What you know is of course helpful, but who knows you is just as important.
It’s not what you know, but who you know that counts… so says the old adage
I believe that is true, now more than ever, but not for the reasons you might think.
Networks, relationships, having people to call on – that is definitely what counts. As a boutique consulting business, you are your brand. What you know is of course helpful, but who knows you is just as important.
How do people know you? By experiencing your work, by hearing about you from others, and from seeing the kinds of relationships you build with your clients, your “competition” and your people.
And for boutique businesses, it is also who you know to call on when the client needs more capacity than you currently have available, or they need a range of skills and experience that might stretch your own company’s reach. This year, I’ve been lucky enough to build collaborative relationships with 4 other boutique companies [Volte Consulting, Rationale, Secondr and VHC] – through which we can all add to the offering for clients, the pace and capacity, the depth and range of experience.
In the last 5 months of 2022, JHA Consulting worked with a large public sector agency delivering that organisation’s first major organisation redesign in decades. Leading the design and change management programme, working in the programme leading delivery of the work, and advising and supporting the Chief Executive, sponsor and executive team.
During that time, we’ve facilitated 60+ hours with the Executive Team in formal meetings, review workshops, decision-making forums.
That’s not counting the daily phone calls and texts supporting executive leaders with their confidence and problem solving for their specific challenges.
We also designed a bespoke role architecture as the critical platform for the design of roles and shifting of behavioural and leadership accountabilities and managed and validated 1.45m pieces of personnel and job data. And we’ve supported the Executive team to consult formally with 5,300 people on proposed changes to organisational values, structures and functions, leadership expectations and the change process.
In any industry, change programmes can be fraught, challenging for people being impacted and for those designing and fronting the impact.
The ability to build and maintain trusted, open, candid relationships with decision makers, programme delivery teams and enabling teams is critical to maintaining resilience and delivering the ultimate vision for the change.
From feedback received, I’m proud to say that JHA Consulting is valued for the integrity and candour of the relationships we build – whether that is with Chief Executives, “competing” consultancy companies working in the same organisation, or leaders and their teams delivering and being impacted by the change.
“as soon as you came on board, like a breath of fresh air, I knew it would be ok”
Over the weekend, the JHA Consulting team held our end-of-year review, a process where we talk through what was good, bad and the lessons we need to turn into tools and practices.
This review is an opportunity for all members of the team to reflect on how we’ve worked together and with others, what we’ve delivered and how it measured up to our own high standards and aspirations.
As a leader it is incredibly valuable to take time to hear from the people in your team, watch the dynamics between them, listen to the ideas for the next year and for the brand as a whole.
“I particularly treasure the environment of trust and safety you enabled”
We also talked about the feedback received from clients and from people we’ve worked alongside – comments like:
“seamless”
“it was wonderful working with you and the team”
“such a friendly, pleasant, easy-to-work with group of people”
“It’s been a sometimes fun, stressful and crazy ride, and we got to the finish line. Yay!! You and the team have done a great job – and I know that we would NEVER have got there without you.”
Knowing what has worked well, and where we’ve added most value, enables us to prioritise for 2023.
Going forward we are:
reinforcing the value we can bring when things are going wrong, when programmes need re-evaluation and re-design, and a facilitative yet determined exponential drive for outcomes
building up more capacity for providing that extra layer of support for leaders who are feeling under pressure
solidifying our connections with other companies who share our values and with whom we can add more value to clients.
https://www.jhaconsulting.org/
https://www.volte.co.nz/ https://www.rationale.co.nz/ https://www.secondr.co.nz/ https://vhc.nz/