With every crisis, some good happens

Time to invest in your people

THE INNOVATOR’S BUILDING BLOCKS

With COVID-19, one of the first expenses that companies of any size had to cut has been consulting help. Tragedy? Not necessarily. You might not be just saving some costs, you are taking advantage of the opportunity to invest in learning.

There is no reason to go into detail on why consulting companies can be of great help, because of the outside view they provide, the expertise from other industries they bring in as well as some exceptional PowerPoint skills. I’ve been one of them. 

But let’s look at this from another side. Let’s reframe the cost cutting story.

As a senior executive, have you ever truly asked yourself this: Have I, at least once, employed external consultants because I did not know the capabilities and availability of the people within my own organisation?

Research abounds on silos within organisations, how silos impede effective decision-making, facilitate the withholding of information and ultimately slow down growth and innovation. 

By not using consultants, you are now forced to more thoroughly scout where the talent is within your organisation. 

So at least temporarily cutting consulting expenses is not necessarily a needed cost saving exercise in time of crisis. There are two effects that you should never underestimate and which will have a large impact on your workforce, your customers and ultimately your competitive position. These effects have to be part of your business case now and in the future.

First, by using internal talent, you are giving the opportunity to the internal talent to apply their expertise. This is invaluable in a time in which morale might be low, but also in the best of times where people feel disconnected and not able to contribute to what really matters in the organisation. Have you complained about the lack of passion and drive from millennials? Or their jumping from company to company as soon as they feel they have learned enough from your one company? But especially, have you given anyone in the organisation the opportunity to apply their expertise and even stretch it a bit further and grow? Your talent can apply standard tools most likely as well as an external consultant does, but it’s his or her deep industry and business knowledge that will make the work highly relevant to the case at hand. We all know that too often consultants' recommendations fail to be implemented because of the lack of your business inside knowledge.

Second, by doing some of the work in house, you keep the learning inhouse, and you can spread the learning across your teams. Learning is one of the fundamental sources of competitive advantage. Instead of getting a PowerPoint and a spreadsheet back, you get people that are empowered and have grown along the way. You have people that will be loyal because they see opportunities within your company. You have people who will spread the word about how good your company is, how great a place to work is. In turn, that will make your effort in hiring new talent much easier. You’ll see NPS scores will improve because happy employees will do the best they can for your customers.

Some of the most successful companies, from Google to PayPal to Qualcomm, are the ones that truly invest in their own people. By offering new opportunities to your talent, you are effectively starting a cultural change, which might be the most effective way for your organisation to excel and embrace the future opportunities.