Consulting on a project? Know when it's time to let go.

I've just published this on insideleapfrog.com But as there's still traffic coming through this site, I thought it was worth cross-posting here.

All good things must come to an end. As I write this, I’m printing out a final project report on something I’ve been involved in for the best part of two years now. Later today I’ll also make the call to end my paid relationship with a start-up that began in January. It’s time to move on from both pieces of work – but the parting in each case is actually quite emotional.

In the case of the start-up, it’s a simple decision to make. I’ve been on a very small retainer from the time a friendship group decided they may have a business idea through all the travails of setting up the business to the early months of its operation. Over the months I’ve been one of a number of sounding boards for them – occasionally taking a more active role as they’ve articulated their business plan and marketing plan within it. But now the business is up and running well. At this stage I have nothing of real value to bring to the operation. When it grows, I’d be delighted to get back on board, but at the moment, I’m a cost the founders can do without. It’s time for me to step back and watch this baby fly.

The other project is very different: a big corporate change programme in a division of a multi-national. I can well remember going to the first pre-planning meeting. ostensibly as a facilitator primed to ensure those attending filled all those blank pieces of paper stuck to the walls. Within weeks my role had changed from neutral facilitation to being part of the start-up team. Those 60-hour+ weeks flew by but we soon had a brilliant PM on board and a structure that ensured communication was an enabler working across all the activity streams – not an additional stream merely publicising decisions after the event. Engagement became the bedrock of the programme. The initial person leading this didn’t work out and I briefly stepped in to hold the fort. Our second engagement lead has been brilliant and much of my role has been as her back-up, coach and critical friend. But now the roll-out is complete. While there are a few months of sweep-up still to complete, the core project team is moving on. My time is done, and while this one will hit in the wallet, I want to go out with those involved thinking well of me.

I learned that lesson while working with Orange several years ago. After seven months of an intense project setting up a new b2b division, I sat down with the PM. The management team was in place. The nine countries involved were all on board; ways of working were nailed; we had our comms framework and activity plan and I’d helped them recruit a very able comms manager. For several weeks she’d been calling the shots, but I was still giving three days a week to the project. The PM asked me to carry out one simple task: to chart my perception of my cost v value. He did the same. For the first five months for both of us, value far outweighed cost – after two to three months my value to the project was at a real high. It had plateaued in months three to five, and then as the change settled down, I had it gradually tailing off. For the PM that tail off was much sharper and had reached a point for him where cost had overtaken value. I couldn’t argue with him: it was time to move on.

I had built an emotional attachment to the business and would have been happy to continue with them, but my client took a totally pragmatic view. While I offered something they couldn’t do internally, I was welcome and settling the monthly invoice was no problem. But when they’d built that capability in-house, there was no need for an outsider.

Now, on every project where I’m involved, I keep a mental chart of that cost v value – and when I feel the lines are going to cross, I know it’s time to ease away.

The new business drive starts here

I'm using today's lunch break to deliver my MA Dissertation to university - the final piece in the MA jigsaw that will bring two years of International Relations study to an end.

Of course, the studying doesn't now stop: far from it. I'm starting a PhD pretty much immediately investigating the relationship between NASA and the media during the US/Soviet space race....so I know what I'm doing with my life for the next four years or so.

What it means is that I need to get my working life in stricter order too. It has been a bit ad hoc over the last year and now I need to get a rather more disciplined balance between work and study. Doing a PhD in a niche nerdy field is expensive...it's not the stuff they hand out big scholarships for, so I'll be funding most of the research myself. That means earning decent sums, which means planning my work time a bit more carefully. That's generally anathema for a freelancer, but is going to be necessity for me.

I've decided that I'm not going to pitch for any more consultancy work that's going to take more than a couple of days a week or where the project's for more than three months. I will take on short, sharp, discrete projects - and actually think that's where I bring most value anyway.

What I will look for is more regular writing work. One of my regular magazines shrank from four to three issues this year and was planned to shrink further to two next year. Now I've learned that it is 'on hold', and plans to revive it look more than a bit iffy. I'm not too badly affected as I've got a mix of writing for print and for the web on for the moment that's going to keep me pretty busy in the short-term, and a number of training days planned in too that will at least pay the mortgage. But it would be great to get one more steasy, regular piece, preferably a b2b magazine where I can really play to my strengths. Now the MA work is out of the way, I can get back in the game a tad more seriously and interest editors and comms managers in what I have to offer.

Close to home is best

When it comes to strategic communication, I've always believed that organisations that drive the communication themselves are far more likely to achieve the best results.

While external agencies and consultancies can offer great ideas, great process and sometimes even extra legs in making whatever change is necessary happen, they're far less likely to make change stick by imposing solutions from the outside.

This seems to be borne out in the latest CiB Strategy Awards. Almost all have gone to in-house teams: the people who are closest to the issues their organisations face. I work regularly on change programmes, but always strive to hand the real running of such projects in-house as soon as possible. I know how I can influence and affect change - but my presence as an external supplier will never be as powerful as the buy-in and delivery from managers who will have to live with the changes long after I've moved on.

Do a few things well

I've had no new work in for the last two days. Now, normally that would be a fairly usual state of affairs, but work has been non-stop since June, and it's actually nice to have time to lift my eyes from the screen now and again without the expectation of another phone call, meeting or even a vital email just around the corner.

Project juggling has been fun but tiring over the past few months, and has reinforced my underlying communication philosophy: whatever comms challenge you're faced with, the best response is to do a few things well.

In recent weeks, I've had requests around projects for new newsletters, blogs, websites, assemblies and even a picnic lunch. Most have been very well-meaning attempts to move an agenda forward, but most haven't been thought through. The emphasis has been on the event rather than on what it's trying to achieve.

So, in each case, I've gone back to the client with pretty similar advice:

• Think audience
• Keep it simple
• Keep it focused
• Use the comms tools that people already use; and
• If you have to bring in a new tool, make sure it's one that your audience is happy to use.
• The middle of a project is no time for grandstanding, and the most important communication isn't necessarily a knee-jerk response to those who shout loudest.
• The communicator shouldn't be seen as the face of the communication - that has to come from the people who will bring whatever policy, change or advance to the business as their everyday role. As soon as we communicators are perceived as the 'voice', the message is already one step removed from the reality of the audience.
• Whatever you do, make it easy to comply with the process - and ensure it delivers the right action for you. We don't communicate just to be heard.
• Finally, don't do too much. Assess the outcome you want to achieve - and do a few things well to ensure you achieve it.

Funnily enough, the less can definitely be more message seems to have got through...perhaps that's why the phone hasn't rung today?

La mere, la mere

I know when I need a holiday: it's when I start waking up in the night with work on my mind. And it has been happening all week - generally, I've been able to turn over and go straight back to sleep, but on Monday night I just couldn't drift off again. i ended up answering a few emails and editing 34 pages of tender document that a client was about to send out to suppliers.......Funny enough, 34 pages of small print did the trick.

It's great to be really busy but I'm looking forward to hitting the beach in France in not too many days.

While I'm currently enjoying the mix of a change project, writing content for a consultant's new website, a job editing a benefits web package, writing profiles for a careers web site, writing the next issue of my law firm mag and editing a new bartender guide, I'm equally looking forward to putting them all to one side for a fortnight. I'm determined not to be logging on to my laptop all holiday to see how things are progressing without me - I know they'll all do perfectly well without me, and I need to clear my mind.

I won't be clearing it entirely though. if you want something done, ask a busy man, and I'm now in the process of putting a book proposal together covering a small but significant period on one of Britain's historic houses. The National Trust are very interested and we've got a meeting set for early September. But if that comes off, it'll be a labour of love and won't feel like work at all.

Anyway, I'm not in France yet, so it's back to editing benefits.

A not so subtle way to access revenue-making talent

So VMA are raising their profile and looking for a means to access potential revenue-earning talent by sponsoring the new and some would say spurious Corp Comms Top 100 Club .

Coming out of CorpComms Magazine, the blurb states: The Corp Comms Top 100 club creates a network of the most influential and inspiring individuals within the communications marketplace; Members will range from individuals responsible for revitalising an internal employees’ messaging scheme to those who have been principle in determining a major CSR policy or to others who have successfully rebranded a FTSE 100 company.

A number of things strike me as worrying about this new club of corporate communicators. The first is that it's exclusive to those working in-house. Yes, there are many great communicators in-house, but there are just as many - if not more working in agencies and as independents. it's often these people who are the creative powerhouses, while their internal colleagues get on with managing their teams and trading in corporate politics. Surely a real 'Top 100' would blend the best of in-house and consultant talent?

Second, I worry about any organisation that still regards IC as 'revitalising an internal employees' messaging scheme'. So, the magazine still regards IC as being postman come publisher? Sounds like they're still very externally focused and behind the times on organisational comms.

Finally, a concern that could also be an opportunity: this new 'club' covers a hugely wide area - from IC to Public Affairs to PR to CSR - often areas that report into different heads in the organisations I work with. Their skills, concerns and outlook are often quite different and the so-called powerhouse that the magazine is looking to create may turn out to be no more than a collection of disparate strands.

Of course, as we move to issues-based communication, organisations should be knitting together all the strands of their communication - so actually there could be a great opportunity here to create and mobilise best practice.

It's just a shame that this new network is under the auspices of a magazine looking to make money by selling subscriptions to big corporates, and sponsored by a recruitment consultancy with a need to get the top talent on their books. Of course, it's the way the world works, but I wonder at the independence in selecting the cream of our industry's cream.

Thoughts from far down the food chain

There always comes a time in the year when I get a little worried. It's when the phone's not ringing and the workload looks a little thin. I'm there at the moment. I shouldn't be worried. A new piece of work starts tomorrow, and one of my regular magazines will start grinding its wheels in the next week or so.

Yet, for the last three days I've been treading water - and I'm no good whatsoever at the froggy stroke.

I operate fairly far down the decision-making food chain, and am suffering at the moment from slow decision making higher up that chain. In one instance, a project has been far slower to get off the blocks that I'd hoped - my meeting tomorrow morning should move it on, but the decision's not in my hands. What had been budgeted as a medium sized piece of work seems to have shrunk - and even the piece I originally did back in February remains billed but not paid.

I've also been in pitching mood recently. A few slightly bigger fish have called on me to reinforce their bidding teams and we've put some good, inventive and cost effective proposals together. But the clients - or in one case, the clients' clients are still circling. Now at the top of the chain, a month's delay on internal comms activity is pretty unimportant - in fact they probably don't even see it as a delay. For their consultancy, it's an inconvenience, but there are other pressing projects they can redeploy their consultants on. For their agency, it's a bit of a nightmare. The goalposts keep moving, they keep revisiting a shifting brief; a lot of time is spent meeting the new goals....and then those posts shift again. For me, in this case right at the tactical end of the project, it's sheer frustration. Do I start chasing new work and abandon a potentially attractive project, or hold on in the hope that the clients will finally land on action.

For me it's the above scenario times three at the moment, plus a couple of smaller projects I've pitched directly where I'm still waiting on any response.

It's at times like this that I wish I had the support system of an employer around me. But for the last seven years, when I've reached this point before, something McCawber-like has happened: something's turned up. It's never through luck, and most often has come from a few phone calls, emails and good connections. I hope Mr. McCawber's still on my side.

It's a balancing act

I met with a headhunter this week - always flattering when it happens, and I've got a lot of time for this company as they placed me in roles twice earlier in my career.

I'm now seven years into running a 'micro-business' and frankly, it'd take a lot of money, a great degree of autonomy and probably a saint-like boss to get me back into a corporate role.......but never say never.

Anyway, it was 90 minutes to talk about myself, my strengths and my weaknesses in the context of a couple of big-brand role possibilities. I know I thrive when I'm given the freedom to use my expertise and experience, and equally, I wither when I'm stuck within a command and control environment.

Through several bitter experiences over the past few years, I know now never to touch projects in businesses where communication is run by a calendar or where there's even a hint of bosses looking only to manage upwards rather than for the good of their teams and the business around them.

Instead, I find my most satisfying work comes from organisations looking to use communication instinctively as a means to move their business forward. These tend to be the ones who've built a lot of experience in knowing what really engages their teams, their suppliers and their customers, and who then bring in a small team of 'regular' outsiders to work with closely and often. I've got three of four clients I go back to again and again and always strive to surprise even myself in delivering my very best for them.

It's tough therefore to meet with someone - as also happened this week - who seems quite intent with doing away with all the good within the comms department they've inherited.

Over the last couple of years I've got used to being briefed on a job by someone a clear decade and more younger than me. While I'm a long way from my pension, I am a 40-something, and many managers with a lot of responsibility and a budget to match are in their late 20s/early 30s.

The person I pitched to is around 30, an MBA, fast-tracked through their business and now heading communication having never worked in comms before. They clearly see their HR background as sufficient grounding to be expert in internal communication and engagement. This week I was asked to pitch for a project that will manage all communications as two businesses within the group are merged into one. It's the kind of stuff I've done since Nationwide days in the very late 80s. I've worked through such change both in-house and as a consultant for more than 15 years, yet my 'brief' seemed merely to write down what this manager wanted at the most tactical level, and then present back her 'solution' to her on a costed basis.

That could be great, and a really easy pitch...except her ideas are terribly flawed.

Now my role has to be a balancing act. Client-consultant relationships can be fantastic when both sides are prepared to learn from each other and flex according to the needs of the project. Presented with just the outline brief for the prospective 'change' project, my questions were around how this manager's team would be involved; how we'd bring line management in and what was happening to bring in influencers and key players on each side of the merger together to take the project forward.

But I got an hour's spiel on how the change was being managed centrally; how one of the big management consultancies had already modelled a solution and would be implementing this for the client. Communicatons looked to be a series of newsletters following a key town hall meeting where the assembled mergees would be adressed by the group's top team. the people who normally managed the local IC would be kept on business as usual whilke I - or whoever got the project - would be parachuted in to deliver comms at the behest of the management consultants.

Frankly, that's a recipe for disaster. Yet as a supplier looking for good and interesting work, i couldn't just come out and say that. It was a case of listening, biting my tongue, gently probing around how some issues might be dealt with, and trying to polan a response that would deliver a good job and not offend the client.

Yesterday, I spent many hours on a costed comms plan outline detailing my rather more involving approach. I was polite, provided evidence of why such an approach should work and outlined counter-arguments to the consultant-led, fairly reactive approach....mostly around how change fails when it's imposed on people.

I was less than surprised to get a 30 second call at the end of the day from the particular manager stating that I was no longer being considered for the project as my 'interpretation of her needs was not in keeping with her requirements' (who speaks like that??).

I was equally unsurprised when a former colleague of mine, a comms executive working for the new uber-manager, and my initial lead-in to the project prospect e-mailed me earlier today to say she'd tendered her notice.

Some people seem to think the only way to make a mark on their business is to chuck out everything that has gone before.

Perhaps if they listened a little more and were sufficiently secure to learn from their peers and long-standing team members, they'd make just as strong a mark.....but a positive and lasting one.