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My usual approach to this column each month is to shine a spotlight on some aspect of a client engagement that is particularly intriguing or ‘cool’.
This month I want to face the spotlight a different direction. This column contains learning from inside PSG.
Being human, we talk about our clients. We talk about what we’ve learned from them and about them. We also talk about attributes we look for in clients. I thought you might like to know what we’ve said.
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Our CEO Babak Armajani put together these seven signs of a client who is ready for the hard work of transformation. If you fit this bill, give us a call today!
Seven signs of a serious Client
- Someone willing to challenge the organization with “unreasonable” or “impractical goals.” As the soviet empire was crumbling and the German Wall coming down, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl asked his Cabinet to prepare contingency plans for the reunification of East and West Germany. Their “accelerated” plans foresaw the possibility of complete reunification in 10 years. When the political opportunity presented itself, Kohl set a deadline for complete reunification in eight and a half months. They succeeded.
- Someone ready to invest his/her first dollars in change. Transforming organizations requires investment. Serious clients are willing to make that investment, even when they are in a budget crunch. Already strapped for cash and projecting a multi million dollar deficit, the Jeffco Public School Board was so committed to change that they were willing to begintheir 2006/07 budget by setting aside $3 million in a “Strategic Investment Fund” to make one time investments in change.
- Someone willing to invest his/her best people in change. Organizations going through transformation need to rebuild the bicycle even as they are riding it. That often means taking their best riders off the bike and putting them to work on rebuilding it. The Federal Student Aid initiated its transformation process by pulling around forty of its best workers from around the country together in DC and committing them full time to figuring out how to improve customer service.
- Strong personal involvement with the change. Public executives are very busy people. Just being a good administrator is a 150% job. Leading a public organization through change requires the executive to find a way to invest significant time, energy, and political capital in the change process. As Director of Iowa’s Department of Management and later as Governor Vilsack’s chief of staff, Cindy Eisenhauer always made time for the transformation agenda.
- Someone with a vision or a blueprint for change. Transformation is akin to putting a picture puzzle together. You pick up a piece and see where it fits. It is not a linear process. Thus, the leader has to be ready to create the picture so that people in the organization can all work on the puzzle together. A number of our clients have used a simple diagram built around the 5 C’s to communicate their vision and strategy for the organization’s future.
- Someone willing to take extinguishers away and let fires of change burn. Not all change comes from the top down. A transformational leader is willing to pursue change opportunistically. At Ecumen, innovation was defined as any practice that outperformed past practice. Then, leaders shone a spotlight on successful ideas generated from anywhere in the organization.
- Someone who invests in validating what is good about the past. I started this column by saying that I usually tell stories from inside client engagements. I do so because I love to learn from ‘on the ground’ experiences; because I hope a reader will steal an idea and run with it; and because I want to share – and hear back - so many stories of better results for citizens that their sheer volume takes our breath away.
Come. Let’s create some stories together!
Connie Nelson
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