When Tiger Woods was a youngster he was diligently coached by his father to develop what was to become a multi-million dollar golf swing. His father demanded that he practice diligently and frequently. With his father’s keen interest, relevant experience and ability to provide expert tuition, Tiger learned to train his mind and body to adapt to perfecting his golf swing and sharpen his aptitude for the sport in general. His coach was tough and exacting with the goal for Tiger to become the world’s number one golfer. With wise coaching and Tiger’s diligent practice, history tells us that their strategy became reality.

 

Similar to Tiger, in the corporate world there are many opportunities for enthusiastic aspirants to develop both their technical and non-technical knowledge and competencies. However, without guidance from a trusted and experienced adviser, the wrong path can invariably be taken, reputation can be damaged and unnecessary costs can be incurred. Worse, without corrective intervention, ill-conceived knowledge and competencies can continue to develop and costly errors can become commonplace.

 

The same principles apply when it comes to implementing business change that requires specialised knowledge, skills and experience. Frequently we witness unrealistic expectations thrust upon otherwise competent employees who are considered high-achievers yet have insufficient knowledge, skills and experience in the necessary field to accomplish the change. Subsequently, time goes by, budgets are expended on the wrong initiatives and investments leading to the desired change either not occurring or it becomes a mere shadow of what should have been.

 

Examples of what we have learned from the Legal industry over the past years, which could have been avoided include:

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• Endeavouring to introduce business process automation and integration interventions to improve productivity, operational costs and profit margins. To maximise the firm’s financial return and competitive advantage, experts with frequent exposure to global best practices garnered from years of transforming business processes in alignment with the latest and older-generation technologies. If not designed and implemented well, business process improvements can lead to unintended productivity losses;

 

• Tackling the specialist and highly-technical task of migrating data from the legacy system to a new system providing reliable, secure and trusted information. When performed by someone less than an experienced data migration analyst, the firm’s entire data-set can be jeopardised and placed at risk. This often leads to unwanted and costly data legacies that are endured for many years into the future making it challenging to introduce innovations like machine learning to remain competitive; and

 

• Designing, developing and implementing business intelligence systems requires a high-level of system and data knowledge combined with exposure to contemporary operational requirements. If implemented poorly by well-meaning but inexperienced employees often leads to report and data integrity problems together with unimpressive and less than professional client reports. This situation manifests into an absence of trust in report integrity including poor representation of the firm to its clients.

 

We understand that not every enterprise wants to be the ‘Tiger Woods’ of their industry, however with a little guidance and advice from knowledgeable, skilled and experienced resources, your firm can avoid the embarrassment of a failed intervention and instead reap the benefits as they were intended.

 

If trusted advice or implementation support is needed, lets connect!

 

Robert Wagner, Partner, Harriss Wagner Consultants and Advisers