REPLY "Flawless Consulting" and SD (SD6644)

[SDMAIL BalaporiaZ]

Posted by  BalaporiaZ at schneider.com

"SDMAIL Bill Harris" <bill_harris at facilitatedsystems.com> wrote:
>>>> The part we may miss from an SD perspective is the emotions people have
>>>> wrapped around situations and any power imbalances that may inhibit the
>>>> development of sustainable solutions.

During a 6 yr stint in the external consulting world (supply chain,
transportation network design, etc.), my most memorable moment was when a
new VP at the client asked us to contact a manager to get some general
information.  After introducing myself, the manager's first statement was,
and I quote;   "Zahir, I know how this works.  You ask for my watch and
tell my boss what time it is.  So, lets get on with it."   I am thankful we
did not get that project and that this was not the norm.  But I thought it
spoke well to Bill's point about understanding the emotional climate.

In an effort to create the right climate, I always focused on building
trust and understanding as early in the process as possible.  We built that
relationship with the following guiding principles that we asked the client
to buy into before we started.

-  The only thing more important than customer satisfaction is analytical
integrity and quality.  The answer is what the answer is.
-  We don’t tell you what to do.  We build models that help you decide what
to do.
-  The “WHAT” is important, but the “WHY” is invaluable.

The first point was about clearly articulating a bias towards the integrity
of the analysis.  If the client was using us to sell their pet idea to
senior mgmt then they ran the risk that we may prove their pet idea wrong.
The second point was about not "shifting the burden" to us.  They had to
own the problem and they had to own the recommendation.  Finally, most
clients only wanted to know the "what" but the real power was in the "why"
and you really needed the why to get buy-in from those that were not
involved with the process.

No secret sauce in all of this.  Just another perspective.  It seemed to
work for us.

Zahir Balaporia
Schneider National, Inc.
Posted by  BalaporiaZ at schneider.com
posting date  Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:05:11 -0500