systematicHR

As a consultant, I’m often tasked not only with putting an approach together to solve a problem, but actually identifying the problem altogether.  It always amazes me that I’ll go in to do a project that has already been sold, and the client is tackling the wrong problem, or at least putting projects in the wrong order.

I’ve been asking the question to HR executives for quite a few years, “what keeps you up at night.”  It’s actually one of those random sales type questions that usually tends to inspire quite thought provoking conversation.  At its roots, you’re really asking an executive what is most important to them, but in a way that does not implicate any sort of business stack ranking of priorities.  “What keeps you up at night?” is really about both importance, urgency and personal priorities, and often times, the answers to this question will yield insight into what the core win would be for that particular executive.  What we really try to do as consultants is to figure out what our clients really want and to execute on it.  This is not to say that consultants have to be the “yes” people that we are often accused of, but that we simply should be solving the problem at hand, not a problem that lacks importance, urgency and personal significance for the key stakeholder.

Another wonderful question that I heard recently (I wish I could credit it, but I don’t remember where I heard it) is “what are you spending your calories on?”  I think this one is more of a tactical discovery question, but could be used with both executives and mid-level managers or directors as well.  I like this one because it’s not just about asking where the work is in the current project load, but also asks where the process inefficiencies are within the organization.  “Where are your calories?” can also imply significant waste or organizational problems.

At the end of the day, the discussions that these two questions lead to can greatly help me understand both the personal and business environment of the key stakeholder, and address the right problem in the right order.  It’s wasteful in my opinion to tackle a project and not have the correct pre-planning done in advance.