Each is Unique

Each and every organization is unique, with its own culture, objectives, processes, and history. Remembering that matters because effectively engaging with an organization and its people requires holding all your assumptions loosely so you can listen and jointly problem-solve. 

Back before 2001, when I jumped into startups, I spent eight years as a management consultant, leading 35 projects for 25 companies across various industries. Our focus was operations improvement, and we collaboratively created people, process, and technology solutions to help organizations achieve their business objectives. It was a fantastic way of developing a broad experience base for common sources of problems and approaches to solving them, along with a ton of change management techniques that have proved valuable for the next chapter of my career:  building high-potential startups. 

One of the most critical lessons that I learned as a consultant is that each and every organization is unique. While they may share some patterns with others in their industry, it is a mistake to assume that what you observed in one organization maps perfectly to the next.

Lesson Learned

As an example, let me share when this was first driven home. I worked for many months as part of a large consulting team helping a huge insurance company improve its claims handling process. The organization had many layers and constituencies that had to be brought into alignment as part of the change management process. As a project manager, I became adept at scheduling buy-in meetings to ensure that everyone who needed to be brought on board with a new way of working was appropriately involved. That approach was the fastest way to get work process changes implemented. Eventually, my time on that project at that client came to a close, and I was deployed to a new project in facilities management at a prestigious university.

Again, we were developing and implementing work process changes. As the project progressed, I started scheduling meetings with all the stakeholders I could identify to secure buy-in on the planned changes. I did this a couple of times before the partner, Gary, on my project confronted me about why I was injecting so much bureaucratic process and prolonging the change implementation. Startled, I did not initially understand his questions at all. Finally, he paused, looked at me, and asked where my last project had been. When I named the large insurance company, his eyes registered understanding, and he shared an important lesson that would subsequently be proved again and again as I went from client to client.

Gary explained that what worked for the large insurance company was not what worked at the university facilities management group. One was much more collaborative and inclusive in their decision processes, while the other was more decisive with just a few key decision-makers. He admonished me not to assume that what had been needed and worked for organizational decision-making at one client applied to another client. He explained that each time one enters a new organization, it is essential to consciously and intentionally check my assumptions at the door and turn on my listening radar to learn the patterns that applied in this new organization quickly.

Over the years, I learned that what Gary said was true and applied everywhere in consulting, sales, new job opportunities, and endless other settings. I routinely see colleagues with less broad experience make the mistake of assuming that their experience at one organization applies to the following organization, just as I did when I had not yet been in so many different places. I have found that others who have a consulting background have often learned to be open-minded learners when they engage with a new company, which is very effective.

Example in a Startup

As I consider how this applies to my current startup, I note that we are out actively marketing a game-changing innovation into hospitals all over the U.S.  As we meet them, I try to approach each healthcare system with an open mind to understand what is important to them, how they make decisions about adopting new innovations, where their pain points are, and what the best-fit approach is for helping them consider our innovation. As I reflect on the three different healthcare systems we have been most engaged with so far, they are indeed similar in that all are major acute care hospitals with emergency departments, inpatient units, ICUs, doctors, nurses, administrators, IT departments, ECG monitors and electronic healthcare records. They all treat patients. They are all overwhelmed by COVID-19.

However, there the similarities end. One is led by a passionate and decisive leader who makes decisions quickly and independently. Another is an enormous multihospital healthcare system with layers of clinical and IT leadership and a much greater need to involve many people to decide the pilot’s scope, navigate required approval steps, and shape a scalable workflow plan. A third is an academic institution that has a defensive and competitive culture that makes it very difficult to adopt new technologies and where our champions are endlessly frustrated by ambiguous objectives, priorities, decision-making processes, and other hurdles that stem from a fiendishly complex organizational structure with many conflicting goals. In each case, the decision-making patterns and paths are unique. We must listen carefully to discern what is important. We must learn from, educate, and support our champions as they navigate their internal world to overcome the obstacles and objections of various constituencies to enable us to go live and make a difference.

Broader Applications

• When moving from organization to organization, whether consulting, selling, or job changing, the most critical skills are consciously expecting that each is unique and intentionally looking to learn about what is essential at each organization and cultivating champions who can educate you and help you navigate each institution’s processes. 
  
• As you go, actively listen and confirm your understanding of their goals, objectives, plans, and constraints rather than simply assume that what you have learned in other places applies to them as well. 
  
• Of course, expertise and experience do matter. As you spot patterns, it makes it easier to come up to speed and offer possible recommendations based on how others have solved particular problems. Still, it is more important to listen and make sure your champions feel heard than to tell them what to think. This is the foundation of creating a collaborative relationship and becoming their partner in solving their most pressing problems. 

If you remember only one thing each time you approach a new organization, remember to be humble and open to learning. Assume there is much you do not know yet – and be open to discovering what makes this organization unique so you can put those insights into good use to help you accomplish your objectives.