Seeing the wood for the trees

One of the key ways in which consultants can help improve performance is by pinpointing the underlying cause of a problem. Every one of us finds it hard to step back from our daily lives: even the smallest organization can become bogged down dealing with the here-andnow. We apply the same thinking to the same problems, but expect different results. For someone to come from the outside, as a consultant does, and see a situation clearly and disinterestedly can be enormously helpful. This is just what Kepner-Tregoe was able to do at Sun Microsystems when they realized the key to improving complex customer problems was the quality of information transferred from one shift of support engineers to another as they worked around the clock - and around the world. Ashridge Consulting challenged long-standing assumptions at the Norwich Community Hospital by suggesting that improving patient throughput was more than just a matter of more money, but depended on improving the efficiency with which patients were discharged. BT Retail was not short of information about consumer behaviour and market trends, but that did not mean it could see how to buck a stagnating fixed line telephone market. It needed to stand back and, with the help of Edengene, brainstorm a welter of possible options for generating new business before it appreciated that solving the micropayment issue was critical.