Re: Right Mix for Group? LO4039

Gordon Housworth (ghidra@mail.msen.com)
Mon, 04 Dec 1995 04:23:38 -0500

Replying to LO4012 --

Bill:

At 10:33 02/12/1995 -0500, you wrote:
>You [Gordon Housworth, I believe -- Your host.] asked
>>How do you identify those magicians and how do you entreat their managers
>>to part with them?

Yes, it was I.

>The sponsor and his advocates have always been able to nominate people
>meeting both sets of criteria [the matrixes of the knowledge base and team
>member characteristics].

The key seems to be that all assets are within the grasp of the sponsor.
My initial question was perhaps poorly phrased as I was curious as to how
one overcomes the inevitable problem in which one or more critical assets
are not under the sponsor's control. Your approach to negotiating a
limited, periodic commitment goes part of the way. I have found that I
must engage the "private channels" available to certain assets within the
sponsor's organization to secure other assets beyond a sponsor's control.
Sometimes a success will swell the ranks of those willing to attend, but
turf wars have often limited asset access until the program's success
enlists other peer sponsors who control different assets.

>First I don't like to work with a particular team more than
>3 to 6 months or a particular client more than a year. I find that I
>start to adsorb the culture I am trying to change. Second, I try to stay
>in the role of mentor..

Agreed, and it is hard. If you are there too long you become co-opted,
taken for granted (and thus your fees are increasingly resented), the
client has set you to solving a symptom rather than the disease, some or
all of the above. And what about the "outsider role" within the
organization? I've no panacea here either as I often get impatient looks
when I ask the sponsor to include assets which are not "expert in the
field" or do not have the "requisite education," i.e., engineering/finance
organizations only respect their own kind and interpret variations within
their group think as diversity. It's an uphill struggle and only
incremental success gives us the position to request other assets

Within the constraints I suppose, I find your approach most certainly
sound. I suppose that I had the hope of your finding the Philosopher's
Stone which has so far eluded me. Nice post. thanks again.

--
Best regards, Gordon Housworth
Intellectual Capital Group
ghidra@mail.msen.com
Tel:  810-626-1310