Our friend Art Burshy is still working as an interim manager.
And as any new manager he feels the need to make an impression, a need to change
Like dogs always feel the need to pee over any object on their way to mark their territory.
But Art resists; he knows that it is good to first know more about the service and the team before making any plans to change.
He does however get several calls every week by people congratulating him with his new job and offering 'help'.
Art first wondered how they all knew...but when asking to a recent caller he found out the truth was rather simple....
all these people had seen it on his LinkedIn profile and on other social media...
Although Art Burshy is not convinced by all the services being offered, one stood out; the company promised a methodology that could solve all Art's problems.
As a start it was already interesting that they 'knew' Art Burshy was facing problems, especially as Art had just arrived and did not even know himself.
So Art thought there were 2 options:
a) this was a ridiculous sales pitch, and he could have quite a laugh making fun of them, or
b) it actually works, and then you could not afford to miss out on it.
Art Burshy in general does not religiously believe in methodologies.
Sure, methodology can be useful when based on insight and experience. Main added value is that it provides you 'a structure of thinking' and a way to see whether you missed anything in your approach.
There are in Art's view however a few issues with methodology:
- they often become the leading and 'sexy' company goal (the Holy Grail), where they are just a tool to be used in the right way to achieve a true business goal. People then focus on implementation and completely lose track of reality and what they really should deliver to their clients
- when implemented too literally they become a rigid framework, they create bureaucracy and actually make people stop using the key element of working: common sense.
- methodologies are often poorly implemented, not enough adjusted to the specific company, by not so intelligent people and with a lack of understanding. And then those people conclude that 'the tool is no good'.
'No, you just professionally screwed it up yourself' is what Art Burshy would be happy to tell them.
Art also has a view of the types of methodologies, and he has given them 'easy' names:
A. Wrapped Common Sense methodologies
These are basically ideas and methodologies that any kid could think of, but they are branded with a marketing sauce to make them look better.
B. The Statistics Guru methodology
In this case someone has decided to analyse many companies, managers, success stories, f*ck-ups, put all these numbers in a tombola and hen looks at correlations. And the correlations become 'rules' or 'guiding principles' and before you know you have a religion based on these quantitative observations. These ideas often are correlations; tings that tend to occur in parallel, but not really representative for loking at what actually caused all these things to happen.
C. The Western Chop-it-up methodologies
In Western societies people have been raised with structures and certain mantras to address issues. What people get taught from young age is to put their structure on the world. And if it does not work? You need to push harder. Many methodologies are made by those people and they just cut the subject in pieces and describe how to change each piece, trusting that in the end - voila - the whole has been cured by changing all the pieces.
D The Mix-it-and-rename methodologies
And here we are with methodologies that combine multiple different and completely unrelated elements to form their own methodology. Like using Greek arche types to analyse company behaviour; as if the Greek arche types are not just a set of characters based on funny stories invented when the Greeks were having drinking parties.
Art Burshy also had the idea at some moment in time to create a methodology like this.
For example you could mix:
- Old Chinese wisdom and process thinking, adding Yin and Yang to the lives of people working in factories and large office floors
- Humour Concepts and Change Management, so at least people will have fun going through all the insane changes that companies go through nowadays, or
- kids language and coaching; and creating groups of kids to coach the boards of large companies. And would be fun to have CEOs and other big bosses explain their business to an 8 year old. Probably these kids would have more interesting questions than a regular company board.
Well, all very interesting of course, but in the end Art Burshy had the session with the company that promised to have the solution to all his problems.
It turned out quite fun, when Art asked 'So, as you can solve all my problems, maybe you can start by telling me which problems I actually have?'
This created a pretty puzzled expression on the consultants face, but he recovered and explained about statistics of all the problems that companies have. And how they had combined several concepts to build one that could be used anywhere. And the good things is, it comes with a computer program and an App...
Art just started laughing so loud and could not stop; this was just too hilarious.
After half an hour the consultants left, smiling with their mouth, but a puzzled frown on their face and a traumatised look in their eyes.
Sure, Art had wasted 30 minutes of his precious time, but at least he had a good laugh. And that is quite rare in business nowadays, isn't it...
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