sports teams do. The last time I watched anathletic event, there was at least 5 coaches standing on the sidelines team coaching. Why not provide a senior exec a teamof coaches. Sure, you get the 40 year experience coach, and then you get an OB coach, perhaps a junior coach that relates better to Millennials, and maybe a specific industry coach. Inevitably, one of them will emerge as the client favorite, andthat person becomes the point person, and coodinates the other coaches on the "team." I see from your study that cost of coaches came in at almost the lowest percent, in terms of how a client chooses a coach. Presumably, they wouldn't mindpaying a few times more for the whole team, and having rather outsized egos, which is almost a requirement today to be ina stressful, high profile, high expectation role, the client should feel very well cared for by their coaching "team" and notmind the higher price tag. The coaching gets delivered by each coach, led by the favored coach, and everyone goes homehappy. I would also guess that the resultant advice would be better by the team...teams usually outperform even the mostskilled of us individually. You would need to manage utilization rates and figure the economics on this, but my sense is thatthere is a strong business case and model to support this direction. My 2 cents. James@WhiteHotCloud.com