Here are the instructions that Alfred P. Sloan gave to Peter Drucker when he hired Drucker to study General Motors in the 1940s:
I shall not tell you what to write, what to study, or what conclusions to come to. This is your task. My only instruction to you is to put down what you think is right as you see it. Don't worry about our reaction...And don't you, above all, concern yourself with the compromises that might be necessary to make your recommendations acceptable. There is not a single executive in this company who does not know how to make every single conceivable compromise without any help from you. But he can't make the "right" compromises unless you first tell him what "right" is.
2 comments:
Michael, one reader (me!) would love to hear of your experiences of how you in your consulting engagements have been "directed" to proceed by your clients. How do you navigate that? Sloan seemed pure in how he expected people to "take" outside advice, but how rare really is that?
Thanks, DF
DF,
That's a good idea. I'll pull together some thoughts. Thanks!
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