Andy Raynor - Beyond the Brief
Andy Raynor's blog
The enemy's out there (Part 2)...
If I was truly
sorry I’d tell you, but I’m not. I’m secretly
pleased that the respondents to Monday’s blog were
evenly divided between those who got it and those
who didn’t. Those who want to get out and sell their
services through better, more energetic, more
focused sales management and those who’d rather stay
inside where it’s warm, counting the dwindling
pennies.
The lowest common denominator approach to managing a professional services businesses – crush the cost base and we’ll be fine – misses the point that this is a people business. We’re all dependent on a large number of highly qualified individuals who need to feel included.
Look – I am not against efficiency, I am for it, and I am for costs savings wherever they improve efficiency. But alongside these valid strategies must go communication. This must be as much the objective of the people as it is of the finance director.
If communication is poor, if this does not become the common cause, if the savings stray into the pointless, the petty and the spiteful – then you have a far bigger problem than your costs. Because the people that you lead start to believe the enemy is you.
At best this can become a game of tag on expenses, sponsorship, marketing initiatives – how can we get that through? Do you recognise that phrase?
At worst it becomes the only measure of the business, soaking up energy that could better be used with clients. Out-of-control cost “savings” create a toe-the-line policy that stifles innovation, demotivates and, ultimately, sends people somewhere else.
You think I’m over-egging this? Well let me test you with one story. Imagine a family business client of 15 years standing, who frequently brings his spouse to meetings, tells the partner she has to go to hospital for a serious operation. The partner sends a small but uplifting gift in his name and the name of the advisory team that services the client. The expenses claim is queried.
What would you do?
Think about how
the team feels. Leaders in business
should have an understanding of what it’s like
down in the muck and bullets, and really be
perceived as leaders and not merely cost managers.
This is as much about the
message as it is about the cost.
PS - on a related point, I've just listened to George Osborne and Ed Balls trying to knock lumps out of each other on Radio 4. We are doomed. They seem to have forgotten people are listening to them. They seem to have forgotten people.
When the two most significant players in the UK economy are professional politicians with just about enough business CV to write on a postage stamp, get on your knees and pray. This is time for a wider coalition than the one we've got, far less politics and far more business nous.
Tell me what you think at andy@andypraynor.com
And take a look at what's been said before by looking in the archive:
© Andy Raynor 2013