Coaches and ConsultantsThe Perfect Biz Match process can provide consultants, coaches, and managers with a shared language, a collective vision, and a common format for discovery. When I introduce the business matching process in my own consulting work, I have found that a clear mutual understanding quickly develops. In addition, the models and language of the business matching process naturally stimulate the exploration of options for organizational designs, cultures, and operations. Furthermore, the concepts of business matching provide an easily-accessible model for making decisions and planning strategy. The business matching process also creates a framework for providing feedback to managers on their leadership skills.
Market information is vital to any organization, yet the kind of market information needed to make wise decisions is different for each organizational archetype. Thus, marketing consultants need to be conversant with the organizational implications of each market archetype. Similarly, organizational consultants need to be conversant with the market implications of each organizational type.
In using the business matching process, coaches and consultants need to:
- Introduce the business matching process early on in any professional relationship. This can then become the ground on which everything else is built - or, alternatively, a backdrop against which other tools and concepts can be productively employed.
- Develop a clear understanding of where an organization, its market(s), and its products and/or services fall on the archetype grid. This needs to be done as early in the relationship as possible.
- Understand that the business matching process adds to - and is not meant to replace - other tools and ideas.
As they use the business matching process, Coaches and Consultants need to avoid or address these pitfalls:
Ignoring the organizational implications of strategic decisionsDespite rhetoric to the contrary, many consulting firms have no real perspective from an organizational point of view. Their focus is typically on either strategy or operations; they are most concerned with plans, processes, activities, finances, markets, products, numbers of people, etc. Obviously these are very important parts of any enterprise; but organizational structure and culture are at least as important as all of the other concerns put together. Truly effective interventions involve both the technical and the human sides of an organization, and address them together, as a symbiosis.
The difficulties of measurementIntervening in an organization's culture and structure is a lot less measurable and concrete than intervening in operations. In addition, it demands a view of the whole system, and an understanding of the interdependence of all of its parts. This is often not appreciated by clients. Yet the lack of such a view is one of the main reasons why large-scale interventions often fail (or create many new problems).
Fear of the organizational implications of one-to-one assistanceMany coaches and consultants work at the sub-group level. They coach managers; assist in team-building; train departments in needed skills; or help with specific programs such as process redesign. Some become temporary parts of the existing system. These people are usually oblivious to the implications of their work in terms of the larger organizational system. Indeed, most do not wish to know, or be influential, beyond the specific tasks they are hired to perform.
Yet when coaching a manager or redesigning a process, the consultant needs to understand the current business match (or mismatch), so they can best assist their client in performing the idiosyncratic tasks most appropriate for that particular type of market and organization.
For example, imagine that you are counseling a manager in a warrior company who is under great stress because she is not comfortable in such a rigid environment. If you knew nothing about organizational archetypes, you might counsel her to speak with her boss and try to create a plan for making her situation less rigid. This plan would of course fail, however, because what would be good for her would be bad for the organization. Eventually she would probably leave the company on her own, but with much resentment toward her boss - and perhaps with a reputation for being a complainer and a weakling.
In contrast, your knowledge of the organizational archetypes would enable you to quickly see that this manager is simply in the wrong type of organization. The rigidity that so bothers her is appropriate for her warrior enterprise, and should not be changed to suit her. Rather, she should seek out a ruler or pioneer organization, which will offer her more latitude in her action and decisions. And when she does leave her current job, it will be without resentment, regret, or dishonor.
Managers and organizations that view strategic planning as short-term business planning dressed up with highbrow wordsMany OD interventions rely heavily on client information and processes to arrive at strategic goals and plans for improvement. Clients use many excellent tools to create this information; however, without the business matching process as a complement, the context for deciding on a strategic direction may be inadequate. To create a truly strategic plan, it is imperative that the market be understood in relation to the kind of organization that can best succeed in it.
Seeing business matching as a one-time event rather than as a processEvaluating an organization against its market(s) doesn't happen just once. Markets, customer needs, and competition are all changing constantly; macro-changes also occur as organizations, products, and services mature and journey from one archetype to another. Thus consultants and coaches must emphasize that the business matching process needs to occur regularly, if not continuously.
Do not assume that an organization will "get it right†once and for all by going through the process a single time. The business matching process is a long-term commitment - and an integral element in an organization's long-term success.
