Nice one. Here is one more alignment instance: interview results. I was in a meeting with the CEO of a food&beverage company and made the mistake of just highlighting the negatives I heard about the client company in the interviews. It backfired… the CEO said “are we then not doing anything right?”. Aligning the CEO and his team on what they were going to hear before the meeting would have gone a long way…
Well, something very similar happened in a recent project. We were presenting the result of a gap assessment whitout a previous alignment with the main stakeholder (the right hand of the CEO, not the CEO itself) although the report was presented and accepted by the organisation PL and th Sponsors. The project has been halted with (it seems to me excuse). Thank you Henirich for you very valuable suggestions !!!
On my first day in a team (german commercial bank), as an external, the internal teamlead , a choleric person, dressed down the guy presenting in front of the whole room: "Who challengend that document for you ? " "Challenging" slides was the term for 4-eyes-principle for all slides, even before the alignment process. That poor guy just had worked through the early dawn to get the slides ready and did not have the time yet to get his slides "challenged". It was an interesting experience to work with a choleric team lead but not something I plan on repeating.
Nice Video! Agree that surprising your seniors might not be a good idea. However, it seems a little like a waste of everyone’s time to align everything with internal and client leadership before the meeting, ending up in circles, instead of actually having an open discussion with alle the stakeholders in the meeting (what the meeting is designed for in the first place, as one could think). It does not seem very practical that the PL has to flip between partner and client instead of them joining together for a talk, just in order to avoid anyone being surprised in front of the other. But I guess one has to adapt to the world as it is …
At first sight, this seems to be the obvious disadvantage of this approach and I agree, in a perfect world this shouldn’t be necessary. However, at some point I just changed my view on this to make my life easier, because eventually you reach your goals faster, if you get the decisions you want in these kind of meetings. In my experience, you loose the most time when you get sent back and have to re-work or „add details“, which is often times just code for „I just don’t want it“.
Trust me its not wasted time. If you are unsure if at least 50% of the clients seniors aprove your key results before a strategic meeting or a project final you should rescedule. This is not a scientific talk. Your clients seniors need to be briefed every day, just like your PL....not necessarily with the same information.
Alignement and getting buy in is critical to any successful engagement. Essential tool in "influencing without authority". Regular showcases is also a good technique to ensure frequent opportunities for alignment. Insightful and practical advice as always!
3:00 in my humble opinion. 4:05 alignment is a big topic. 4:50 no one likes to be surprised especially not in front of colleagues. this is just bad because that makes that person looks bad: uninformed, unawared. 5:30 not aligning BEFORE important meetings is generally considered unprofessional 7:05 some appropriate workshop formats or make them feels like they are part of the solution. 7:20 Properly take the time in 1 or 2 weeks before this very important meeting, you meet all these people one on one, and you quide them through the documents. It's not ready yet but at least the rough outline, the key results you want to share. It is a pain when the clients agree but not the internal leadership and vice versa. 9:00 think: am i the right person to present the result.
In short, before going into a critical meeting, you want to make sure you're confident in the outcome by gaining the support of all (or as many as you can) of the key stakeholders before you even step into the meeting. The one additional point I would make - on the topic of managing conflicting views from different stakeholders during the pre-meeting engagement process. The most ideal situation would be to negotiate a solution through that engagement process, but sometimes you can't manage to do so. In these scenarios, I have found that the meeting becomes a useful mechanism to get the conflicting stakeholders to agree on a way forward.
Hi Heinrich, great video! What can we do to reduce/avoid going around in circles too many times with key stakeholders and their feedback? I noticed this never ending feedback loop happening in my latest project and was curious if you had any advice. Thank you!
I left one of your glorified firms as i felt we created very little value and missed the timeframe to gain some actual oparazional experience . Most of my old college's either ended in some weird startup or in a position they could have gotten without a consulting background way earlier..... part of my hatred against strategy consulting especially in the big firms comes from the brainwashing one endures during internal training qnd the fact that everybody feels like he has an iq of 150... i wish i would have gotten such well present advice ... this is really valuable content, even if it seems trivial once you know it! Another pro tip keep two backupslides with a challenging analysis that you have not shared..... but which reassures your PL and the client seniors of the key results you worked out together. Make it seem like you prpated those just recently . Easy way to shine without pisding anybody off.
Nice video Heinrich! I'm now in one of the project going through familiar situation. Already was final presentation for the client, and it went well (at least for senior level, not sure about middle :) ). But in the end client want to stay on status quo as I see it. The client has a strategy, and we provide solutions based on it, we also had several meetings with analysis of the existing situation and bad forecasts of not changing, but ... it stuck. Why do you think it is so? In my point of view: - the client don't use its own strategy and don't build its monthly/weekly plans to achieve objectives and the goal of the strategy - the client uses reactive approach in everyday work - the client has lack of trust to the lower divisions of the organization (senior management don't see capacity in middle level to deliver proposed solutions) - the client thinks in terms of expediency (political), but not strategy :( What to do? Do you think it would be good idea to say it to them?
Fun fact! There’s a lovely Japanese word for doing this: Nemawashi. The literal translation is “turning the roots” and it originally came from the preparation you would do before transplanting a tree.
This is interesting. I know the problem and survived situations like this very often. We improved the alignment process and got better meeting results. However, the end-result from a technical solution almost always sucked. Because senior management in companies with this kind of horrific culture knows absolutely shit all. After being left with properly aligned, but horrifically chosen scenarios, I came to the conclusion that senior management in large companies almost always consists out of complete intellectual retards with narcissistic character traits and gigantic ego problems. Very rarely did I struggle with senior engineers, senior solution architects or senior SMEs. Because they mostly know what they’re talking about. Modern business culture is absolute cancer. One can adapt to that. Or get out of it.
Learn to create PowerPoint presentations like consultants from McKinsey, BCG, Bain:
link.firmlearning.com/slides
CONZAULTING HUMA!
Nice one. Here is one more alignment instance: interview results. I was in a meeting with the CEO of a food&beverage company and made the mistake of just highlighting the negatives I heard about the client company in the interviews. It backfired… the CEO said “are we then not doing anything right?”. Aligning the CEO and his team on what they were going to hear before the meeting would have gone a long way…
Been following your page for a while but this is by far one of the most important videos I´ve seen thus far! Looking forward to applying these tips!
Thank you for your leadership on this initiative.
- Best regards, Tama
The number 1 lesson in change management: involve people, get them on board, collectively develop solution, only then present as final solution.
Well, something very similar happened in a recent project. We were presenting the result of a gap assessment whitout a previous alignment with the main stakeholder (the right hand of the CEO, not the CEO itself) although the report was presented and accepted by the organisation PL and th Sponsors. The project has been halted with (it seems to me excuse).
Thank you Henirich for you very valuable suggestions !!!
On my first day in a team (german commercial bank), as an external, the internal teamlead , a choleric person, dressed down the guy presenting in front of the whole room: "Who challengend that document for you ? " "Challenging" slides was the term for 4-eyes-principle for all slides, even before the alignment process. That poor guy just had worked through the early dawn to get the slides ready and did not have the time yet to get his slides "challenged". It was an interesting experience to work with a choleric team lead but not something I plan on repeating.
Nice Video! Agree that surprising your seniors might not be a good idea. However, it seems a little like a waste of everyone’s time to align everything with internal and client leadership before the meeting, ending up in circles, instead of actually having an open discussion with alle the stakeholders in the meeting (what the meeting is designed for in the first place, as one could think). It does not seem very practical that the PL has to flip between partner and client instead of them joining together for a talk, just in order to avoid anyone being surprised in front of the other. But I guess one has to adapt to the world as it is …
At first sight, this seems to be the obvious disadvantage of this approach and I agree, in a perfect world this shouldn’t be necessary. However, at some point I just changed my view on this to make my life easier, because eventually you reach your goals faster, if you get the decisions you want in these kind of meetings. In my experience, you loose the most time when you get sent back and have to re-work or „add details“, which is often times just code for „I just don’t want it“.
Trust me its not wasted time. If you are unsure if at least 50% of the clients seniors aprove your key results before a strategic meeting or a project final you should rescedule.
This is not a scientific talk. Your clients seniors need to be briefed every day, just like your PL....not necessarily with the same information.
Oh politics!!!!! It should be a class in university.
Alignement and getting buy in is critical to any successful engagement. Essential tool in "influencing without authority".
Regular showcases is also a good technique to ensure frequent opportunities for alignment.
Insightful and practical advice as always!
Good video, but it demonstrates appallingly poor leadership if senior leaders do not explain to the more junior member of staff where they went wrong.
Another pivotal offering. Masterful work Heinrich!
3:00 in my humble opinion.
4:05 alignment is a big topic.
4:50 no one likes to be surprised especially not in front of colleagues.
this is just bad because that makes that person looks bad: uninformed, unawared.
5:30 not aligning BEFORE important meetings is generally considered unprofessional
7:05 some appropriate workshop formats or make them feels like they are part of the solution.
7:20 Properly take the time in 1 or 2 weeks before this very important meeting, you meet all these people one on one, and you quide them through the documents. It's not ready yet but at least the rough outline, the key results you want to share. It is a pain when the clients agree but not the internal leadership and vice versa.
9:00 think: am i the right person to present the result.
In short, before going into a critical meeting, you want to make sure you're confident in the outcome by gaining the support of all (or as many as you can) of the key stakeholders before you even step into the meeting.
The one additional point I would make - on the topic of managing conflicting views from different stakeholders during the pre-meeting engagement process. The most ideal situation would be to negotiate a solution through that engagement process, but sometimes you can't manage to do so. In these scenarios, I have found that the meeting becomes a useful mechanism to get the conflicting stakeholders to agree on a way forward.
Heinrich isnt ex-McKinsey; Mckinsey is ex-Heinrich
Hi Heinrich, great video! What can we do to reduce/avoid going around in circles too many times with key stakeholders and their feedback? I noticed this never ending feedback loop happening in my latest project and was curious if you had any advice. Thank you!
Dear Mr.Heinrich,
Can you recommend us some good books to learn about Corporate Strategy and Consulting skills?
I left one of your glorified firms as i felt we created very little value and missed the timeframe to gain some actual oparazional experience . Most of my old college's either ended in some weird startup or in a position they could have gotten without a consulting background way earlier..... part of my hatred against strategy consulting especially in the big firms comes from the brainwashing one endures during internal training qnd the fact that everybody feels like he has an iq of 150... i wish i would have gotten such well present advice ... this is really valuable content, even if it seems trivial once you know it!
Another pro tip keep two backupslides with a challenging analysis that you have not shared..... but which reassures your PL and the client seniors of the key results you worked out together. Make it seem like you prpated those just recently . Easy way to shine without pisding anybody off.
Super valuable insights as always, thank you Heinrich!
Nice video Heinrich! I'm now in one of the project going through familiar situation. Already was final presentation for the client, and it went well (at least for senior level, not sure about middle :) ). But in the end client want to stay on status quo as I see it. The client has a strategy, and we provide solutions based on it, we also had several meetings with analysis of the existing situation and bad forecasts of not changing, but ... it stuck.
Why do you think it is so?
In my point of view:
- the client don't use its own strategy and don't build its monthly/weekly plans to achieve objectives and the goal of the strategy
- the client uses reactive approach in everyday work
- the client has lack of trust to the lower divisions of the organization (senior management don't see capacity in middle level to deliver proposed solutions)
- the client thinks in terms of expediency (political), but not strategy
:(
What to do?
Do you think it would be good idea to say it to them?
Completely agree. Delivered with more passion than your other videos.
Another great Video, thanks!
more on this would be great!
Amazing video, Heinrich!🙌
another great video! thanks heinrich!
grossen dank
Fun fact! There’s a lovely Japanese word for doing this: Nemawashi. The literal translation is “turning the roots” and it originally came from the preparation you would do before transplanting a tree.
Hi welches Soziale Engagement ist empfohlen um einen Vorteil zu haben? Kannst du ein Video dsrüber machen bitte
Man sollte sich nicht sozial engagieren, nur um irgendwelche Vorteile bei Bewerbungen zu haben...
Du kannst meinen Rasen mähen
@@cw2820 Du willst ja auch nicht bei MBB arbeiten
@@armageddonleonidas1659 Mein lieber, ich bin schon lange im Beruf ;-)
@@cw2820 bei MBB?
This is interesting. I know the problem and survived situations like this very often. We improved the alignment process and got better meeting results.
However, the end-result from a technical solution almost always sucked. Because senior management in companies with this kind of horrific culture knows absolutely shit all.
After being left with properly aligned, but horrifically chosen scenarios, I came to the conclusion that senior management in large companies almost always consists out of complete intellectual retards with narcissistic character traits and gigantic ego problems.
Very rarely did I struggle with senior engineers, senior solution architects or senior SMEs. Because they mostly know what they’re talking about.
Modern business culture is absolute cancer. One can adapt to that. Or get out of it.