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| Laughter |
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Over the last few weeks, we've added an emerging pandemic to the litany of horrible news about the economy, the housing market, the banking system, consumer confidence, unemployment, and the list goes on.
It's time like these that people really need a good laugh, and the tiny town of Manzanita, Oregon (pop. 600) has taken up the challenge. For the past four weeks, a few dozen people gather in the town center each Thursday at 12:05pm for a mirth break.
After a quick countdown, the crowd erupts into spontaneous laughter for exactly three minutes. At 12:08pm, a whistle blows, the laughter winds down, and people go back to their daily activities, feeling a little bit better about the world.
Besides the documented health benefits of laughter, it's fun. Have you laughed yet today?
Enjoy this month's issue.
And send me an email if you have comments.
Mike
McLaughlin
Editor
Management Consulting News is a publication of MindShare
Consulting.
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| MCNews 12 Index of Professional Services |
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Maybe the other shoe dropped already.
The stock market started showing signs of life in March, as major stock indices, including the S+P 500, started to claw their way back from the abyss. In spite of continuing bad economic news and Chrysler's bankruptcy filing, the market surged ahead in April, leading optimists to believe the worst may be over.
The S+P 500 index dug out of the red and posted a 6.3 percent year-to-date gain, while the MCNews 12 stocks are on the verge of returning to the black for the first time since August 2008. Share prices rose for nine of the MCNews 12 companies in April, even though many client organizations are still tightening their belts and slowing the start of new projects.
Executives at the MCNews 12 companies are crossing their fingers that this latest rally will be sustainable, but the overall global economic picture remains bleak. Some analysts are predicting a commercial real estate crisis on the horizon, which, if it materializes, would roil an already anemic economy. Plus, the MCNews12 Index still has a deep hole to dig out of. A dollar invested in the MCNews12 portfolio in January 2007 would be worth 72 cents today.
We've made one change to the MCNews 12 Index this month. We are no longer tracking the now-bankrupt firm, BearingPoint. Instead, we have added Navigant Consulting to the Index.
Navigant Consulting Inc., a specialty consulting firm, assists companies and their legal counsel in addressing the challenges of uncertainty and risk. It offers dispute, investigative, operational and business advisory services, risk management, regulatory, strategy, economic analysis, and transaction advisory solutions. The Chicago-based firm, founded in 1983, has more than 2,500 employees.
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MCNews 12 Index |
YTD
Change |
S+P 500 YTD Change |
| April 2009 |
722 |
-0.3% |
+6.3% |
| March 2009 |
706 |
-2.6% |
-6.7% |
| Feb 2009 |
654 |
-9.7% |
-18.6% |
The MCNews 12 Index reflects general investor sentiment about the state of the global professional services industry.
The twelve publicly-traded companies included in the MCNews 12 Index account for roughly $80 billion in combined annual revenue, and serve clients around the world.
Learn more about the MCNews 12 Index 
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| Interview:
Andrew Sobel |
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 "You don’t build a trusted partner relationship by being an arms-length vendor."
This month, we welcome back Andrew Sobel, an authority on the skills and strategies for building enduring client relationships. He's the author of Making Rain and Clients for Life. His latest book is All for One: 10 Strategies for Building Trusted Client Partnerships.
We asked Sobel how we can use his market-tested strategies to deliver extraordinary value to clients and achieve personal satisfaction and profitability for our practices.
Read
our interview with Andrew Sobel
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| Airline Passenger Rights? |
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This kind of story has become all too familiar: Last month, about 120 airline passengers, mostly families with young children, found themselves touching down at the Columbia, South Carolina airport. Their flight, originally destined for Atlanta, was diverted to South Carolina due to weather delays.
Instead of deplaning, the passengers were forced to sit in the sealed aircraft for six hours without food or water, while authorities decided how to handle the passengers. Making matters worse, the aircraft's toilets stopped functioning due to overflowing.
Of course, these stories always make headlines and the thousands of other flights that arrive and depart without a hitch go unnoticed. But the airlines have allowed this treatment to go too far and for too long. There cannot be a single clear-thinking airline manager who wants to treat customers this way--whatever the cause of flight delays or concerns about security.
In too many cases, airlines hold passengers captive while their planes sit idly on the tarmac due to a lack of effective contingency plans for those times when things go awry.
Given the apparent lack of interest on the part of most airlines, the US Congress has taken up this fight. The proposed legislation, "The Airline Passenger Bill of Rights" is now working its way through the US House of Representatives( HR 624) and the Senate (S213).
The bill's provisions are simple: The law would require that, if a plane is still sitting on the ground three hours after the plane door closes, the airline must offer passengers the option of safely deplaning. Amd, while any plane is delayed on the ground, every passenger must have access to food, potable water, comfortable cabin temperature and ventilation, and adequate restroom facilities.
If you think that this proposed legislation makes sense, here's an easy way to contact your representatives. Follow the links to locate your congressperson and your senator.
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| The Problem with Meetings |
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It's rare to hear someone say, "I can't wait to have another meeting!" That's because so many meetings drag on too long, have no real focus, and accomplish little of substance. Part of the problem is that many groups don't work together efficiently.
A recent study shows that teams tend to spend most of their time in meetings rehashing information that the group already knows, instead of bringing new points forward. Teams that meet more aren't always sharing much of value, which leads to longer and less productive meetings. Of course, you have to bring everyone to a common level of understanding; but for many teams, that process takes too much time.
The study also found that groups perform better when they engage in so-called "intellective tasks," meaning they attempt to solve a problem for which a correct answer exists--as opposed to seeking a consensus opinion or judgment.
Meetings are a fact of business life. To boost the success of your next meeting, resolve to do three things: Use a structured method for imparting shared information quickly; focus the group's energy on solving specific problems; and remember that more talking rarely means better results.
This study is reported in "Information Sharing and Team Performance: A Meta-Analysis," by Jessica Mesmer-Magnus and Leslie DeChurch, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol 94(2), March 2009, pgs. 535-546.
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A New Blog for Consultants |
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Fiona Czerniawska, a global expert on the consulting industry, has launched a new blog focused on all aspects of the business, and it is well worth reading. For example, her recent post, "Don't ask, don't tell," looks at how the recession could change the way clients buy consulting services, and describes a simple, but radical, idea for using greater transparency to get better outcomes.
Another post, "The great divide?," argues that a schism is growing in the consulting industry, separating "staff substitution" from bona fide consulting, and challenging consulting firms to decide what business they are really in.
Fiona's work is always insightful, as her new blog shows. It's one you'll want in your RSS feed. You can find here.
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| Getting the Most out of Employee Assessments |
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When it comes to hiring decisions, managers often use standard assessment tests to add clarity to an applicant's profile and suitability for the job. In fact, according to a study of 400 organizations conducted by researchers at Aberdeen Group, nine out of ten employers that use assessment tests rely on them for the candidate selection process.
However, Aberdeen's researchers found that top-performing organizations make a wider use of assessment testing and extend the practice to their post-hiring programs, especially for learning, development, competency management, and succession planning. The study goes on to point out that employee performance, retention, and productivity can be significantly improved with the effective implementation of a post-hiring assessment strategy.
The biggest obstacle to success in such an undertaking is the need to clearly identify the competencies, behaviors, and performance attributes an organization seeks to measure. Because every organization has a slightly different way of looking at human resource management, many of the vendor-supplied assessment templates need substantial revision to be most effective.
That tailoring effort requires managers to re-examine the organization's roles, performance standards, and career paths. Managers can do that more quickly and achieve better results when an experienced outside consultant helps facilitate the process.
The study found that organizations can achieve an 18 percent improvement in employee performance and a 10 percent boost in retention with the use of assessment tests. Given that potential value, this is a discussion worth having with clients.
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| Coming
Attractions |
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 "In a company without purpose, people have no idea what they're really there to do."
Next month, we'll talk with Roy Spence and Haley Rushing, coauthors of the best-seller, It's Not What You Sell, It's What You Stand For. Spence and Rushing point out that high-performing organizations share one characteristic: A strong sense of purpose.
According to their findings, with a real purpose in place, employee engagement is higher, competition is less threatening, customers are more loyal, and innovation flows. We'll ask Spence and Rushing why purpose is such a strong contributor to performance and how organizations can identify, reclaim, or redefine their purpose.
Look for the next issue of Management Consulting News on June 2, 2009.
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