The seven deadly sins of new performance consultants: the transition from trainer or OD specialist to performance consultant involves a lot of "lessons learned." Here's a look at what a number of veteran HPI professionals have learned from their early experience and the most common mistakes they see being made by new performance consultants

T+D, August, 2003 by Joe Willmore

There's a story--perhaps apocryphal--about the late Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart and how he had managed to achieve so much professionally. A student is supposed to have asked "Mister Sam" how he got to be so rich and successful. "Easy," Walton said. "Lots of smart decisions." The student then asked how he managed to make so many smart decisions, to which Walton replied, "Easy. Lots of wisdom." The student then inquired how Walton had gotten to be so smart, to which Walton responded, "Easy. Lots of dumb decisions!"

That tale illustrates a key point for almost any successful professional: To be successful requires continual learning, and much of that learning occurs through the errors we make. We'd all like to avoid making mistakes, but that's impossible when starting out. In fact, screw-ups can be key learning opportunities when we evaluate them intelligently and learn the appropriate lessons from them. Yet, though we preach the value of learning organizations and importance of lifelong learning, we're sometimes unwilling to admit our own capacity to make mistakes and fail to recognize the learning opportunities.

Looking back on my own journey in the field of human performance improvement--and the many learning opportunities--I decided to query a host of trusted peers and performance notables for insights and the lessons learned from their own journeys. I asked two questions: What mistakes did you make starting out that you learned from? What are the most common mistakes you see new performance consultants making?

Let me share the nine common (and often deadly) sins of new performance consultants.

Deadly Sin 1: The Lone Ranger Syndrome. The tendency for many trainers and OD professionals is to take an assignment and run with it. That makes sense because trainers and ODers typically own that part of the work and are considered specialists in designing or delivering their particular interventions. But human performance improvement, or HPI, requires partnership with the client and other stakeholders because, typically, all aspects of the performance project will fall outside the authority and resources of the performance consultant. Mary Broad, co-author of Transfer of Training, says that a consistent shortcoming she has seen is the failure to partner. "One of the most critical competencies of the performance consultant, internal or external, is the ability to form constructive partnerships with key stakeholders in the organization," she says. When new performance consultants try to go it alone, they usually fail--especially with complex challenges.

Tom LaBonte, who wrote Building a New Performance Vision and is a facilitator for ASTD's HPI program (GO TO) http://www1.astd.org/HPI.Community, has noticed that even when new performance consultants do partner, they tend to aim too low. Says LaBonte, "One of the most common and critical mistakes is either partnering with someone too low in the organization or partnering with someone who isn't the real client--such as managers whom the new performance consultant already has a relationship with. Those people often aren't the ultimate decision makers, so the performance consultant spins his or her wheels on resources, decisions, and getting access to the workplace."

Most performance projects involve a number of causes and interventions that cross boundaries and require buy-in from several teams or units, so partnering with the right players is important in order to get access and resources. Good performance consultants aren't lone rangers. They become team players who involve others and identify key stakeholders and supporters. They look for champions and decision makers because they realize that the support of such people is critical for most performance projects.

Deadly Sin 2: A rush to judgment. Clients are usually in a hurry and tend to have unreasonable expectations. That's a challenge for everyone regardless of experience level, but especially for newly minted performance consultants. Yes, we need to be responsive and act as quickly as we can, recognizing that time is a precious commodity. But as former Coast Guard performance consultant Jeff Parks points out, "Newbies will frequently try to get to the end too quickly. The process isn't always fast, and there is some churn; clients usually have to stew for a while. The performance problem didn't get that screwed up overnight, so it won't be solved overnight."

The tendency to rush--or "premature intervention," as one consultant calls it--leads to actions before the performance consultant really knows what the problem is. We all recognize the time pressures in all organizations, but rushing on the front end is a prescription for disaster. Failing to clearly identify the root cause of the problem means that we end up selecting an action that doesn't really solve the problem. George Piskurich, editor of HPI Essentials, notes, "I especially see new people stopping at a level or two above [the root cause] and reporting back to clients causes that ... won't close the gap."