A famous clothing brand recruited me to manage the people impacts on the planned changes that their company was about go through. The US leg of their project had gotten off to a terrible start and skepticism was running very high in Europe, which was by far the larger net contributor to the group, and the most complex in its inventory.

The interview was going nowhere

The Head of HR Europe had recruited me but I needed to meet the Vice President for his final approval. It was a strange meeting, me in a smart suit and he in mix matching T-shirt and jeans. He threw lots of questions at me on change methodology and best practices – he had read every book on the topic and even mine, ‘Making a Difference’. 

At a certain point, I knew this interview was going nowhere and that his knowledge of management books was far greater than mine, so I simply asked a single question:
“Imagine it is two years from now, and we’re sitting here at this exact table, drinking coffee together. Imagine that everything has gone extremely well and that you and I have combined our talents and worked together very effectively. What would I have achieved for you?”

The hidden agenda

The Vice President reflected for a while and said:
“Let’s put aside the change project we are facing for a moment. I am getting older and nearing retirement, and I worry about my management team. They are not yet at a maturity level to take over and run this business. What you would have done for me, is to get them up to the level they need to be at to run the business without me”.

And with that, a hidden agenda was born, one that was not incompatible with the change program. One where I would develop a series of hands-on pragmatic management training programs to train the management team, not only to manage their responsibilities on the big change project ahead of them, but also to rapidly develop management and leadership techniques that would bring them success. 

Eighteen months later, the US element of the change project had gone so badly that it was put on hold indefinitely. In the meantime, we had set out the framework for it to happen in, in Europe. And I completed my work with the management team. 

Making a difference

That question in my first meeting with the Vice President, formed the basis for a successful intervention, but also a deep respect between the Vice President and myself for our wildly differing but extremely complimentary skills and personalities.