Butting Heads With Experts
Haresh Shah
My ex-girlfriend Susan (Serpe) was a successful management consultant. And yet, I never quite understood what it was exactly that she did. Once in a self-deprecating mood, she told me a story of three consultants, which has probably been told and re-told or perhaps not.
A large international corporation in need of a consultant invites proposals from some of the top professionals in the industry. From the huge pile of applicants, they have boiled down the list to the TOP three that seem most likely to fulfill their needs. They are to be interviewed by the CEO himself. He seats them down around the conference table in his office.
‘Good morning to you all. And congratulations for making it to the top three. That’s quite an achievement, considering that we had received more than a hundred offers. You guys are the crème de la crème and it would be an honor for our company to work with any one of you. Unfortunately, all we have is only one position open, so here goes it – the final round. I do not wish to take up much of your valuable time, so without much a do, I’ll come right to to the point. Before we decide, I only have one simple question to ask of you, which is: Can you please tell me, what time is it? Confused only momentarily, the three realize it’s one of those trick questions. Everyone could see clearly on the wall clock in the CEO’s office that its 2:30 in the afternoon. The first of them clears his throat.
‘We all know that right now it’s 2:30 in the afternoon central standard time here in Chicago. But it’s also 3:30 in New York, 1:30 in Denver and 12:30 in the afternoon in California.’
‘Excellent. I like it that you see the time in a broader perspective of the entire country and not only from where we sit here in the Midwest.’ He shifts his gaze to the consultant sitting next to him. A slight smile crosses his lips as he begins to answer.
‘Well, my colleague here is absolutely right. We no longer can look at the time in the narrow confines of where we are currently. But since you’re an international organization, we need to go beyond the confines of the United States and look at the global time. For example, when it’s 14:30 here in Chicago, it’s 21:30 in the Western Europe and 03:30 in the morning the next day in Hong Kong.’ The CEO is obviously impressed by the second consultant’s world view of his business venture and hands out appropriate appreciation to him with an encouraging friendly smile while shifting his gaze to the third and the final candidate, who seems to be somewhat lost in her thoughts. Feeling the pointed gaze upon herself, she puts down her memo pad filled with scribbles and doodles and a series of Xs and Os, gently putting her pen on top of the pad, plants her elbows firmly on the table, rests her chin on the bridge of her entwined fingers, she levels her gaze with that of the CEO’s and smoothly lets out.
‘Well, what time you want it to be?’
‘Guess, who got hired?’ Asks Susan with the cutest dimpled smile, which can only be erased with a kiss. So that’s what she does!
I wish one of the consultants I had to deal with were as sweet and sexy and as professional. In fact, the consultants I was subjected to were all men, dodgy and full of themselves. Pontificating, pretending and patronizing bastards. I have had one too many brush with the bunch of them and as a result had come to disdain most of them. I can sincerely say that there was no love lost between them and me when and if we were forced to cross paths.
Some of my contempt for the consultants came from my days at the GATF, where I got to experience first hand how intimidated the people were when we walked in to audit their plants. A couple of total strangers are there to observe and analyze and report on them. Everyone is nervous, trying to be on their best behavior and therefore not being their natural selves. And that’s what most of the consultants are counting on.
There was a phase when us Playboy managers were made to attend a series of consulting sessions with the so called experts on the modern management. The first one of such surveys titled Management Practices and Tactics Feedback Report, had me placed as one of the company’s most popular managers or as John Mastro put it, I’m not as damn popular as you’re. The very man who had hired me, based on his gut feeling and some feedback from the plant supervisor at the printing company. John had his ways of doing things, and yet, no one would argue that he was one of the best in the industry. But unfortunately, that’s not how the young consulting Turks saw it.
The second set of consultants focused on the inter-departmental synergy and reported me to be not a team player. (read, I didn’t fall at their feet and touch their toes with reverence!) Because I refused to fall for their ruse of finding faults in my relationship with my direct reports. The conversation went something like this:
‘You mean to say you have absolutely no conflict with one or more of the people who report directly to you?’
‘Of course I do too. When you work with a group of people day in and day out, some conflicts are bound to happen. Like my good old mother would say: when you throw silverware together, they also make noise. But nothing the sort that the two of us involved can not resolve between ourselves.’
‘Well?’ The leader of the consulting team points his gaze at me. I can tell, he doesn’t like my answer. Years later, I would face a similar gaze from another such consultant, who didn’t like my answer to his: If you could change one thing in your life, what would it be? ‘Nothing!’ was my answer. Because I am one of those people who has realized that you can’t turn back the clock – or make things un-happen that have already happened. But to use the corporate/consultants cliché, going forward, play the cards you have been dealt the best as you can.
‘Nothing?’
In the corporate world and in the consultant speak, this would be sloughed off disdainfully as status quo. A BIG NO NO. Even though one of Hugh M. Hefner’s favorite axioms was, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Another was Why do we need to reinvent the wheel? Whereas, for most of the consultants, I felt the motto was: Never mind if it ain’t broke, let’s break it and then we’ll fix it.
‘You know Haresh, with your experience of years, you can actually help your colleagues sitting around the table!’ The message was clear. Smug and sarcastic and self-righteous. My answer: If I understand it right, you want me to have problems so that you can fix them? I look across the table at my boss – Bill Stokkan. Even in his attempt to remain neutral, I could read in his face that it was okay. It nevertheless earned me the reported reputation of not a team player.
●●●
Up until yesterday, I had completely forgotten about the days and the days a whole bunch of us spent cooped up at the Drake Hotel’s Astor Room participating in what they called the Ideation sessions. It was basically what normal people call Brain Storming. But there is no consulting if not for buzz words and euphemisms to make things sound important. The fact that I had even forgotten all about it and don’t remember even a word of what conspired during those days, in itself proves that whatever ideas the team of the consultants threw at us were ever seen worth putting into practice. The sessions lasted so many long days that we had to have an official break of a day or so to go back to our offices and make sure that the barn wasn’t burning in our absence. What my staff was curious about was: what was it that we talked about for so long? When I gave them a run down on what was it all about, one of them comes up with: sounds more like Idiation to me. Bravo!
●●●
The session I remember the most and could have even been fired for my impulsive response happened in then Playboy offices on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. It was to focus on our international businesses which included product licensing, magazine publishing and the video/television divisions. A well renowned international consulting firm was hired and a team of experts presided by their famous president, lined the opposite side of the conference table. All of our international divisions had achieved various degrees of success in the markets away from home but at this point having already reached the saturation point and/or reached the point of marginal returns, we are experiencing bit of a lull. Let alone the changing market conditions, competition and the altering dynamics of economies of an individual country. But there could have been factors that had escaped our scrutiny. Hence the consultants. The guys facing us were supposed to be the expert international hands with more intimate knowledge of the international markets. For my division, the focus was going to be Japan.
Each of us divisional heads had prepared our own presentations and delivered them one by one, which was basically our own analysis that included input and cooperation of our partners from around the world. I made my presentation with all facts and figures. The team of experts seemed diligently to be making notes in their legal size yellow pads, looking ever so attentive and contemplative. We thought with the intent of addressing the problem areas to discuss further and then suggest some practical solutions – things we may have missed.
Instead, during the second round when my turn came, their Japanese expert shuffles the papers in front of him, puts the pile down in a neat square and shoots: So Haresh, what do you think went wrong and what can you do to correct it? Didn’t I just give him the whole nine yards of what was happening and the measures we have taken and were planning to take? Was he sleeping? Drugged? Doodling instead of making notes? High on something? Pulling my leg?
No, but I wasn’t thinking any of it. Flabbergasted, the answer just rolls out of my mouth, smooth as the toothpaste slithering out of its tube. I thought you are the ones going to tell us that! And as if I had popped open a can of laughing gas, everyone on my side of the table bursts out in a roar of laughter. Later when we break for refreshments, the group clusters around me and Bob Friedman – the Entertainment Group President walks up to me, puts his arms around me and goes: Haresh you are our hero!
© Haresh Shah 2014
Illustration: Celia Rose Marks
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TENDER TRAPS
They are everywhere, especially if you’re looking for them. But even if you aren’t, they find you. After all, that’s what they do for a living. Someone who traveled as much as I did, always staying in the top hotels and frequented the most trendy spots around the world, you are more likely than not, stumble upon one of those pretty and tempting ladies of the night.
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