Much of my reading and thinking is about how professional service firms organize to maximize performance—including hierarchies; leadership authority and accountability; how, when and which staff to include in senior processes like planning; and the processes that inform daily activities.
One client of mine had many layers of managers—but few real leaders. In the firm’s organizational model, project managers had authority over their teams and department heads over their departments. Division and regional managers—responsible for service lines, work quality, overall performance and, therefore, the actual brand—had no direct authority over anyone or anything.
You held focus groups to solicit input from people who had no knowledge of a subject but wanted to be part of the decision; and attended meetings of other departments to become better known (i.e. better liked) by staff. You spent large amounts of time with people you wanted to help, getting their permission to help them.
“Traction” for a new idea rested on your relationships with others: you had to be well liked to implement any change—without focus groups, change couldn’t happen—anyone who didn’t like a change could refuse to adopt it—there were no consequences for refusing to change.
What did this mean for someone trying to solve a problem? Consider:
Over time, (let’s call her) Anne noticed that invoicing always put people in “crisis mode” because of a bottleneck. As she watched how people worked, she thought of a way to eliminate the bottleneck.
She told her supervisor, Joe, about the challenge and her solution. She explained how the change would eliminate the bottleneck completely, resulting in increased efficiency, less time spent on invoicing, and more time for other tasks that were now being postponed.
Joe liked her idea. He took the challenge and solution to the administrative services manager, Mike. Mike agreed that the bottleneck was a problem and liked Anne’s solution. He and Joe made a list of people to include in focus groups about the challenge and the change. There were almost 70 principals, managers, technical and support staff on the list.
The list was split into ten focus groups of six to eight people each, spread over four weeks.
In each group, there was at least one person convinced that no change could make a difference; one convinced that this was not the right change; one convinced that s/he could devise a better solution; and one convinced that the entire process needed to be replaced.
In each two-hour focus group meeting, the change was discussed—and nothing decided. Small tweaks were made to Anne’s change, weakening the idea so the change would be less radical, and less problematical for those who just hate any kind of change. By the end of each focus group, attendees hated the change less than at the start because it now bore “their stamp”—their own personal change to the change.
After four weeks, the first three groups were reconvened to get their comments on the changes made by later groups. Ultimately, there were 13 sets of tweaks, nobody was happy with the change, and Anne had to “champion” a change she hardly recognized and didn’t support—something that looked like change for the sake of change without solving the problem, something no longer worth the time it had taken to gain approval.
If there had been a true firm leader, with the courage to make an “executive decision,” the company could have reaped the benefits of the change. Unfortunately, secure in its belief that focus groups could substitute for real leadership, the company had pursued—and achieved—mediocrity!
Regardless of your firm's organizational model, you need strong leadership. A diversity of perspectives and experience will help you achieve great performance, but an executive decision is often the best response to a specific circumstance.
Otherwise, in the absence of true leadership, focus groups and committees take you around in circles, making visible activity, but never getting anywhere.