We
prefer to do only two types of
consulting – one focused on results, the other focused on
learning.
The
result-focused consulting approach
that we prefer to use (Results-Based Consulting®)
is all done with individual clients. It is defined by the results it
achieves, and measured by improvements to a client’s
operating and
business outcomes. It is based in current reality and
systems-thinking. It focuses on single, rapid-cycle projects aimed
at constraints. It fosters implementation capacity and capability,
innovation, and learning.
The
transition to results-focused
consulting consists of work we currently do, with a different
approach, a different focus, and a very different business
relationship with the client. That’s not the hardest part.
Our
approach to improving operating and financial performance becomes
intuitive and simple in practice – but, there’s a
lot to
understand, it’s counter to what most executives of
homebuilding
companies have been taught, and it’s hard to grasp.
In
short – it must be learned.
The
learning-focused consulting
(Results-Based Learning®)
consists of the public workshops and conferences we will begin
delivering in 2008. In some ways, the workshop/conference side of
what we will do is a lot more difficult than the work we do with
individual clients, because it doesn’t presently exist. We
have
never attempted to do public workshops and conferences, and they are
different than anything currently available anywhere else.
The
difference – and challenge – is
not so much in the workshop deliverable, as it is in the style of
learning.
We
want our workshops to be about
discovery-type learning, about the type of learning that occurs in a
simulation constructed to replicate the competitive, fast-paced,
rapidly-changing, uncertain, risk-laden, variation-filled environment
in which decisions must be made. We want to deliver learning
based on what our clients experience and do, not just what they hear
and read. We want to compress the learning curve needed to run a
homebuilding operation into a matter of days, instead of years. Our
workshops will be excellent development opportunities for individual
managers.
SAI
workshops don’t do
‘team-building’, but teams can come and learn
together; an SAI
workshop would be tremendous for the core of a homebuilding team to
do together. When it gets down to it, homebuilding companies are
teams, not collections of individuals. We make that point in the
results-focused consulting that we do with individual clients.
Searching
for an analogy for how a
homebuilding company ought to function as a team, the one that most
often comes to mind is that of a modern combat team. We don’t
want
to overstate the analogy. Homebuilding is not warfare; we are not
killing other homebuilders. Still – combat teams and
homebuilding
teams have unmistakable common traits.
-
The
members of a homebuilding team understand the overall goal, but they
perform autonomously, together as a team, according to the uncertain
nature of the requirements of whatever situation they encounter. The
members of the team understand what’s at stake, they
understand the risks involved, they understand the effort required, and
they understand the prize.
-
They
‘acquire the situation’ quickly (i.e., they
understand what the situation is telling them), and they respond
decisively, cohesively, and intuitively. Difficult situations
don’t scare them. They are not rigid; they craft the solution
to the situation, but they process their decisions and actions through
the filter they have been taught.
-
In the
eyes of their competition, they are unconventional, unpredictable, and
disruptive. They transition so rapidly, the competition cannot keep up
with them.
-
They
understand the roles and the requirements of their specific positions
instinctively and intuitively. In the analogy of a combat team, the
members of a homebuilding team can disassemble and reassemble their
weapons in the field, under fire, in the dark, in the rain, in less
than a minute.
Learning
anything new or different is
disruptive, time-consuming, and costly, it’s often met with
resistance, and it doesn’t always produce the intended
result. That kind of learning is a harsh teacher, particularly when it
occurs
at the cost of real operating performance and actual business
outcomes.
An
SAI workshop would be a good
starting point for any homebuilding company that wants to expose its
management team to the thinking behind Results-Based Consulting and
figure out what it will take to make it work, before plunging the
company into the cost and conditions of a full results-focused
consulting arrangement.
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