[Speaker 2]
expression that culture eats strategy for breakfast, right? And I always, whenever I heard that expression, Barry, I thought to myself, oh that's great, so we're gonna build a good culture and everybody's just gonna sit around and be happy, but we're not gonna know what direction we're going in, right?

[Speaker 1]
And I think, while culture is critically important, and in fact, having the right culture for your strategy is gonna be pretty important, you still need to decide where you're going, you still need to understand who you're up against and what the market needs, and, you know, so I think it's still relevant. I don't think there's been a time in the world where people thought the market was moving slowly, right?

[Speaker 2]
I never understood the, you know, there's the Covey expression, like, you know, you get the right people on the bus, but then if the bus driver has no GPS, right, I used to say roadmap, now I say GPS, if the bus driver has no GPS, then you got right people on the bus, but it's going to the wrong destination, and strategy is the GPS, right?

[Speaker 1]
That's right, otherwise you end up with the Yogi Berra kind of quote, which says, if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there.

[Speaker 2]
That's it, that's it, and when you come to a fork in the road, take it, so, alright, let's talk about your, the definition of strategy, I was gonna say your definition, but there's one definition of strategy, what do you, how do you define strategy, and, you know, you're sitting with a CEO, and he describes a problem to you, and you say to him, that's a strategic problem, we can help you there, give us a definition.

[Speaker 1]
Well a lot of times it's really about figuring out where you want to go, one way I've heard it said is, that I like a lot is, is where are we going to play, and how are we going to win, and by that, the reason I like that is because part of what you have to decide is what you're not gonna do, right? I mean, one of the things that happens is gradually over time, people add these new initiatives, and they end up with a number of different initiatives, and then each one of them gets a little bit diluted, and then they're not as, they're not as focused, and they can't be as effective, so a lot of times that's the issue, is deciding what to stop doing, or what to really tightly focus on.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, and talk a little bit about, Barry, the difference between strategy, and then ultimately having the right pieces in place to implement a strategy, right? Do you sit back and advise CEOs, like listen, we could create this whole strategy for you, but you, there's no way you could execute on this now, so you need to scale it back, I mean, there's often a disconnect between what the strategy is and the ability of the firm to execute.

[Speaker 1]
I'd say that's exactly right. One of the very first projects I did as an independent, and this was quite a long time ago, was an organization with some really interesting technology for food production. It's now a lot more well-known, it's called Sous Vide, it's a frozen prepared approach.

They had launched off in seven or eight different directions, every kind of market that this might apply to, and what that meant is we weren't being very effective in any, so we had to spend some time getting them to think about which are the ones where the market's ready now, which are the ones that might be ready later, and which are the ones where the value proposition is the strongest, and let's take one or two of them and go there and take them out of the other markets, not necessarily forever, but for now, to really be able to build the solid core of the business and then build on it from there.

I found that with a number of clients, actually.

[Speaker 2]
And when you're assessing the overall market conditions and you look at the capabilities of the firm that's hired you, oftentimes a good consultant, because they have fresh eyes, can spot the pitfalls and the real opportunity right away. Do you find that you need to do in-depth research as much to support your hypothesis and convince the company to adopt it as much as you have to do to actually confirm what you've seen? So basically, your experience becomes what people pay for, but then you have to do research to support it because you won't get buy-in otherwise.

That's what I'm trying to say. Is that a condition that you've seen play out in your work with clients?

[Speaker 1]
Yes, I've seen it many times. And I think a big part of what I'm seeing is if I'm just telling them what I think, even if I have some experience, I probably don't have experience exactly in their field, for one. And so they view it as perhaps my opinion.

And if it's my opinion against their opinion, I'm pretty sure they'll prefer their opinion. It's been cultivated for a while. So it really does need the rigor and the analysis.

Even the work that I did when I had the experience was based on doing the analysis, figuring out the opportunity. The other thing I'd say too is that I haven't been just a consultant in my career. I have been on the other side of the desk.

I have been with P&L experience. I have had people working for me. So I understand what implementation is about as well.

So I think very much those are elements that I bring to it.

[Speaker 2]
What happens, Barry, when you're tasked with an engagement? They bring you in. They know your background.

They know you're perfect for the engagement. You're tasked with the engagement, but you know the business has no capability to live up to the plan that you're going to put together. Do you tell them up front?

Do you do initial discovery process and then try and present to them, hey, listen, this is what it's going to take. You tell me if you want to proceed. Or do you just do the engagement, turn it over to them and kind of clean hands, walk away?

What's your approach in that regard?

[Speaker 1]
Well, it's a little more between those kind of approaches. One of the things that I like to do is really make sure that my work is interactive. So I don't go off and then do my magic and bring them ta-da, here's your strategy.

I work with them. I work with their people. As they start to understand and see it, we're able to talk about what it needs, where that fits with them.

And if we think that they need to really build capabilities, first of all, they have to be convinced that it's a place they ought to go so that it's an investment worth making. And if it's going to take a while to build it, then we think that out a couple of years. And there have been others where there's been a real gap between what they want and where they are, in which case we call for a first phase.

We work on something to get them ready and allow them to build that for a while and ask them to come back if they've done that and they're still interested. And then we'll build onto it from there. So I do try to leave them with something that I know they can do something with it.

There's not much point in giving them a perfect strategy that they can't execute.

[Speaker 2]
Right, right. Have you had occasion to deliver the dead-on honest truth and that gets you fired?

[Speaker 1]
I've had to deliver dead-on honest truth. I can't say that I've been fired very often. I think I only really have one client who clearly didn't like where I was going and the project ended a bit early.

Other times, again, I have to be diplomatic and I don't want to be insulting. It's not that they're not intelligent. It's that when we really look at the facts, if I can convince them that there's a challenge here, a lot of times they'll say, well, can you help me get there?

So more often than not, I've had it well received, even though I am fairly often, it's not happy news that I'm bringing.

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, no, I've had that experience a couple of times where we did an engagement. This is back when I worked for Gallup for a number of years and this is back when I was at Gallup. We did some extensive research and the research was completely divergent from the leader's view of the world and in one particular case, the person said, well, this information can't get out or I'll get fired, so you're going to get fired first.

And I looked at him and I'm like, well, that seems fair.