| | 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 rides | |
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| | 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 | |
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| | right thing to do
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 – | |
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| | rather than just "bluff
common 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? | |
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| | Oddly enough you can
see a 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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