Managers and executives are very busy people, often very stressed, who cannot "afford" to spend one or two hours a week reflecting, individually or in groups.
Their years of work, their status, their income allow them other luxuries but not this one. If you are the reader of these lines, one of them, don't waste any more time. He will be solving on the fly, between meetings and meetings, between planes and planes, with the telephone that does not stop ringing, personal and strategic issues as they arise.
You will always have time to react when a competitor takes advantage of you; when the market changes - which, incidentally, changes all the moments, in an inconspicuous way (do you know the parable of the “boiled frog” that Peter Senge talks about in “The Fifth Discipline”?); when its shareholders complain when your best employees and collaborators send signs of discontent, tedium, anxiety - which manifests itself in many ways, from sweating to envy, internal rivalries, inattention (of “focus”, as those who know English say), denial and evasion of reality, blaming others, etc.; when there are other companies that innovate because "they have had luck in the face" that their company is elusive. You will solve, when the time comes,that uneasiness - which on the other hand is only characteristic of those who have a "weak thought" - produced by some contradictions between their expectations and desires as a human being and as a manager.
It is possible - although unlikely - that you have asked yourself some of these questions, but who do you turn to? The consultants of the big firms will provide you with reliable solutions because "they have already been contrasted in other companies, with other managers." If the proposed formula of success has given good results in the hundred best companies in “Fortune” magazine, it is the most appropriate recipe for you and for your company.
In addition, the consultant's prescriber will be a very brilliant young man, an MBA graduated from one of the best business schools in the world. What does it matter that he is young and you are a mature and experienced person of many years? As the great “guru” of the strategy says, Gary Hamel, by the mere fact of working in one of the great consulting firms in the world, you have to look at him with rapture.
Perhaps you have already experienced all this and want to try it again with a different approach. Or do you think the time has come to give yourself a space for strategic and personal reflection; individually or with your management team. If so, I suggest a possible work program with a mature consultant trained in theory and practice; Someone with whom to address formal, visible, and invisible strategic and organizational issues below the surface, often the most important. Someone with whom you can establish a relationship of trust to address the personal and group aspects of the company.
That it does not pretend to think for you but to accompany you in the process of finding the necessary balance between the role you have in the organization and the person you are. That he does not provide proven formulas for success in other companies, but that he understands that competitive dynamics only serve “here and now” because although strategic designs are proposed to win the future, it will become a reality from today. That working together and deepening the relationship with you or with your team, the meaning of the business task becomes visible; making sense of diversity; discovering the cultural and organizational factors that stimulate innovation and creativity; that, in the words of Gary Hamel, his company be one of the "leaders of the revolution".
You have enough experience and you have the capacity to identify a consultant who does not think that he is omnipotent; that he is convinced that he is not the protagonist but an experienced companion, before whom one can reflect out loud, with whom to consider the contradictions and paradoxes of leading through others.
If you run a non-profit, non-business organization in public or non-governmental administration, you may face similar situations because, after all, you will have to make strategic decisions and you must lead human groups.
