Why I Stopped Consulting

When I left my last management position some years ago, I had certainly covered a lot of ground, working in that capacity for a range of private, government, and non-profit organizations. I had bookshelves lined with a progression of management books, and since I had seen theory after theory gain popularity only to die at the hands of the next, I focused my career on approaches producing reliably demonstrative results—and successfully so, especially how to effectively build cultures to boost productivity, morale, superior customer satisfaction and bottom-line results for stakeholders.

So, knowing I was walking into an already overpopulated field, I became a consultant, differentiating my business by serving small businesses normally unable to afford consultants. My fees would be created by eliminating the inefficiencies attributable in part to labor relations and inadequate business plans, drawing on work from Drucker to Oncken along with my own practical experience.

To publicize my new endeavor, I offered to write a regular column for local newspaper’s business page, much to the delight of the editor, and then to readers. Business was good.

And not. I was perfectly happy to offer free initial visits and consultations (probably a must given my clientele anyway), considering it research as much as business opportunity, but many of these were completely outside of anything my services could address. My favorite is the auto parts store owner who decided to buy an abandoned warehouse and build a skating rink. Interesting idea, really—skating all through these rooms. He wanted me to consult about layout. I had no experience to offer him, and said so, but still took a look out of curiosity. He did volunteer that he was leaving management of the auto parts store to his daughter while he focused on his new venture. I offered my more applicable services there, but he wasn’t interested. The enterprise folded a few years later (I don’t know for what reason).

Lots of encounters mirrored this experience. In particular, people wanted anything but what I offered, not recognizing its importance—part of why so many businesses do those things so poorly. Most people know the statistics—4 out of 5 small businesses fail—but all too often blame the economy, the business climate, taxes, energy costs and so forth (all admittedly factors) without considering the most obvious, consistent reason—people make poor decisions.

This was the problem with my own business model. I assumed people would want to maximize profit (while earning a living in a reasonably enjoyable and purposeful work environment). Larger businesses are forced to adhere to such economic models (or at least pay some reasonable amount of attention to them), but ego and personality plays a far larger role than economics addresses. Small businesses are more likely to do things just because they want to do them, whether an odd location, a hobby commercialized regardless of markets, or brief hours serving the owner instead of the customer.

Further, however nicely I explained it, however lightly I tread, however much I noted that even Michael Jordan has a coach, another set of eyes, the simple reality of consulting is this—some smart ass who just walked in is going to tell you how to run the business you’ve spent years building. Sure, you called the consultant, and because you can see you have problems you can’t solve alone, but still, mainly you just want to be right, and to make the best use of consulting services, you have to be wrong. Ticklish indeed. The extreme, though, was the Brooklyn Pickle.

This popular sandwich/soup shop, located in the next county, was a referral. As I usually did, I stopped by unannounced and anonymous before meeting the owner, bought a sandwich, sat down and just watched, making notes. Several points were obvious—customers waited in a long line before splitting to order from two sandwich lines, then served by a single person who both made the sandwich fresh and walked back to serve up soup. Chips and drink coolers lined the walls of the dining area—these could be moved along the line of waiting customers, or an employee could be taking orders and fetching them. Lunch crowds don’t like to wait, as they have little time, and this could increase sales too. More importantly, EVERY server along both serving lines had to wait to conclude each sale until a single manager could ring up the sale—a major bottleneck.

Many areas of the business were quite good—the product was both excellent and differentiated. Both sandwiches and soups were delicious, always fresh, and featured “country style” with large chunks of veggies instead of the finely processed offering elsewhere. Further, offices or other groups could order six foot long subs, featuring multiple types of meat, protected with long, colorful toothpicks for easy carving, and presented in a sturdy, well designed box—delivered, of course. Lots of good material here.

Best of all, the owner wanted help to address EXACTLY what my services primarily offered—he trained employees one way, but turned around and they disregarded their training, despite repeated redirection. A personnel culture issue. The owner was going on vacation for a few weeks, but we arranged a meeting for the day he returned.

On that day, I arrived early, met the managers (who were expecting me) and spent considerable time chatting with various employees as I wandered through the operation. When the owner arrived late in the morning, we introduced ourselves, exchanged brief small talk, and he offered, “We’re having a staff meeting in 15 minutes. Would you like to come?” Indeed I would! Perfect start. We gathered.

“Hi everybody!” he announced. “First, I want to thank you all. I had an absolutely delightful time in London and Paris. It’s been a lifelong dream of mine to go, and thanks to all of you, I was able to fulfill that dream!” Then on to business.

Yikes. Work hard, and one day this will all be mine. No wonder my notes were filled with accounts of seemingly hard working people who were very unhappy, including several who said, “I hope you can help us.” I didn’t feel any better about the situation when the owner welcomed me into his office, shut the door, and offered me a chair. “I just don’t get these people,” he started. “I do so much for them, and they just don’t appreciate it. Take today—I left a cake for them in the break room!” This was not going to be an easy job; the problem started at the top.

“Well, anyway…” he went on, describing in detail his problems, all of which revolved around uncooperative employees. He needed my help getting them to behave as trained. After all, he walked around, yelling at anyone not doing things exactly his way, but still they didn’t learn!

Then he leaned back, folded his arms, and proclaimed not unkindly if certainly firmly, “But before I can employ your services, I need to be convinced. How do I know you can help me? Why should I hire you?”

“Well, first, thank you for showing me your operation and giving me the opportunity to look around and talk to your staff.” He nodded in acknowledgement of the courtesy. “But Sir, frankly, I don’t think you should hire me. I don’t think I can help you. I’m very sorry.” One hard learned lesson I had forged from past experience is when not to waste time on a dead end.

He sat up straight, eyes sparkling. I had caught him completely off-guard. He was intrigued. We chatted at length, and now, largely out of curiosity I suspect, he offered me a several week deal. Greatly against my better judgment, and largely because I thought what a coup it would be to turn around such a difficult case, I accepted his proposition.

Thus started a few months of hell. He completely rejected my concerns about the logistics, arguing that “people expect to see me in the center of things at the cash register.” His employee problems stemmed from strict expectations, with no rewards for doing them, but scoldings for violating them, so people naturally just learned to avoid him, inventing and taking their own shortcuts, policy be damned. The epitome of this travesty was a long time employee he complained about the most—whose past long term job was at Disney. Now, few if any organizations train better than Disney. This was just the largest of the red flags.

I wrote a preliminary report, including that as things stood, I didn’t think the problem could be solved. Not only did it flow from the top, but also he had appointed one hard working but young and inexperienced kid as a manager. Not surprisingly, power went to the kid’s head, adding a fresh layer of hatred to an already bad situation. I added several recommendations and their rationales.

We met a few weeks later. “I went over your report,” he said. “Much of it was very hard to hear.” I nodded gently, knowing it had to have been. “I even went over it with a close business friend. He noted, ‘I can see where he’s coming from, but…’” and so forth, ultimately opting for the status quo. “So really, you’ve failed,” he proclaimed. No argument there. I suggested we settle up.

Instead, he asked me to do one more thing for him. Since I was clearly able to get people to open up and talk freely, and since he wanted to know what was really going on with his staff, he asked me to undertake a series of official interviews. I agreed, on the grounds that each interview would remain anonymous, and that I would summarize the findings as the group’s feelings. He agreed, and I proceeded.

In fact, I liked this arrangement. He was right—I WAS good at this sort of thing, and it could potentially help improve the labor climate. I enjoyed the interviews. Enter a new snag, however. The kid manager, perceiving me as a threat to his position (probably correctly), could never spare the two key employees (including the ex-Disney worker), the “ring leaders” of the opposition to management, so I never got to interview them. Finally, I gave up and completed the report without them. I sent it, along with my bill.

The owner responded with a few notes, emphasizing that since I hadn’t interviewed the key employees, the report held limited value. No kidding. But he also included a check, paying the account in full.

I decided there were more satisfying ways to earn a living.

Writer

What Happened to Customer Service?

Power outages due to thunderstorms and tornados in the U.S. and Canada for the past few days included phone service, so I tried calling my girl, catherine, at her sister’s Tim Horton’s store, figuring she’d probably be there helping out. I was right.

“May I speak to catherine, please,” I asked. “I’m sorry,” answered the voice at the other end of the line: “catherine has just gone on her break.”

Now, seems to me that the start of a break would be the perfect time to take a personal phone call. However, that’s not the world of employees today. Why would you waste your break on personal issues, instead of waiting until you were back on the clock?

I’m reminded of a few years ago when I stopped at an Ames department store just as it was opening to pick up a few quick items on my way to work. Seems a few people had called in sick. Consequently, for fifteen minutes, before any cashier waited on any customer, the staff hashed out what would be the adjusted break schedule for the day. First things first.

Customer service is so poor today that it doesn't seem unusual when cashiers don't even speak to the customers, talking to other employees instead. People accept ungainly rules and procedures customers must fulfill before the business takes money. Long lines are a given.

Better service is often the personality of an individual employee, rather than a company trait. If every employee promptly provided goods and efficiently processed payment, that still wouldn't constitute good service; that's just what the customer is paying for!

One common business response is "We're just doing what everyone else does." Frame that service policy in Lucite and hang it in the lobby: "In our business, we're just doing what everyone else does." Inspiring.

Unless your business has 100% market share, at least some customers prefer the competition's product. What would make them prefer your product? Lower price is one way, but it doesn't build customer loyalty. If the competition can beat your price, your customers will be gone. Quality service, however, does build customer loyalty, and many customers will stay even when the competition beats your price.

Any business with economic profits will attract competition. Without significant barriers to entry, your product can readily be copied or even improved. But if a business is ahead of the competition in service, that's difficult to imitate quickly.

Yet even businesses with very happy customers sometimes ruin this with careless policies. For example, when I bought my new Toyota, I was thrilled with the dealership. I was there because my old Toyota threw a rod that morning at 199,974 miles, so I needed a new car quickly. They pulled it off, all in the same day! I test drove cars, they shuffled cars around with other dealers, they got all the paperwork completed with motor vehicles, and I was ready to go to financing—not a problem at all, since my credit rating is about as high as it’s possible to get.

Except for one thing. They insisted on selling me Scotch Guarding for the seat fabric and undercoating for the chassis, adding it to the monthly payment. I declined. Mr. Nice Finance Guy turned Gestapo. “Well can I ask why not?” he demanded in a rather nasty tone. “Well first, that’s one hell of a price for Scotch Guarding. Why wouldn’t I just buy a can and spray it on? Anyway, I have an active dog who rides in the car everyday on the way to our run. A little spilled coffee is the least of my troubles.”

“Well aren’t you worried about the car rusting through?” Clearly these guys are trained in high powered sales pressure. “It’s not necessary with today’s cars,” I responded. “How do you know that?” he demanded.

“Look,” I said, tired of this game. “I just drove a car 199,974 in New York State weather. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on the situation.” He finally dropped it.

I was only as calm as I was because I’ve seen it before. This is my third Toyota, and while the first purchase was fine, at the second purchase the finance guy was so persistent and so nasty that I was walking out the door. By chance, I ran into the body shop manager, a great guy I knew from previous interactions at the shop, who immediately stopped, saying, “You don’t look happy” and resolved the situation.

I shared this latest incident with the sales rep. “I was a happy customer up until this point,” I noted. “Why would they want to ruin that?” She could only nod. “I know,” she said. “We’ve had people walk from financing before.” Can those few extra bucks possibly be worth losing all those customers? I shared the experience with the Sales Manager. "Well, by law, if we offer a service to one customer, we have to offer it to all." Talk about missing the point.

A local consultant tells the story of a gentleman who had recently purchased a lusury car from a local dealership, and when a windshield wiper insert wore out after very little use, went back to nicely ask that it be replaced. “He was told in no uncertain terms that wiper inserts were not covered under his warranty and sent away,” explains the consultant. “Where do you think he’s going to buy his next car? Not there! Not only would I have given him the part for the few measly bucks it would cost—I’d have installed it for him and apologized!”

I buy Toyotas for the mileage, the reliability, and the fact that the service department is near my home (I live out in the country). I can tell you, though, that if another company up and coming moved nearby—Hyundai, for example—I’d certainly give them a serious look.

Apple takes this to extremes. They make and sell excellent computers. After that, unless you want to PURCHASE the right to service (at rather high costs), you’re just on your own. They don’t even pretend. They don’t do service. PC vendors aren’t much better. If I were to start a computer business, that’s where I’d start.

Excellent service is a rarity. Any business that delivers it will stand above the competition where it counts--with the customer.

Writer

Demotivation

Wouldn't it be great to work in a place where all of the people were excited about their jobs, enthusiastic about coming to work each day? It's a great vision, but few organizations reach it. Instead, managers are often frustrated in their search for motivated employees. At the same time,workers are often bored with their jobs, putting in far less effort than they could, generally because they've been frustrated in their attempts to change.

If neither managers or workers like the situation, how do organizations get demotivated people? All too frequently, they are unintentionally, but routinely, created.

It starts on the first day of work. New people arrive full of energy and ready to show what they can do. And those people are asked to wait. And watch. And get out of the way, because something more important came along. Don't worry, you'll catch on. OK, try this. No! Not that way! Try something else. No! You're doing it wrong. Here, just watch me. And so it goes.

Pretty quickly, the energetic new person learns (1) that he/she seems far less important to the organization than what's going on, and (2) do as little as possible, so that he/she won't get reprimanded. And a few months later, management notices that sure enough, another new person "decided" to just slide by doing very little. It's so hard to find good help...

Some people become good at their jobs despite the odds. Frequently, these promising leaders are never challenged, become bored, and eventually take new jobs--usually for a competitor in the same industry. Sure, the boss has a vision, and tries to get his/her people excited about it. But, while the boss was able to exercise some creativity, the people who work in the organization just had it sprinkled down from on high. Why would they feel excited?

Now add the clinchers. Avoid being clear with people; expect them to just somehow know exactly what you mean. Then, when they don't do what you expect, chew 'em out. They'll not only be careful never to take any initiative, they can also waste hours complaining about management when no one's around supervising. And they'll certainly avoid sharing any useful suggestions about how to improve the organization! Make sure the work environment is not conducive to accomplishing required tasks. Ask people to follow a lot of rules, but never let them understand the reasons for them. Better yet, just set policies, without clear reasons. Avoid any validity to job tasks.

And once a year, have a performance review, where people can be irritated by having a year's worth of stuff thrown in their faces all at once. (If any people have somehow stayed motivated up to this point, the performance review should kill it for sure!) Treat the newly demotivated people as intrinsically demotivated people, aggravating the situation further.

It's not that management isn't well meaning. Rather, our society has developed work related habits that just don't work well. And that applies to employees, too.

Writer