I'm Sorry I Broke Your Company When Management Consultants Are the Problem, Not the Solution

by Phelan, Karen

• ISBN13: 9781609947392
• ISBN10: 1609947398
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2013-01-07
• Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Summary

Karen Phelan is really sorry-no, she really is. She had the best of intentions and training in business systems, performance management and all the latest theories and best practices. At companies like Deloitte, Pfizer, J&J and countless consulting clients, she did her best do business by the numbers--the only problem is that businesses are run by people, not mathematical formulas. She and other consultants may have "broken" your company, but she's eager to repair the damage and make amends. Luckily, with decades of experience and pure common sense, her book is the perfect antidote to years of management malpractice. Phelan focuses on how management gurus have fouled up the "people side" of companies-balanced scorecards, key performance indicators, process reengineering and dozens of other management fads are reduced to so much snake oil and bunkum under her withering gaze. With a mix of cleared-eyed business analysis, "in the trenches" stories, and hard-won lessons, this book is impossible to put down and impossible to ignore. Phelan covers the gamut of strategy development, HR, metrics, leadership competencies, and just plain managing people. She explains in gory detail why outside consultants are almost always the last people you should ask to improve your business. She also explains why the most important ingredient in business management is often in the shortest supply: empathy. In the tradition of classics like Up the Organization and Managers, Not MBA's, Phelan provides a breath of fresh air. In parting, however, Phelan allows that consultants (like her!) do sometimes have their place--she provides a much-needed playbook that lays out the proper vocation of consulting and tools for managers to proceed with caution.

Author Biography

Karen Phelan is a cofounder of Operating Principals, a consulting firm that replaces bad business practices with ones that work. A former engineer with degrees from MIT, she spent more than a dozen years as a consultant with Deloitte & Touche and Gemini Consulting and afterward worked in management at Fortune 100 companies.

Table of Contents

Preface
Introduction
Why I Blame Management Consultants
About this book

Chapter 1. Strategic Planning can't Predict the Future: Strategy Development is a Vision Quest
The downside of having a strategy is missed opportunities
Managing by the numbers only manages the numbers
Predicting the future is risky business
Planning for the future and predicting the future are not the same thing

Chapter 2. Make Sure You Reengineer the People, too: Optimized Processes only Look Good on Paper
Having people to rely on for improvements is all you really need
People should manage the methods and not the methods manage the people
In a human-created world, most of the problems are created by humans
It’s hard to optimize a person 36

Chapter 3. Metrics Are the Means, not the Ends: Numerical Targets are Measure-mental
Everything gets measured all the time
It’s funny how the targets are always met
Measures create conflict where there normally is none
Take a goal you want and turn it into something you don’t

Chapter 4. Standardized Asset Management is a SHAM: How Performance Management Demoralizes the Performers
Performance management systems only enforce the strategic objective of implementing performance management systems
There’s so much effort to ensure fairness in a process that is inherently unfair
Let me tell you what I like and don’t like about you
We’re not only in it for the money

Chapter 5. I am a Manager, and So Can You: Why is the Manager's Handbook is 609 Pages Long?
There’s no shortage of management models and techniques
How I inadvertently managed to manage
Being a good manager isn’t all that different from being a good person

Chapter 6. Stop Perpetrating Talent Management on People: Albert Einstein Was NOT an A-player
Sorting out the A, B, Cs
Performance is situational
The problem with labels is that labels stick
Sometimes the A players are alienated by this system, too
The Peter Principle is not a joke
We are pushing people toward mediocrity
Fit the jobs to the people, not the people to the boxes

Chapter 7. Great Leaders Don't Fit the Models: Steve Jobs Failed My Leadership Competencies
The ongoing debate: What traits make a leader?
If traits don’t make a leader, what are leadership assessments assessing?
We use teams because one person can’t be good at everything
Trying to be good at everything is the way to achieve mediocrity
There is no recipe or checklist for self-actualization

Chapter 8: Out of the boxes, charts, and spreadsheets: How to think without consultants
Management is not a science
How to think better
How to think about working with consultants
Conclusion
Resources
a. A Measure of Truth
b. The Method of Truth
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author