Copyright © 1998, Nanette Miner
Permission is granted to reproduce or excerpt this article if proper credit is given in this format:
Reprinted/excerpted with permission. The Training Doctor. Author: Nanette Miner. www.trainingdr.com

Separating the Wheat from the Chaff

I was recently engaged in the preliminary stages of a sales meeting with a potential client - we’ll call him Mr. A. I am a training consultant that provides custom training solutions to client organizations. Mr. A. asked me what methodology I used. “Methodology?” I replied, “there is no set methodology.” Mr. A. had a look of surprise on his face, as if I were speaking a foreign language. It was obvious to me that this was an individual who had either been coached in what to find out from consultants, or he was very ingrained in jargon that apparently held great meaning for him. In order to recover from my “challenging” statement that there is no set methodology, I went on to explain, “Humor me for a moment, while I take on the voice of the client.”

“If I am looking to hire a consultant to address the problems that are unique to my industry, my facility, or my process - I don’t want a consultant that comes in, listens to my explanation of my problem and then fires back with, ‘I can apply my standard five-step methodology to your problem and alleviate your pain.’ If there were a standard five-step process that could be applied to my problem, I would have found it. Somebody else would have created it and it would be available to me as an off-the-shelf program. Because I’ve invested the time and the energy in looking for a solution that does not exist, I am confident that I must work with a consultant who will customize a solution that meets my specific needs. If the consultant comes back and tells me that he can apply the same process to my problem that he applied just last week to my competitor, then I believe he’s acting unethically. In essence he’s then selling me an off-the-shelf program while charging me fees for a ‘customized’ product.”

Speaking as the consultant again, I make this bold statement with 100% confidence because a large part of my business is fixing the work of the aforementioned consultant. I make a good living taking other consultant’s cookie cutter approaches and making them work when applied to the client’s particular problem. Case in point: A five-day, in-class, training program to teach field service technicians how to customize a computer program for the end-user. The assessment process at the end of the five-day program was a knowledge-based exam. Virtually no one ever passed. Why apply a knowledge-based assessment to a skills-based learning program? Isn’t the point of the assessment to find out if the participants can actually do the process they’ve just been taught? If yes, then a skills-based assessment needs to be applied. My guess is that the first consultant only knew one methodology: creating knowledge-based assessments. The assessment was a very obvious flaw in the training program. There were about a dozen others.

A cloud of confusion covered Mr. A’s eyes. “Hoo-boy,” I thought to myself, “better take this down a notch.”

“Let me explain this another way,” I continued. “Are you familiar with the analogy, ‘When all you have is a hammer, every problem becomes a nail?’ He nodded his head affirmatively. “It’s the same type of situation. If I come into your business assuming that all of your problems are nails, then my solution will be the same for you as it was for the company down the street. My solution is to pound your nails with my hammer. But I should not, and would not, come into your environment pre-supposing that I know what your problems are. Again, we’re assuming that the reason you called me was that you cannot find a cookie-cutter solution that solves your unique problem. Therefore, I cannot, at this stage in the game, propose the methodology that would be used to solve your unique problem. To do so would be to propose a cookie-cutter solution, and that is not the mark of a consulting professional. That is the mark of a hit-and-run consultant.”

Mr. A’s face brightened. “So what you’re saying is, because my problem is so unique, you really need to research it before you can recommend a solution.”

“Correct.”

“Hmm. You’re the first person to ever explain it like that.”

“Well, there are a lot of folks out there masquerading as consultants when they are really implementers. By that I mean that they are very good at doing the work, but they are not necessarily able to plan the process, to evaluate the appropriateness of the work as applied to your unique problem and organization.”

“That’s just great! You’ve really put my mind at ease and helped me to make a decision about which consultant to hire,” replied Mr. A. “Let’s go out on the floor so I can show you what some of our issues are.”