Evolving as a Business: Advice from Your Friendly Toronto Business Consultant – Part 1

As a Toronto Business Consultant, I know that changing work habits can be difficult and slow. But it’s a process fundamental to just about any business hoping to grow and evolve. When my career first started, I was very much an individual contributor. I was recognized and rewarded for my ideas and the actions taken with them. As time passed, and I became part of larger, more cross-functional teams, it was necessary to learn how to play nicely with others—and their ideas. It wasn’t always easy, because, on reflection, the one person with the “winning idea” usually garnered the most recognition.

In those early days, most of my ideas were the result of intuition—a gut feeling. And this served me well. If the idea was logical and seemed to fit the facts, it was good. It reminds me a little of the stories I hear about medical elixirs and potions—the so-called snake oils of the nineteenth century. Advertised as a miracle cure for whatever ails you, it’s unlikely that everyone peddling these potions was crooked. Some probably made a lot of sense. But there was no validated learning where these elixirs concerned. And while modern medicine went on to evolve, the same can’t always be said for business practice.

For some, an improvement cycle is simply generating or brainstorming an idea. If it makes sense or feels right, try it and call it a day. But what’s important is assessing and adjusting results—and this is often what’s missing. Part of the reason for this may be that it often feels more productive to generate new ideas rather than checking and refining existing ones. In businesses where time is money and group memory is poor, it often seems unproductive to spend time re-working and tweaking solutions. Hence, validated learning is missing.

Transitioning is Hard to Do

During my evolution as a business consultant, I knew emphasis had to shift from just chasing the next big idea to ensuring clients understood the value of ideas in motion. It was important for them to see ideas translating into results.  It was hard, to say the least. Transitioning from work to teach, when consultants aren’t typically recognized for this kind of work, was challenging. Moreover, as someone from a business background, being confronted with the actual impact (or lack thereof) of my great ideas was outright intimidating. Leaders often avoid learning their true result. And that’s why so many fail.

In the spirit of life-long learning, of becoming a business consultant who can truly assist and transform client operations, it became necessary to set aside time to see problem-solving in action. This is something all businesses need to learn.

In part two of our blog, we’ll take a look at how this works for businesses that want to embrace growth and overcome challenges.