In my consulting gig, I’m working with the leadership coaching team. Coaching is something I don’t know much about. So I’m finding the content super interesting and the working team is great.
At the same time, if you find yourself running a company and want to keep your “Academic Advisor” happy, there may be some lessons in my experience for how you work with them:
From the company:
Day 1: Want to do a project?
Day 10: OK? Great! Actually, want to go on a retainer instead?
Day 30: OK? Great! Here’s a contract, can you sign it?
Day 31: Oh, you want changes? Will be right back.
Day 38: So we don’t want to make changes. Let’s move ahead!
Day 39: Oh, you still want those changes?
Day 90: Oh, you still want those changes? Gee, why don’t you talk to our lawyer about them so they can understand what you want?
Day 91: Hey, those changes are fine! Looking forward to getting started!
Day 92: You ask why we want this design work? What will count as success? Well, gee, it’s not like we have specific questions written down. Let’s see what you come up with.
Day 110: You’ve now proposed goals & scope? Helpful! We’ve arranged a 15-person meeting to discuss it.
Day 115: Great scope! When can you get it done?
Day 116: 6 weeks? Sounds good!
Day 117: Actually we just had a new idea. We’re going to form a Customer Charter Group. So we actually need your design done in 3 weeks.
Day 118: And, uhm, we need you to manage these other 3 workstreams.
Day 119: What’s that? To get it done, you need us to provide feedback on the design 2x per week? And you won’t project manage anything? Sure, sure, let’s push ahead!
Day 126 Gee, it turns out that we can’t make the review meeting. Again. Looking forward to the final review!
Given hours billed, I’ve reached 70% on the Mule-O-Meter. At the same time, given the experience so far, it’s not clear whether I’ll be hanging around long enough to earn in the fancy expresso machine.
