Who You Really Work For

Happy Friday,

This GNF mainly applies to consulting firms, but you can also draw analogies to other organizations and the public sector. 

When you start a consulting company from scratch, some things are crystal clear that aren’t as clear when you join a going concern. For example, in a start-up, it’s crystal clear where all the money comes from...thus, who everyone works for.

For a consulting company to exist, someone has to consistently accomplish two things: 1) win billable work and 2) do billable work. The jobs of almost half the people in a fair-sized company, including most leaders, involve neither of these. Of the half that do one or both, only about one in ten have the attributes and skills to win work. So, roughly 1 in 20, 5% of the total staff bring in the money that keeps the entire consulting organization afloat.

Ultimately, everyone works for them. The train only moves if someone stokes the boiler. Yet when you look around, you’d never know these people are as valuable as they are. I’m specifically talking about the people who present at the interviews, the project managers who somehow write proposals on their own time while managing multiple projects, and proposal strategists and writers who work all night to put the company’s best foot forward before the deadline. This is the most indispensable group of people in the organization. Everything relies on them. Yet… you’d never know it.

I blame the organization chart.

Everyone looks at their pyramid-shaped organization chart and assumes it represents the business. It doesn’t. The ‘organization chart’ just depicts the company’s reporting structure and signals that proximity to the CEO is the ultimate measure of success. If the chart actually represented the business, it would show clients. But most org charts are little more than a visual telephone directory. Ultimately, they misdirect the whole organization from its true purpose.

A proper company organization chart would present the business in its competitive stance. That way, leaders and the entire staff would see the business and their role in the context of its competitive environment. Facing outward toward clients rather than inward at the next rung of the corporate ladder. Definitely see The Organization Chart https://good-news-friday.ghost.io/ghost/#/editor/post/63f817ffd0680f003d7481ad

Punchline: Whatever your job in a consulting company, respect the people who win and do the billable consulting work that pays your salary and mortgage. There's no company and no job without them. They probably aren’t prominent on your current org chart, but if you ever see an accurate representation of the business, they'll be the most important people on it.

Have a great weekend out there!

Dave

You can send your feedback and blowback to dave@goodnewsfriday.com

Review all 44 past topics (dang...) @ goodnewsfriday.com

100% written by me, not ChatGPT, with speed assist and blunder avoidance by Grammarly.