Listen n' Lead

- Cash Nickerson

Some business leaders have trouble understanding their company, its culture, and the participants. You might think this is only true when a new leader steps into a new role. Not so.

I have both observed leaders employ consultants and employed consultants myself at various times in my nearly 35-year career. The assignment? Tell us why we are not achieving more. Why are we not hitting goals? How can we work better together? Why are we losing good people to the competition? Why is not [our] morale better? How can we create a more dynamic culture?

Those of us who are leaders are always thirsty for improvement. Complacency is the enemy. When we get stuck, we go outside the organisation for the answers.

There is no shame in seeking answers from outside the organisation. Seeking external help is a healthy reaction when we do not understand something we are witnessing, or when we want to change something we do see. The quest to be a better leader and improve organisational results, culture, and morale is a journey. A consultant is like a guide on that journey. But how much of that journey do we artificially create? How much complexity is self-inflicted? How many of the answers are right in front of us, or within those around us?

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard,” is a quote from one of my favourite childhood stories and movies, The Wizard of Oz. At the end of the movie, Dorothy wakes from a dream where she is chaperoned by a scarecrow (looking for a brain), a tin man (looking for a heart), and a lion (looking for courage) as she tries to get back home to Kansas. These external heroes (consultants if you will) accompany her as she tries to get home.