The Global Marketplace

Intellectual influences: Physics, Statistics and Consulting

Two of my favorite intellectual pursuits are quantum physics and the human mind's perception--read misperception--of statistical information.  Both of these fields have one common factor (at least to me) and that is their counterintuitive view of the world.  Looking differently at the world has become more important as my consulting career evolves--why?

1.  Background.  Schrodinger's Cat refers to the fascinating world of quantum mechanics, where the world works in ways which strain our concept of reality as it is usually described in classical physics.  To summarize Dr. Schrodinger's experiment, how we look at something determines what actually happens to the event (please forgive the glib response, my physicist friends!)  While the reasons for this are not fully explained by modern physics, we do know that this answer strains our mental frame of the world.  Nassim Taleb's books (The Black Swan being the most recent) describe the mind's misuse of statistics, which I have looked at in earlier posts.

2.  Mental ruts.  As a consultant, looking at problems in a different light is frequently the reason for my existence.  What took me a while to learn is how to look at problems from a unique point of view.  When younger I would struggle with finding a new view of the problem which usually led to pointless navel gazing.  What I learned through time and experience is this.  The first step to seeing something differently is to spot the mental grooves, or ruts, driving the problem.  What preconceived notions led to the situation?  All of us, to save time and mental energy, have mental patterns that usually serve us well but sometimes get us into trouble.  Spot these trends and you will find yourself thinking like Schrodinger and Taleb and provide the different answer.

What do you see at 30,000 feet?

As a consultant you hear many phrases used to concisely express certain ideas.  I find these phrases amusing because they frequently convey the wrong idea about what happens in organizations.  This is a result of how we process information but that issue is for another day.  Right now I want to look at the so-called "view from the 30,000 feet" or the perspective of those most senior executives.  The image is one of contemplation free from daily myopic problems.  This is not what happens and as a consultant you need to keep this in mind.  Two reasons why this is so.

1.  The guy in the waiting room.  Senior executives frequently get stuck dealing with the issues kicked up to them by the next level down, or those with the access to hang around outside their offices.  If you spend a day with the senior executive you will see these direct reports hanging around several times a day trying to get their attention (granted geographic proximity can be an issue at play).  This leads to the senior leader spending too much time refereeing problems and doing what the rest of us do at lower levels.  The closer relationships typically found at this level also come into play and crowd out the time needed for long-term planning..

2.  Old habits die hard.  Few of us can make the mental switch from dealing with daily problems to suddenly thinking strategically.  This is by far the biggest problem as human nature is tough to fight.  While training and education are often the key to making this transition the blunt truth is that you either have or don't have this ability to think strategically; it is that simple.  Good strategic thinkers have a track record of always stepping back to analyze the bigger picture, no matter where they are in an organization.  This is very different from Dilbert-style griping and as such hard to spot.  If you can see this quality in yourself, that is a rare gift and you should count yourself lucky.

Reading the customer

I found that running a small firm puts a premium on truly understanding your customers.  While this is also true for large organizations, it is more crucial for the smaller firm where survival depends on knowing your clients.  What does this mean?  Any insights beyond the obvious?  Two points, the second of which follows from the first.

Know the need.  Understanding the service you provide your client is so obvious that it pains me to repeat it.  Go beyond this to have a fundamental grasp of the need underlying what you do for your customer.  Does he worry about his competition and do you solve this problem for him?  Do his clients in turn keep him awake at night and to help with the solution?  Understanding these concerns, frequently unstated, allows you to give the client what he needs before he asks for it.  This is hard, as learning this side of a person requires time on target that is usually not billable.

Ignore the noise.  If you do the above and understand the client's true needs then you can put everything else in perspective.  For example, suppose the client gets edgy and emotional at the end of each quarter and snaps at everyone around him (like you).  Understanding this and what you do for him allows you to just ignore the outbursts as unrelated to your business.  In short, knowing what is truly important allows you to separate the noise from the important "music" for your business.  This allows better peace of mind and keeps you focused.