5 Signs You Need a Thought Partner
In my many years of working with leaders of all kinds, I have come to especially admire those who are willing to confront the brutal facts. It isn’t much fun to have someone hold up a mirror and show you what is going on in your teams, process and systems that you cannot see, however it is essential to great leadership.
I call this thought partnership, or as one of my favorite CEOs calls it, the balcony view – two metaphors for the same thing: collaborating with an outside advisor who has deep knowledge of your industry and business but enough distance to be fully objective in their perspective of your team, your organization and its operation. This person, who could be a paid consultant or unofficial advisor, is in a unique position to reveal why you’re not achieving the success you expected from all your effort. It is a skill I’ve developed over many hard-won transformations, and it saves much pain, money and time. I ended up enjoying collaboration with a variety of consultants so much that at one point a CFO I was working with asked me if I could do anything without one! J It wasn’t meant as an insult, and I didn’t take it as one. That same CFO also told me I knew how to make an engagement pay off.
When I would work with consultants, I saw them as “leadership magnifiers.” I could lead a change effort with speed and without losing traction in the business. People thrive when they are learning and growing, and when your best talent thrives in your business, they stick with you. Bringing in consultants is a great way to support your team with collaborators who can help them expand their thinking and generate fresh solutions to the challenges at hand.
How do you know when you lack this balcony view? Imagine your business is a funnel. At the top, you’re pouring time, resources and energy into systems, process, departments and talent, expecting a beautifully blended stream of performance (aka operational excellence) to rush out. Instead, all you get is a trickle of missed opportunities. This leaves the CEO frustrated and perplexed: “I just don’t get it! How can we put so much in and get so little out? Why do my teams seem so misaligned? What is at the core of these issues?” Clearly there is a “marble” (or multiple ones) in the funnel, blocking successful outcomes. But where? Here are a few indications that it might be time to bring in a thought partner:
You have someone on your team whom everyone thinks is holding the whole place together. Believe it or not, this is a huge and all-too-common marble in the funnel - one I discovered the hard way. Knowledge is meant to be shared. If one person knows and understands things that no one else knows or understands, how can the team collaborate? How can you improve processes or systems? Once you look into the situation you may discover that this “irreplaceable lynchpin” isn’t even as competent or knowledgeable as everyone believed.
You have multiple “#1 priorities” and can’t devote sufficient time, attention and brainpower to all of them. Being in the weeds is the best way to lose sight of the big picture and easily miss processes, people and systems that are slowing you down. Also, even the most skilled CEO can’t be an expert in all things. It’s best to focus on those areas you know and delegate others to someone with the appropriate expertise.
Your project teams are tapped out or running behind. You might begin an engagement simply to secure additional manpower for a project. A great consultant will not only help resolve the issue at hand. They can also identify more systemic concerns as well. In a classic article in the Harvard Business Review in the 1980s, Arthur N. Turner explained how bringing in a consultant to solve specific problems can (and actually should) result in addressing higher goals such as permanently improving organizational effectiveness.
You’re seeing diminished returns on your recruiting investment. Talent is crucial to success, as long as it’s the right talent for your needs. If you’re hiring to resolve superficial gaps without fully understanding root causes, your team, no matter how talented, will lack the capabilities needed to take your strategy to the next step.
You sense in your gut where the problem lies even though you lack objective proof. This is a tricky situation, especially for a newly appointed CEO. I recall a discussion with one CEO who realized upon arriving at his new company that the dysfunction ran deeper than he thought. It turns out that the team he inherited were being less than candid about inadequacies in the business they lacked the know-how to resolve. With so much to tackle, he needed an objective outsider to uncover the truth.
Each of these situations is a red flag indicating that the CEO may lack a balcony view, and they can arise from a number of situations: multiple fires pulling their attention in many directions, a team that is set in its ways aka moral hazard and possibly less than untruthful, or longstanding assumptions that mask root causes. In these cases, a skilled and knowledgeable thought partner is well positioned to find the marble blocking the funnel and remove it, allowing your investment, time and energy produce the results you expect and need to achieve your organization’s goals.