-: I really enjoy solving problems.
I think that's what I'm honored to be able to do.
I facilitate a conversation between people
who normally don't get a chance to talk to each other,
or if they do, not well,
and allow the system to dialogically solve for itself.
And it's an art, in a way, but I do believe
that people, at an organization that might be stuck,
have the ability to solve their own problems.
They just might need a little help getting there.
And so traditional consulting might be a little different.
They might come in and be a little more prescriptive
and say, Hey, Mr. Customer, Mr. Client,
this is what I think you need to do.
And that 30-page report gets shelved.
And it's a binder in someone's desk
or on a bookshelf somewhere that never gets read again,
and there's no buy-in in the execution.
But if you take the client and the customer along
from defining the problem all the way
to implementing a refined solution, they own it,
and you're there to hold the space,
to allow them to have that conversation.
I learned that here at Western Connecticut State.
And that role, I think, is much more successful long-term,
particularly in supply chain where things can be so fluid.
The hardest part about the job
is level setting expectations.
I think there are times where folks
have some sort of expectation that they're going
to hire a consultant with an MBA,
and they're just gonna come in
and immediately solve this problem and make it go away.
And the reality is, and the consultants, I have particularly
learned this over time, that without the buy-in,
and without the support of that executive
or of that business leader trying to solve this problem,
the implementation will likely not be successful.
So early on, it's critical to level set expectations,
and it's a challenge that you can learn to overcome.