Managers frequently warn consultants, “You have to understand, our company is different.” On the other hand consultants tend to say, “The situations we run into from company to company are much the same.” Who is right? Will consulting solutions that worked at other companies work in your own singular organization?
One reason for the difference in views is that there is a remarkable contrast between the public face of companies and what they are like on the inside. Companies give the impression to outsiders that they are efficient, rational, smoothly running organizations. Insiders recognize their own organisation is often foolish, wasteful and driven by the particular personalities of their leaders. Managers sometimes think that their organization is the only crazy one; consultants recognize that all organizations are crazy.
So the first part of the answer is, “Yes, you can usually trust experienced consultants when they say they’ve run into your kind of situation before.” Chances are your organization is not as peculiar as you think
But there is a deeper side to this. Whether companies are different or the same reminds me of what experienced travellers say about countries. The first thing they tell you is “Basically, people are the same everywhere,” then as you carry on the conversation they’ll say things like “Oh in Japan it’s very different!” and “Oh in Brazil it’s not the same, you could never do that!” What is going on here? Why do they contradict themselves?
The contradiction is because the experienced travellers are actually answering two different questions. If you pose the question “Are there enormous similarities amongst people around the world?” the answer is “Yes”. If you pose the question “Are there enormous differences amongst people around the world” the answer is also “Yes.”
The same applies to companies, and because there are real differences it means that you can’t just transplant HR practices from one company into another.
Good consultants recognize this and often talk about tailoring their solution to the particular circumstances of your company. But that’s the wrong metaphor. It’s more a matter that the solution has to be grown (not tailored) to fit your particular circumstances. It’s not like fitting a new part to a machine, it’s more like adding an apple tree to the garden, it has to be carefully positioned and tended so it takes root.
The key value experienced consultants bring is their ability to help you take the seed of a solution—say a new hiring process—and grow it into your organization so that it takes hold. They are right in saying that their approach has worked elsewhere and can work for you. But you are also right in insisting that your company is different enough that you can’t just drop the practice into place.
I keep talking about experienced consultants because implementing HR practices is complex: there are many things that can go wrong. As the saying goes, “Good judgement comes from experience; experience comes from bad judgement.”
The parting lesson is that when we deal with HR issues there are always considerable subtleties. Yes, even though your company is sometimes crazy, the consultant is right and you can adopt practices that have worked elsewhere. But it takes the right consulting mindset to make sure that practices which have worked in other crazy companies, work in your crazy company too.
David Creelman is CEO of Creelman Research, providing writing, research and commentary on human-capital management. He is investing much of his time in helping HR VPs report to the Board about human capital.
He works with a variety of academics, think tanks, consultancies and HR vendors in the U.S., Japan, Canada and China.
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