Talk about the pain of change with clients

This month we have to discuss what so many professionals miss their opportunities and often surprises after the project has begun. They discussed the pain of change with clients. The problem is that very often your customers to their sinking ship, hoping that you download their sinking ships into smooth cruising mode again in one or two days, and often) for a competitive (ly small fee.

And if this is not the case (according to Dr. Edgar Schein, over 90% of theConsulting projects fail because of confidential events, not to debate and inaction) on the part of customers who had very often not responsible for advisers to the expected results. But who is in the driver's seat? You or the client? Who is the decision maker? No, is not it? Thus, final results may not be in your hands. And you must communicate to your customers.

But consultant responsible for the results of the projects of their clients is just as senseless asthat parents be solely responsible for their children's performance. Consultants, like parents, are not the ultimate decision makers.

You can not guarantee that your customers get out of bed in the morning let alone whether they or the use to reject your advice. In plain English: You are NOT responsible. The customer is.

Regardless of what parents for their children, regardless of how much they contribute to their children in order to achieve it, decide if the children aware ofengage in crime or drugs, is not that a Piepmatz parents can do about it. The responsibility for achieving results, and authority for decisions to come hand in hand. You can not separate the two.

By nature, humans are the unknown aspects of the change fear, and, interestingly, when the change process will be promoted to a smooth ride and a tendency to get clean with a steady gradient, some people agitated and jumps on the opportunity, but some people Special care will be exercised.

So, howthe military handle a total buy-in of new recruits? Read the next paragraph of General Patton's troops prepared for battle.

"You are going to die, not all die. Only two percent of you here today, in a great battle. Death is not feared. Death, in time, belongs to all people. Yes, it's every man, in his first fight anxiety. If he says he is not, he is a liar. "

The U.S. Navy SEAL unit, strongly supports the most intensive part of their training, known as "HellWeek. They tell potential recruits of all the pain and suffering they have endured to become adult members of one of the most respected teams in the American military machine.

And you know what, if people are mentally prepared for the emergency, they can better take it. And failure rate in the military is much lower than the project failure rate in the world of consulting.

In the world of professional services, there is the current situation, the desired situationand the unknown "swamp" customers will have to get to the "promised land to go."

The key is to tell our customers that there is a swamp full of alligators and mosquitoes, not a rose garden with colorful butterflies, which journey you will cross over into the promised land swamp like a challenging hike with blood, sweat and tears, but a pleasure cruise cute waitresses and celebrity hunks.

Customers know what is happening to them right now, and often a concept can and what can waitthem into the promised land, but still, they are scared to death of the sump. And since you often have many swamps and many promised lands were exceeded, you can tell your customers what they expect on the trip and what to take with them. You can tell them to take a gun and a knife, and let her make-up kits and iPods at home.

When I ran out of Hungary in 1988, no money and no English, I knew I was plastered in a quite a few stumbling blocks. I knew I could enddumped until they are deported immediately or in a refugee camp to live like a rat, until I have a chance to work would be found and will be released in the normal world (aka the rate race. Oh, those infernal bugs everywhere). Like me, many of my friends were fed with the communist system, but unlike me, in spite of knowing the beauty and benefits of the promised land, they found too scary to cross the swamp, and decided to stay.

Many potential customers are so. AndThe sooner they decide whether they are willing to cross the swamp with you, the better it is for both your piggy bank and health. Imagine several meetings, go write a proposal and then the prospect withdraws. A kind of "projectus interruptus" if a customer cancels before something "serious" happened. Arrrrrg!

So, during your first conversation you have described and evaluated stay the expense of customers, where are they now, and get the value thatPromised Land. This establishes your actual value, which is based on the tuition fees. (For more on this see "It's All About Your Guide service professionals" involved in recruitment, awareness and protection fees "http://www.di-squad.com/resources/its-all-about-your- value.html)

So now customers about the possibilities, they are waiting for the promised land of excitement, and mistakenly assume that you do all the necessary work and you actually wear them on their backs to the new destination. Thisprovides false expectations, and if something unexpected happens (not always), you get blamed for everything done, including the Spanish Inquisition.

So, let's start and communicate the pain of change.

Ask the prospect about their interests and concerns related to the change effort, and then elaborate on each item to the level of detail as necessary. Then bring what has been missed. If the outlook express concerns about mosquitoes only to the alligators. TellPerspectives when they step off the path, the swamp, it can swallow. These are not scare tactics, such as "If you do not buy, my fire alarm, your children burned alive and you will hear screaming, for the rest of your life." That depends. Here, you use fear to make a purchase decision.

Your prospects already have a purchasing decisions on their values. Everything you do is to just fill the details of what may or may not happen during the trip through the swamp. Take someTime to discover each other, all the perceived dangers. If they do not happen that's great, but if they do occur, and your clients are not properly prepared, they'll freak out like wounded animals, they can be totally unpredictable and you can be pretty deep yogurt. That's what some customers asking for a refund or threaten to bring them to justice. It can be quite unpleasant.

So remember, for a moment you are your first day at university.

"The people who you may feel a bit crowded right, but. Relax In a few months, half of you will get out of here. "

So understand, students, if they are willing to work off their ass, they will soon not without hope in hell that they get to pay tuition fees at the beginning of the course. And if they want to come back later, they have to pay again.

The other important point is to understand buyer that, before the situation improves, it will get worse. It is the same as the people shortly before his death, often seem to get betterBless, and then without much ado, singing and dancing irreversibly they kick the bucket.

Therefore, you must discuss the pain of change and also the conceptual agreement with the buyers. You need to know what they are about to get into. Remember, fear of failure is a major restraint force in the lives of people.

In most organizations, change takes place on five levels:

1. ASSET LEVEL: For industrial organizations are assets of the buildings, computer systems, production lines, whichFleet of company cars and the copier. For a professional service firm is its people. This is such a fundamental change in the purchase of a new copier. However, some people may insist on maintaining the old copier exist because they are accustomed.

2. ROAD MAP LEVEL: This is plans, systems and processes that organizations go from A to B and navigate effectively through the jungle of commerce throughout its life to make. The "roadmap" also includes policies, procedures, codes of conduct,Scripts and every piece of information that can be codified in written documents. Change seems to be at this level too easy, but at this level, we do not know whether people are at all interested in changing.

3. Capability Level: This is the skills and competencies of the people concerned organizations to produce what they produce. This includes both explicit (learned to work through memorization of information) and tacit (intuition, finesse, gut feeling, "ditch." Basically, cellularLevel knowledge) experience. Two police officers can use the same level of explicit knowledge, but the one who personally led numerous raids on drug operations, where the bullets flew significantly more tacit experience.

For this reason, it is big mistake to continue to rent to people (employees, contractors or consultants) on the basis of () explicit knowledge. I dare say, Donald Trump's assistant knows more about real estate agents than most out there who are certified to handle andregistered with any club that has something to do with real estate. The person can explicitly but implicitly astonishing astonishingly incompetent. My expertise is about 20% and 80% of explicit knowledge tacit information (intuition and gut feeling, ditch work, basically a cellular level knowledge).

The mistake here is that by people, training, managers expect instant improvement in performance of their people as soon as they return from the course. But people needTime, the new information will turn into new skills. For a doctor quite a long time passes between the first anatomy at medical school and the first real heart surgery. I have never seen a doctor, can the people work on one days coming to completion. A law graduate must be invited to the bar to practice. It can only happen in the world of commerce, that after the completion of a freshly minted MBA demands, and often a senior management position with a corner office receives a personalSecretary, some mind-numbing bonuses (for what?) And a company Mercedes.

4. INTENTION LEVEL: This is changing the driving force behind the initiative. It is fairly easy to change things, but to change people is a horse of a different color at all. We have discussed many times how important it is to include organizational goals and strategies with their personal goals, and this is the perfect place to see this approach in action. If they exist, people buy into the changerelatively easy (All right, let's factor in the general fear) of change, especially if they will see that all around them pass through the same changes.

For every desire for change, there is an opposing desire to keep the same things. At this point the best thing you can do is to find advantages and disadvantages to both situations.

5. LEVEL VISION: This is really the essence of the change effort. Many people say: "I want to start the workout," but very few,Who actually start to need higher-level reasons, we call it vision in order to actually start and maintain them in the long run. I know a company that relies on its website that the best IT company in the vicinity, while the President is encouraging people to half do repairs, so that they can return the milk and customers over and over again . He lives pretty high on the hog and works hard, how to explain to his people why there was no wage increase and again, can not afford the company,To pay premiums. Basically he is a corrupt lying SOB.

Post-Reading challenge

* Enjoy the view of your projects and try to see how often your customers are surprised and even shocked by count of unexpected setbacks. Have you ever been made responsible for these setbacks?

* After discussing the current and desired situations, like you could change about the possible pain on the basis of the above five levels?

* How can we communicate more effectively, that the creation ofdesired results, while with the client must be mutually accountable to each other, the 'client's sole responsibility, as he / she is the final decision is taken.

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