| | By Mick James
I was saddened to
hear of the death of Sir
John Harvey-Jones last
month, at the age of 83.
Although Sir John
received his knighthood
for his work in
restoring the fortunes
of ICI, he will of
course be remembered for
his Troubleshooter
series. For many, Sir
John's hearty
interventions will have
fixed a benign, if
somewhat inaccurate
image of the management
consultant in their
minds.
I remember at the
time that many
consultants were deeply
unhappy with the series.
I had a more relaxed
view, largely due to
having attended the
launch of Series 2 and
been liberally plied
with beer by Tolly
Cobbold, the Ipswich
brewery featured in the
series (sadly now gone).
The beauty of the
series was its
simplicity. Sir John
would turn up, all
flowing locks and
moustache, and ask to
look at the books. After
some remorseless
number-crunching and
grilling the directors,
he would then come up
with his
recommendations. It was
what you might call the
Lone Ranger view of
consultancy – a
mysterious stranger | |
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| | rides into town, shoots
all the bad guys and
rides off before anybody
can thank him.
There were (and still
are) a lot of things
wrong with this
approach. The first was
that Sir John's
background was in top
management at a major
plc. The companies he
was troubleshooting were
nearly all owner-managed
or family businesses. A
relentless approach to
delivering shareholder
value just didn't chime
in with the aspirations
of these people. I
recall a family who were
producing fruit juice
from their own orchards.
Sir John advised them to
get out of the
unprofitable fruit
growing business and
concentrate on the
lucrative processing and
bottling plant. He
simply couldn't
comprehend it when they
bought another orchard.
What he failed to grasp
was that these were
fruit people – that was
who they were. Not
growing their own fruit
was as much a failure
for them as not making
any money.
So the Troubleshooter
series subtly fed the
impression that
consultancy does – or at
least claims to – speak
from some objective
reality, that there is
in any given situation a
right thing to do | |
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| | irrespective of the
desires and perceptions
of the participants.
Even in those far off
days real consultants
were becoming acutely
aware of the complexity
of change, the
unpredictability of
outcomes and the
importance of change
management.
Another problem was
that the programme was
remarkably light on the
idea of there being a
process attached to
change. Once what to do
had been determined, it
was simply a question of
delivering the
advice/instruction to
the relevant people and
letting them get on with
it. The fascinating
option that one might
receive and act on
advice that was
objectively perfect but
still ruin everything
through a botched
execution was, sadly,
never explored.
The programme was
also unfortunate in its
timing, coming out just
as the consultancy
industry was gearing up
for the big adventure
that was business
process re-engineering.
We might all be a bit
cynical about it now,
but the 1990s were a
period when it really
became accepted that it
was worth directing some
serious intellectual
firepower – rather than
just "bluff common | |
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| | sense" – on perennial
business problems.
Troubleshooter helped
to establish the false
dichotomy between the
plain-speaking man of
business and the
forked-tongued snake-oil
salesman. As a result,
one of the great
socio-economic upheavals
of the late 20th
century, the process
revolution, has been
totally ignored by the
mass media.
The legacy of
Troubleshooter
persists to this day,
having become the
template for reality
shows such as Gordon's
Kitchen Nightmares or
The Hotel Inspectors.
What these shows have in
common is that the
criteria for being able
to give advice is one's
own past success and the
favoured method of
delivering said advice
is a bluff "I'm right,
you're wrong, now get on
with it". I must say I'm
a great fan of these
shows as entertainment,
but is that the best we
can do? Years ago I
remember a BBC series
which covered many of
the same issues
affecting restaurant
start-ups which actually
featured a real-life
restaurant consultant,
the late Gerald Campion.
Would a "mere
consultant" get airtime
now, one wonders? Oddly
enough you can see a | |
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| | more consultative
approach at work on the
television but not
necessarily in a
business context: in the
programme Supernanny
for example, the
expert's authority is
derived from the
effectiveness of her
change techniques and
ability to get buy-in
from her clients and not
simply past commercial
success.
It's a shame – the
process of business
change could make as
compelling viewing as
any hospital or police
drama or soap opera
siege. But it's hard to
think of a good word
that's been said about
consultancy on the
broadcast media in the
intervening decade or
so. I know all my
experiences with telly
folk – even quite
renowned documentary
directors – have been
uniformly negative. For
all its faults
Troubleshooter was at
least a programme which
showed that outside
intervention – seeking
expert help – could be a
positive thing. To that
extent we should all be
grateful to Sir John
Harvey-Jones.
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