Been There, Done That. Don’t Do it Again

Guest post by: Michael Shays
Become an Author

Free PDF Download
Achieving a Customer-focused Culture - By Michael Shays

Been There, Done That. Don’t Do it Again
Michael Shays

You’ve built up your experience over the years and your good reputation precedes you. Now, new opportunities land at your door. One even knocked today to tell you about a need. It sounded all too familiar. You just completed an project like that. Been there, done that numerous times. You've got the solution already in your hip pocket. Right?

Wrong. There is a strong inclination to copy the work you just completed successfully and apply it to the next project. It’s called leveraging your previous experience. You’re thinking you can modify the previous solution to respond to the obvious differences between the two project situations.

This will not serve your new client well. Either the implementation will be struggle for you and your client, or after you have been taken your kudos and disappeared, your solution will gradually fall apart. A force-fit solution ignores reality.

The reality is that every client, every project, every environment is somehow unique. Instead of inventorying how the two project situations are similar, discover how they differ from each other. Probe beneath the obvious differences for what makes each unique. Then solve for the uniqueness.

A consultant performed a valuable service for a hospital that was experiencing chaos in its patient records system. There was a significant learning curve for both the consultant and the client but the end result was a breakthrough. A sister hospital heard about the breakthrough and asked the consultant to help it install the same system. After all, it also had patients, doctors, nurses, laboratories, and pharmacies.

There was a strong predisposition to see these two situations as similar, leading to a similar approach to solution. In fact they were quite different.

The consultant resisted the temptation to copy his previous solution. Instead he searched for how the two institutions were unique from each other. He found that at the second hospital the type of patient served, the type of healthcare provided, and the relationships between the physicians and the hospital, and between the nurses and the physicians, were different from the first hospital. Even more important, the locality of the pharmacies and the layout of the facilities were different. The second hospital required its own form of record keeping. The consultant saw that the centralized system that was working so well at the first hospital would not have worked at all at the second hospital. His solution was to implement a decentralized system for the second hospital.

Next time you have an opportunity to leverage your experience with a second or third project, learn how each situation is unique. There are obvious and not so obvious ways and all of them are important. Design your solution for the uniqueness, not for the similarities. Once you see how each situation is distinctive, you are bound to enjoy the benefits of a better product.

* * *

E. MICHAEL SHAYS CMC (ems@emsnetwork.com) is President of EMS Network, International, an association of senior consultants helping clients faced with conflict, transition, stagnation, and management dilemmas.

What is the best way to develop my sales skills?

Profitable Online Business Ideas and the Recession Part 2

Contribution

How can you make more of your customers open your emails?

Know your magic numbers

Social Networking or Social Distraction

Which Social Media Tool?

More crazy customers!

Hacking Facebook Password with the help of free hacker tools for everyone

Get better results from email newsletters and promotional emails

How do I find a passionate and purposeful mentor?

Can you afford to make your email marketing more targeted? Can you afford not to?

Are you a Star?

Spam: You probably hate it but can you define it?

Online Business and Freedom in America

How to generate referrals

No Passion , No Business

Are you Hard, Scrambled or Soft?

Old Gus and his pump

Find your Focus

Home > Management > Michael Shays > Been There Done That Dont Do it Again > Google +

Free PDF Download
Achieving a Customer-focused Culture - By Michael Shays

About the Author: Michael Shays

RSS for Michael's articles - Visit Michael's website
Michael Shays is a senior management consultant, public speaker, facilitator and mediator. He has coached executives in 24 countries in six continents to resolve conflict, manage transitions, and develop breakthrough solutions to tough problems. He has helped over 500 clients, including AT&T, IBM, KPMG and, Hewlett-Packard, and the CEOs of smaller companies. After seven years with the operations improvement firm, Bruce Payne & Associates, he passed examination as a Certified Management Consultant and was recruited by Coopers & Lybrand as a direct entry Partner. BDO Seidman recruited Michael 14 years later to be the National Director of Management Consulting and Chairman of BDO’s International Management Consulting Committee. He left BDO in 1990 to open his own firm, EMS Network International, with strategic partners in four continents. See www.emsnetwork.com. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants USA and a recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as Chairman of IMC USA, the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes, and the Journal of Management Consulting. He an active member of the Center for Breakthrough Thinking.
Click here to visit Michael's website.

More from Michael Shays
Six levels of competitive readiness How to get ready for the ambush
Sell Benefits Not Advantages
Tell PSR Stories
How a Department Store Lost its Customer Base
One Way to Build A Bond With A New Prospect

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Share this post and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Been There, Done That. Don’t Do it Again

Related Articles

Related Forum Posts

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.


Name:
Email: