16 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
After we had finished the exercise, he asked me to come in and do some-
thing similar with his executive team. As it would turn out, “team” probably
wasn’t the best way of describing the group. It was made up of the members
of two families, and as is frequently the case with family businesses, there
was a lot of baggage at and under the table. All kinds of conflicts, petty and
otherwise, divided them.
I came in and began the work, but as I progressed, it became clear that
the problems the company had were not going to be solved by a basic
assessment exercise. A couple of years earlier, I might not have been alive to
that. I had been a Good Soldier, I was selling product, getting revenues in
and couldn’t really see beyond the next training course or workshop.
But now I saw clearly that the client’s needs exceeded my program, so I
used that basic transactional intervention to leverage the conversation and
begin a sort of preliminary strategic planning exercise: Where are we now?
Where do we want to go? How are we going to get there? I was moving
things forward to Level 2; I was still basically offering a product, I wasn’t
embedded, but my portfolio of solutions offered considerably more value
than an assessment module possibly could.
I now had a much better perspective on the client’s needs. What’s more,
that original Level 1 exercise had given me enough exposure to the client
that he trusted me sufficiently to take it to next level. I was introduced to the
president, the son of the founder.
And now the real story began to emerge. The original founder, this man’s
father, had died two years previously and the son had taken over the business,
which was now losing market share, and rapidly. The larger box stores, the
Walmarts and so on, were starting to come in and eat his lunch, and the execu-
tive team really hadn’t done much about it. They were getting great compensa-
tion and their heads were in the sand. There was no innovation, no change.
The other thing that emerged was that the deceased founder had a very
authoritarian management style. This had left a legacy of bad feeling and
damaged relationships, and the son felt he had to adopt a more collaborative
style to help redeem the situation. It wasn’t working, not least because there
was very little talent in the executive group. They were operating a very old
business model, but were still able to live quite nicely off the avails, and that
bred complacency.
Outside business experience was almost entirely absent. The siblings
worked in the business during the summer, and were then automatically
enrolled in the company when they graduated, frequently with nothing
The Consultant’s Growth Path ◾ 17
better than a college diploma. On top of that, there had been no man-
agement development or training. From where I stood, all I could see
was a highly insular management group with very few management
skills.
And while everyone gave the appearance of getting on well, underneath
that façade was an undercurrent of seething animosity. “He doesn’t do this
right, I don’t like how he did that, his judgment is flawed …” Meanwhile, the
company was losing a lot of money.
I wrote a report—the REC, or Recommendation—as a result of that plan-
ning session, and that report then gave me an opportunity to sit down with
the president and go over what was being said by the various team mem-
bers. It was during this meeting that the turning point came.
The president turned to me and said, “You know Shayne, my father
thought he was giving me a gift by passing this company along to me but in
fact he’s given me a millstone around my neck. I never really wanted to be a
president of a company. I wanted to be a veterinarian.”
It was a very powerful statement, and one that could only have been
delivered in an atmosphere of trust. If I had merely been the guy who
facilitated the executive assessments, I would not have heard that state-
ment. If I had carried out the planning exercise and walked away, I would
not have heard that statement. Through my in-depth engagement with the
company, I had become this man’s Trusted Advisor. I was inside the tent.
I was at the point where I could say to him, “Well, what kind of help do
you need?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t know.”
So I proposed a full Business Management Review (BMR), which would
include succession planning to smooth his transition out of the company.
The issues that this process turned up were many and various. Long story
short, we ended up assessing over 200 employees, initiating cultural diag-
nostics, restructuring the management team and departments, and orches-
trating exit packages for a number of employees. We also brought in a range
of subcontractors to re-engineer almost every aspect of the company’s busi-
ness; sales, marketing logistics, technology, retail, finances …
When we began our Organizational Development Intervention (ODI)
with the company, sales stood at $19 million. When we left a year and a
half later, they were $28 million. We went from doing a one day assess-
ment, plus a report for $2,500, to billing just over a quarter of a million
dollars.
18 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Ultimately, the company was sold, and its president, while he never real-
ized his ambition to become a vet, retired and now volunteers regularly at
an animal shelter.
Chapter Summary
The four parallel process levels illustrate how successful consultants progress
through their careers. At Level 1, the Good Soldier enters the profession and
begins by selling product-based solutions such as assessments and training
to the client organization.
Once they have built sufficient experience and a strong reputation, they
expand their range of solutions and reach the second step on their Odyssey
journey: Level 2, the Competent Warrior. Level 3 is the Trusted Advisor
stage, attained by few within the industry, where the consultant becomes
a change agent and works with the problem owner to customize business
solutions for the client’s particular needs.
Level 4, Master Practitioner, is achieved only by elite consultants. This is
the level at which the expert business advisor and the client partner in peer-
level respect, developing innovative solutions designed to address the long-
term visions and objectives for the client and industry.
Calls to Action
We recommend you take time out to review your mind-set and positioning
regarding the four levels of consulting. Use the following calls to action to
trigger changes in your thinking:
1. Review the four levels as set out in this chapter. Which level(s) are you
at right now in your Odyssey business of consulting?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
2. In any one assignment and at any one time, a consultant may occupy
different levels in the model. In the following table (Table 1.5), list six
key client tasks that you are engaged in right now. State which level you
are operating at in each case and then itemize the implications of each
of those tasks.
The Consultant’s Growth Path ◾ 19
3. Taking each of the tasks specified in question two, assess each one to
see how it might be transformed into a higher level intervention.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
4. Where do you see yourself operating in five years’ time? Which of the
four levels can you reasonably expect to achieve?
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________
Table 1.5 Call to Action 2—List Six Key Tasks
Task Level Why (Implications)
1
2
3
4
5
6
20 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Appendix I
In essence, Odyssey is about learning the language, the modus operandi,
and the strategic intentions of the Level 3 and Level 4 consultants and under-
standing how these differ from those of the Level 1 and Level 2 consultants
(Figure 1.4).
Growth
Status quo
Change
Transformation
Kaikaku
Knowledge
Data
Information
Knowledge
Wisdom
Process
Activity
Task
Relationship
Experience
Communication
Reporting
Participation
Peer respect
Partnership
Strategy
Operational
efficiencies
Traditional
strategy
Strategy
innovation
Stategic
collaboration
Management
Supervisor
Manager
Leader
Facilitator
Sales
Sales transaction
Product solution
Business solution
Partnership
Buyer
User
Functional
Problem owner
Economic buyer
Paradigm
Average
Good
Great
Excellent
Consultant
Good Soldier
Competent Warrior
Trusted Advisor
Master Practitione
r
Learning
Unconscious
incompetence
Conscious
incompetence
Conscious
competence
Unconscious
competence
Level
Doing
physical
hands
inking
intellectual
head
Feeling
emotional
heart
Being
spiritual
soul
Level 1
Level 2
Level 3
Level 4
Figure 1.4 Systems thinking—the four parallel process levels.
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