Lessons Learned

We learn the most from our failures. Looking at the recent deals we have shaped and lost, I realized what I was taught in consultant schools are never more true -

1. Listen very carefully - the client is always telling us something, we can only hear it if we choose to listen. We are often too busy to credentialize ourselves and forget that, while clients can nod politely at our brillant solutions but really are expressing something else that we should have heard. It could be that I have a unique situation, help me with your perspectives and don't tell me you have been there done that and have the perfect solution for me. It could be that I know you can do the job but I want to know if this is the team I can and like to work with. A mentor once told me, ultimately, IQ is 20% of the factor and EQ is 80% what it takes to make it work. In order to develop the right EQ, start listening and listen very carefully. If we don't pay attention to these emotional details, we will be going to loss review sessions pretty quick.

2. Get on client's agenda - this is such easily said than done. I have a client, let's name him Bob. We signed a contract to deliver a project. A few days later when we were well into the ramp up phase, Bob called me and said the budget that was allocated to this project has been unfortunately put on hold. He apologized profusedly and I agreed to terminate the contract immediately. Although we lost this project, Bob and I became friends, now he knows that I am someone who he can trust in times of difficulty. I know I did the right thing even though lots of upfront efforts were lost.

3. Patience is virtue - in the time of recession, more people (myself included) tend to be more short term focused. There is a study that showed that people tend to be myopic when panic. Consulting is built on the basis of long term relationship and trust, which can't be built over night. The world is becoming more complex and connected, relationship must be nurtured in the old and tranditional way though. One of my colleagues develop relationship over the course of 10 years, wherever he visit, he calls up a client/friend and have lunch or dinner with him/her without specific agenda, just simply there to say hi and check in. He ends up building strong relationships with over 100 CMOs over the years, and he did it without asking them what he can sell them.

Frequent flyer

Landed in Denver on a Sunday night, it suddenly occurred to me during the cab ride to the airport that the little life inside me has already become a frequent flyer and could well passed the 1K membership mark on United alone.

She is such a good travel companion: she never complained be there with me in Nov in Minneapolis's minus 20 degree weather hailing a cab on the street, she enjoyed the Omni Parker House in Boston attending a global leadership workshop with my clients, we took a stroll to ground zero in New York one evening after work, enjoyed the Hilton Garden Inn in Cumberland Rhode Island, flew out to Columbus Ohio and Dayton Ohio and never let the ice rain dampen our excitement. The longest flight she has been on was to Helsinki Finland in Jan, we were both new to the country and enjoyed the herring for breakfast, walking in the snow to the office, the 10AM sunrise and 4pm sunset. She went to the client board meeting with me and cheered for me all the way during my presentation and we rewarded ourselves with a Helsinki Chinese meal afterwards, nice black pepper chicken, yum! The most she has been to is Denver, almost every week since Feb, I hope the 2 hour ride is not so much a torture for her. Friends advise me to have baby listen to classic music before birth, all she got was the plane engine noise and the friendly announcements from the captions and the flight attendants. I am going to Wilmington, Delaware next week, I hope she can put up with it still, I promise this will be the last trip she takes before meeting me face to face for the first time.

Up

What does Up, MSN, George Tiller have in common?

They all have a very good plot/story/Intention, but somehow failed in the middle of their endeavor to that ultimate success. Up is about motivation, adventure but a bit too violant for children who have been attracted to it due to balloons and 3D effects; MSN consumed billions of dollars of shareholder investment and falls far behond rival Google; George Tiller believes in helping to stop unintended pregnancy but was shot dead in front of his church.

World is full of unintended but well meaning endeavors. Sustainability certaintly has more and more of the attention from all corners of the world, even China and India are devoting investments into cleaning up their pollution at the expense of rapid industrial expansion. I wonder what makes these efforts "successful" is not really the end outcome that are measured by their original targets, but it is the story, the journey and the people that are influenced/touched along the way that makes these efforts memoriable and enduring.

Friday thoughts

I saw an interesting article that talks about Greenspan use the sales of man's underwear as a key indicator of if the economy has bottomed out. And the conclusion is yes, it seems. I find this theory interesting - man thinks their underweare as the first disposal item to go when things go bad because people rarely sees it. And there this is a leading indicator of how other bigger consumer goods are going to behave if the trend continues.

But I am quite puzzled by the fact that utility fund taking a huge hit together with the rest of the industries, this is a commodity that in good and hard times people would have to consumer in order to make ends meet. Tangible hypotheses for how this could happen is mild winter (relatively speaking) and less commercial activities while residential side has less to fall. Utility industry has the interesting issue of de-coupling, which mean the profitability is relatively capped/fixed ahead of time, and utilities are not incented to sell more (therefore generate more green house gas, etc) in order to make profits. The pre-arranged profitability is negotiated with public utility commissions so that any revenue short fall is recoverable from the public as a whole, which implies higher prices, which in turn implies incentives for more energy efficient consumption behaviors. It is a convoluted way of thinking, but it makes sense at aggregate levels. At individual consumer level, unfortunately the "taxation" is flat - even if you may save more than me in terms of consumption, you will be paying the PUC the same amount of "tax" to support the utility's pre-fixed profitability levels.

Boppy

My dear friend is going away from Denver to Bentonville Arkansas, with her husband and two young kids. I won't be able to see them very often any more because Walmart is not likely to hire consultants.

Consultants and emerging players are a major force behind Smart Grid - the field is exploding with new solutions, new ideas, technology, challenges that no one has dealt with before end to end. Consultants and start up companies such as Control 4, Grid Point, Silversprings, etc are propellers behind the change and are critical to provide various components of the solution. It is a fast changing environment where inter-operatability doesn't exist due to the lack of the standards, but innovation is created and cultivated exactly such an environment where competing technologies and solutions will find the appropriate places in the value chain to survive and thrive.

Saturday's Thoughts

Walking on the hiking trail in the mornings is the most beautiful thing, showy downiniga blossoming everywhere, fresh oak leaves remind you the smell of the nature, birds chirping cheerfully to welcome the hikers on the road...is nature so sophisticated that's beyond our imagination or is it so elegantly simple that remind us to slow down and smell the roses once in a while.

Increasingly folks are interested in environmental issues, for a variety of reasons including jobs creation, stimulus funding, to the ultraistics who simply want to save the environment. How fast will this wave of fad catch on or fade away, is this the train that will pull the world out of the recession, what’s your role in this evolution, and what are the economically viable solutions that will help balance the needs between shareholders and environment, and people?

No, I don’t believe this is a fad, it is here to stay. Those who lead the thinking and more importantly, execute on their beliefs will find the right role to play. It is those who stand by and watch that will be left in the dust one day and tell the hindsight 20-20 story that how they have cleverly stayed out of another bubble.

a Wife's perspective

I am a working professional who watches my husband trying at every opportunity to find the next job. Needless to say, we remain hopeful, but the process is frustrating. I am inspired by the Fortune article "Find Job in a tough Economy" in a creative way, and have now decided to take matters into my own hand to help my husband.

Why should you hire my husband? His resume will speak to his experience and professional background in corporate marketing and business development, what I do think you should know are his characters:

1. He genuinely cares about people - he goes out his way to help those who are in need, at work or in life. Remember the movie "what women want" starring Mel Gibson? The young intern with glasses will be the one my husband would have helped.
2. He doesn't frazzle under pressure - he doesn't get frazzled by pressure or stress, he did not start to scream at me when I was spinning the car out in the 10 inch snow on interstate; he just ask me in normal voice to instead tap on the brakes rather than step fast on them which was how I got us into the situation. Our car stopped after 2 360-degree turns 2 inches in front of a semi.
3. He is creative and entrepreneurial - he taught himself how to develop databases for a website using PHP in 3 short months. And he created a professional IT services consulting company helping small businesses.

I have hope, and I believe luck will find those who try.

My husband's resume is on line at: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/5/106/527