Advising the C-Level: Rules for the Effective Management Consultant

According to Jim Warren, there are only four things that anyone can do to add value at a company:

1. Increase revenue
   
2. Decrease costs
   
3. Increase comfort
   
4. Decrease pain
   

He further hypothesizes:

• C-Level employees are people, but can’t admit it, because the “system” won’t let them. The SEC, shareholders don’t want to know that the guy at the top is human.
  
• Their public face is about numbers and strategy, and measurable results
  
• The real system is about emotional comfort and pain avoidance, but no one will admit it, except to his closest advisors
  
• Serving the C-Level requires one to understand this psychological dichotomy, yet find and serve the actual overlap, which does exist.
  

By necessity, C-Level employees need to be focused on direction and results. The questions that are important to them are “why” and “what,” not “how.” “How” is just details.

Managing expectations is much more critical to success with C-Level employees than the actual quality of the work.

The CEO worries about areas of non-predictability:

1. Numbers – no surprises
   
2. Failure points with no alternatives
   
3. Continuity -- business and succession
   
4. People issues – performance, attitude, legal
   
5. Surprises in general, especially public issues (Tylenol)
   
6. A belief that “the general direction is wrong” and I don’t know what to do about it
   

The CEO often has no one to talk to about these concerns.
How can you be the person he talks to? The missing ingredient is context. Context enables communication, which enables trust.

Only marketing and innovation produce results. All the rest are costs. Only opportunities produce results and growth.
-- Peter Drucker