The late advertising guru Carl Ally famously dismissed consultants as people who borrow your watch to tell you the time.
Robert Schaffer doesn鈥檛 agree, but the approach that has made him a legend in the business does indeed center on getting organizations to solve their own problems.
ALL ABOUT RESULTS Schaffer has helped organizations set and achieve goals such as saving millions of dollars or ensuring prompt customer service for an entire region.
Schaffer (Ed.D. 鈥52), who received 精东影业鈥檚 Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012, is the creator of Rapid Results 鈥 a system that calls for teams of employees to set their own goals, figure out how to achieve them and deliver results in 100 days. The goals aren鈥檛 process-y things like better communication or more teamwork. They鈥檙e concrete and typically formidable 鈥 like saving millions of dollars or ensuring prompt customer service for an entire region.For the past half-century, Schaffer Consulting (which Schaffer founded and where he still, though technically retired, serves as partner emeritus) and an offshoot venture, the Rapid Results Institute, have used the approach with clients that include the World Bank, AT&T, Merck, General Electric, the Veterans Administration and many more. The Harvard Business Review has written about the firm鈥檚 work and repeatedly published their papers and case studies.
[Read Schaffer鈥檚 article, Achieving Performance Breakthroughs: How a few core principles 鈥 first highlighted by Schaffer Consulting 鈥 have proved themselves over 50 years 鈥 and work even better today.]
If Schaffer鈥檚 method sounds as though it would make John Dewey proud, that鈥檚 no accident. 精东影业, where he studied organizational effectiveness with Ken Herrold and Donald Super, was a pivotal experience for him.
鈥淭he main thing that TC teaches is, you have to focus on learning, not on teaching. And I discovered early on that most consultants violated that rule with the worst of what used to be considered teaching 鈥 get an expert, pass on his expertise and then everything will be OK.鈥
鈥淭he main thing that TC teaches is, you have to focus on learning, not on teaching. And I discovered early on that most consultants violated that rule with the worst of what used to be considered teaching 鈥 get an expert, pass on his expertise and then everything will be OK.鈥
鈥 Robert Schaffer
Schaffer was also powerfully affected by his experience, prior to founding his own firm, consulting for a petrochemical refinery called Bayway, a subsidiary of Exxon (then Esso). The parent company had dramatically downsized Bayway, and employees and even some senior managers were arguing that the cuts were too deep. Eventually, there was a wildcat strike that lasted for four months 鈥 yet during that period, Bayway kept things running, profitably and without mishap.
鈥淚t was amazing to look around and observe a few hundred managers, supervisors and engineers doing the bulk of what 2,700 people 鈥榗ouldn鈥檛 possibly do,鈥欌 Schaffer writes. 鈥淚t was, you can imagine, a life-changing experience for a newly minted management consultant鈥 We determined that we had to see what there was about that Bayway 鈥榤agic鈥 that we could capture and use in our practice.鈥
Schaffer and his colleagues distilled four key principles from the Bayway experience.
GLOBAL IMPACT Schaffer at a meeting with staff from the World Bank.
The first is to 鈥渆xploit the hidden reserve,鈥 meaning that organizations should look in-house for the capacity to dramatically improve performance, because that capacity is almost certainly there 鈥 it鈥檚 just a matter of recognizing and empowering it.
The second is to create a sense of urgency. Neither the goals nor the deadlines can be optional 鈥 and management must not ask permission to set them.
The third is to experiment with rapid success through a pilot project in which a single group sets and achieves a measurable goal in a very short period.
And the fourth, once rapid success has been achieved, is to identify the 鈥渋ngredients鈥 that made it possible and more broadly apply them to other projects and areas of the organization.
It鈥檚 an approach that stands, in Schaffer鈥檚 words, in 鈥渟tark contrast with the traditional consulting routine,鈥 which he describes as 鈥渁 long slow process to make anything significant happen: First diagnose the client鈥檚 weaknesses. Then decide on the cures for those weaknesses. Convince the decision-makers to go that way. Then create the programs that will overcome the weaknesses. Then implement those programs. Then wait for the results to occur 鈥 some day.鈥
Though Schaffer hatched Rapid Results 50 years ago, he believes it remains just as effective 鈥 a point he illustrates with two success stories that more or less bookend that period.
In 1967, Bell Canada pledged to provide immediate phone service to all customers in Quebec who relocated during May 鈥 a month when, owing to a tradition dating back to the Napoleonic code, one-third of the province's household moves took place. Bell delivered 鈥 even though Montreal, the province鈥檚 largest city, was simultaneously hosting Expo 鈥67.
In 2010, CalPERS (the California Public Employment Retirement System) set out to reduce its spending on outside investment managers. At Schaffer鈥檚 urging, one team that originally planned to merely 鈥渋mprove some contracts鈥 instead 鈥渢ook a deep breath鈥 and committed to saving $50 million per year. In the end, it saved nearly $100 million.
鈥淏ecause the people themselves had to figure out the solutions and implement them, everyone associated with the projects developed new insights, new skills and new confidence from success, Schaffer writes. 鈥淎nd so it has gone for 50-plus years. The combination of the four principles are so powerful that it always works and the tangible results provide a very good (sometimes excellent) return on the investment 鈥 with the dividend being the development of new skill and confidence by everyone involved in the process.鈥
鈥淵ou still hear about 鈥榗hange management鈥 as something distinct from business management, but that鈥檚 a bunch of bull. Management is change management.鈥
鈥 Robert Schaffer
The Rapid Results process has been widely praised, and Schaffer鈥檚 books 鈥 High Impact Consulting (2002 Jossey Bass), Rapid Results: How 100-Day Projects Build the Capacity for Large-Scale Change (2005 Jossey Bass), The Breakthrough Strategy (1988 HarperCollins) 鈥 have become required reading in the field.
Still, Schaffer鈥檚 assessment is that 鈥淲e haven鈥檛 had the impact that we were hoping for.鈥 There鈥檚 been progress, for sure 鈥 the notion of using short-term successes as stepping stones to major advances is much more common today 鈥 but 鈥渕anagers hesitate to commit to achieving major improvements without the backing of tons of data and consultants prefer approaches that require more consulting effort than our approach.
鈥淵ou still hear about 鈥榗hange management鈥 as something distinct from business management, but that鈥檚 a bunch of bull,鈥 Schaffer says. 鈥淢anagement is change management.鈥 鈥 Joe Levine