Laughable
target for competition
by Margot Cairnes
"We want only people who are fanatics," the head of one of
Australia's top four warrior strategic consulting firms (let's call them Bonco Group) told
Mary, their would-be marketing consultant. "We don't want philosophers, people who
are into working things through with people. We want people who will push things
through."
Mary, one of my clients, knew that she was being told that people at Bonco only wanted to
work with warriors. Warriors are people who operate on the surface of issues. They deal in
power, status and winning at all costs. Mary knew that this was an assignment where she
would be expected to tell Bonco clients what they wanted to hear.
This was going to be a problem. Firstly, Mary's brief was to interview Bonco's clients.
She knew that her skill as an interviewer meant she would be told the truth - something
the folk at Bonco definitely didn't want to hear. Secondly, Mary is a woman of great
integrity and intelligence - she wasn't into peddling lies for the sake of convenience.
As a halfway measure to ensure compatibility with her Bonco clients, Mary did a series of
in-house interviews with Bonco staff. She found a group of people desperately unhappy who
failed to communicate honestly with themselves, each other and their clients. She found
backstabbing, denial of reality and stress that were preventing any kind of relationship
marketing - any real marketing success at all. She decided to name the truth. Mary knew
that this would probably mean dismissal but somewhere inside her was a childhood dream
that truth will win out, the good guy wins and doing the right thing leads to reward.
You guessed it - Mary was sacked. Bonco didn't want to fix up their problems. They wanted
Mary to tell them how to stay the same and gain better results. They wanted some magic
pill. We have Viagra for impotence, Prozac for depression, Disprin for headache. Bonco
wanted some painless, effortless cure for deep problems that lay in their own world view,
their own relationships and their lack of relationship with reality.
I was recently working with a new managing director who came into a company that had on
its shelves over $20 million worth of reports from supposedly world class strategic
consulting firms. What was astonishing to the new MD was that although many of the
recommendations in the reports made good sense - none of them had been effectively
implemented. The theory was fine but it wasn't working in practice - something the high
powered, highly paid consultants had dismissed as they fronted up for yet another million
dollar contract.
The hard work of dealing with the real problems that lay in the organisation's culture -
lack of leadership and appalling relationships with stakeholders - was bypassed every
time. Wiped off as "soft", "not the real issue" and "touchy
feely".
The truth is warriors will do just about anything to avoid facing the mess that is their
own emotional reality and the state of their key relationships.
Now this is extremely good news for non-warriors - the people I call the heroes. When you
look at the foolishness of the warriors they become laughable targets for competition. The
scope for gaining competitive advantage over people who refuse to face reality, refuse to
deal with their own personal inadequacies and refuse to work on their relationships is
immense.
Mary has moved on to greener, happier and more lucrative pastures. The Bonco Group? Well,
we'll wait and see.
- Copyright ã Margot
Cairnes
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