Page 142 - The extraordinary leader

Leaders Must Fit Their Organization • 119

Different Strokes for Different Folks

In the process of being external consultants, the authors had the opportunity
to become acquainted with many different organizations. After years of exe-
cuting successful projects in a variety of different organizations, our firm was
invited to propose doing a project for a large health care supplier. One month
earlier, we had been asked to propose some work for a telephone company.
The presentation was a winner; we received great reviews and were awarded
the work. We modified the presentation slightly and presented essentially the
same thing to the health care company. We didn’t even have to wait for them
tell us that we did not get the health care contract. By the end of the presen-
tation it was evident. Evaluating our performance, we did not feel any differ-
ently about the quality of our presentation from one company to the next, but
it was evident that the telephone company loved us and the health care com-
pany did not. After talking with other consultants, we came to realize that the
difference was not us, but mostly within them. Again, let us reiterate that there
was nothing wrong with the health care company. But the things that they
valued, their style, and the way they thought about the project in question
were completely different than the things we valued, our style, and the way
we thought about the project. As a postscript to the story, we were later talk-
ing to another consultant who was familiar with the health care company
because of other projects he had done with them. He commented, “You’re
just lucky they didn’t hire you; you would have hated the project.” It turned
out that this consultant had a similar style to ours, and after completing his
project he vowed never to work for them again.
After analyzing the results from 22 different organizations, we have iden-
tified some common organizational profiles. These profiles highlight the
things that organizations emphasize as strengths. Frequently, an organization
might have several of the strengths listed below bundled together.
One of the authors recently visited a large bank. Upon looking through
their aggregated leadership assessment data, it became evident that they
were an “avoiding mistakes”/“customer emphasis” organization. Both issues
were very strong and positive for 80 percent of the leaders. If you work for an
organization that has a profile of being an execution organization, you need
to be good at executing (e.g., getting projects done on time and within
budget—no excuses). A mismatch hurts a person’s chance of success, and
everyone needs an environment where he or she has a reasonable chance
to succeed.