Omar Khan named as one of the Top 25 Consultants 2010

Consulting Magazine - June 2010

The annual Top 25 Consultants issue is here, and not a moment too soon. Editors just can’t get enough of this issue; or more specifically, reading the nearly 400 nominations we receive for this award each year...

It’s a wonderful exercise for anyone who has ever doubted the value of the consulting profession. Who wouldn’t want to read 400 consulting success stories written by co-workers, colleagues, clients and C-level executives.

The stories, of course, are inspiring every year. But in 2010, many of them revolved around the “trusted advisor” concept a bit more than previous years. Crisis brings out the best in consultants, and we had plenty to go around lately. While client budgets were strapped, their need for advisory work was greater than ever.

As usual, the profession answered the call. Time and time again, you stepped up to the plate and got the work done, often under difficult conditions when clients demanded more from consultants than ever before. They wanted results, and they wanted them better, faster and often cheaper than ever before. You delivered on all of the above. More than a few consulting firms had to trim staff in 2009, and many of you have worked harder over the last 12 months than at any point in your career.

Industrywide, utilization rates are at record levels, which makes the client satisfaction results all the more impressive. In this special 24-page section, we highlight the best of the best. The Top 25 Consultants of 2010 are recognized for extraordinary efforts in client service and leadership, as well as outstanding achievements in six client industries—healthcare, energy, public sector, technology, retail and financial services.

Omar Khan
Founder and Senior  Partner
Sensei International
Excellence in Client Service

Omar Khan was born in Egypt, the son of Pakistani diplomats, and has lived in Germany, the United States, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Netherlands, England, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Dubai and Singapore. It’s no wonder then that Khan’s latest book (with Alan Weiss) is called The Global Consultant. He operates a blog of the same name.

Khan was a pioneer in Neuro-linguistic programming, and tapped that background when he founded Sensei International, a global leadership development and consulting firm with 20 people in the U.S., the U.K., Asia Pacific, the Middle East and South Asia.

In 1992, Khan created a firm called Training 2000 in Pakistan, fertile ground with enough business and hardly any consulting firms. “This was the heyday of re-engineering. Re-engineering process is one thing, but re-engineering people is another.”

This gave Khan his big idea. “If we took our people management skills and linked them with the process skills of a change management firm, it would be a potent combination,” he says. So that’s what he did, teaming with a British firm called York MDM to form Sensei International.

“Usually you have people that deal with human performance, and others that deal with business performance and never the two shall meet,” he says. “We are interested in delivering strategic business results by working through and engaging in human performance. We’re looking to build a bridge that we think has been overlooked.”

Khan says there’s no easy way to define Sensei. “We were doing this long before anyone knew what to call it.” Khan says. “Elements of what we do fall into strategy, we support operations, and there’s clearly an HR component. I think Sensei transcends the usual way the profession is defined.”

Clearly Khan is onto something. Khan says the firm’s been growing steadily and forecasts double-digit growth again this year. He was nominated for the Top 25 award by more than a dozen clients, which include American Express, 3M, Johnson & Johnson, Ritz-Carlton and Unilever. “This award is a re-affirmation of what we’re doing,” Khan says.

“Hopefully, we can continue to add to the value space—and maybe even create a new one.”

TIME TO ESTABLISH MEETINGS VALUE

Conference News Magazine - June 2010

CN and management consultancy Sensei UKE recently convened a panel of meeting industry experts at Cannizaro House, Wimbledon, to examine perceptions of value and return on investment and time.

The Business Visitors and Events Partnership recently estimated the value of events for the British economy at £24bn. Many organisers, however, are increasingly pressed by procurement and their bosses to justify the value of time spent at events. But just how do you determine the value of a conference or meeting?

Maximising return on inve stment (ROI) has become a mantra for many, with numerous industry seminars on the subject and even the odd category at industry awards. CN and management consultancy Sensei UKE convened a roundtable forum of industry planners and meetings experts to examine the issues. In some areas testing ROI need not be too hard, with sales leads and PR coverage both measurable items. However, forum co-chairman, Sensei UKE’s director Richard Ferguson, noted it was “worrying” that there were attempts to turn events ROI into a science with its own institute in Norway and a special formula for success. “Our experience is that so many organisations haven’t truly thought through what they want to get out of an event, let alone measure ROI", he told the forum.

Recession had heightened the challenge of engaging people, believed Johann Scheepers, GM of Thistle’s Kingsley Hotel in London. He pointed out there were now fewer events where the chairman came a long to address the annual ‘do’. The day delegate rate had rebounded, at least in London, Scheepers noted, with £35-£65 now being achieved, compared with around £25 at the depth of the recession. “It’s starting to come back", he said, adding that the Kingsley had gained from some companies trading down from the top end. "The requirement for discussion does not go away", Ferguson stressed, advising clients to remember the business value of the event and make the appropriate investment. “Organisations don’t always think about it in that way", he said.

Head of Group Internal Communications, Manchester Airport Group, Liz Douglas, said delegates were now demanding more and the format of the annual event was changing. The group’s annual roadshow event had evolved and reaction to the content was closely monitored, she explained. “We looked at the conference differently and the event was staged in one building split into zones", said Douglas. The format was designed to appeal in its component parts more directly to individual sections of the business and ran from 8am to 9pm. Delegates could drop in to the zones and pick up content. “It was no more expensive but in terms of value to the business, we got much more", she added. The airport group’s annual survey found that key information was retained six months on from the new-style conference. Effectiveness and education, rather than an annual jamboree seems to be the way forward for securing value.

Ron Glasgow, MD of event management agency Glasgows, advised choosing your organiser carefully. “The great tragedy of the public sector is that none of those asking for events knows anything about events", Glasgow said. He is no fan of procurement calling the shots. Their processes, he noted, were “draconian and expensive” and put magement companies under unnecessary pressure. Demands for policies on sustainability, crisis management, disaster recovery and BS standards were time-consuming and added to costs without necessarily raising quality, Glasgow believes. “In terms of value for money, clients need to understand what they want. Procurement systems deliver the best tender, but not necessarily the best event management company.” Glasgow foresees big cuts to public sector events budgets, predicting some companies will go to the wall when the big squeeze comes. “It is short-sighted and dangerous and you get what you pay for", he warned. Glasgow suggested that the celebrity factor could be one area to cut. “It is preposterous when public sector conferences pay up to £20k, a third of their budget, for a celebrity speaker", he said. “Does a chief nursing officers’ conference really need someone like Lenny Henry?”

Head of internal communications at Aviva, Gillian McGill, said the challenge for her team was now how to get more discussion and results from more intimate meetings. “Over the last 18 months we have concentrated on getting conversations going at the right level. Today the style is different. You have to justify bringing senior management to a conference. We are never asked to measure, however, but to justify.” Aviva’s senior level conferences are all about value for time more than money, she noted. “You can’t put a price on the value of getting senior managers in front of staff.”

Director for leadership and organisational development at NHS Hampshire, Simon Philips, said he’d been sent to conferences to gather information on behalf of his whole organisation to save paying multiple delegate fees. “Managers are also aware of time, but the key issue for us is cost.” The headline cost of the conference, he said, definitely affected the initial judgement on whether to attend. As for mechanisms for feeding back value, Philips said increasingly there were informal ones. “After an event, websites can be populated with presentations and this undermines the argument for sending multiple people.” Glasgow noted an increased use of web casting. “In one example, we had 800 people logged on and sending messages to their board in real time. It is a good way of getting a large audience.”

CN managing editor Paul Colston asked whether the panel thought the conference was no longer the place where you start discussion, but the forum for the culmination of the brief, extended through social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Ferguson noted social media helped to “lock in” benefits from a conference, good materials that were often “left on the floor”. Philips said social media only worked once the value of an event has been established in the minds of individuals. Social media is clearly not for everyone: Douglas noted that, even in 2010, the majority of her staff didn’t have email a ccounts, let alone Twitter or Facebook. “Engage before, during and after a conference on the official website", was Glasgow’s advice. The website could be a repository for conference documents and feedback post-event, he said. Interactive technology such as SpotMe devices could be considered for speeding up networking opportunities. Technology can save money, too. Glasgow gave an example of an organiser’s request for 10 bilingual facilitators for one multinational conference. ”I proposed dispensing with that and having interactive technology. It saved £15k.” Douglas cautioned on using technology for the sake of it. “We tried going back to basics and it really made us think about what we spend money on”, she said. “We still ended up needing a small amount on technology in order to capture the vast amounts of information we needed.”

Ferguson noted that people often simply lose sight of what they want to get out of a conference. “There can be much effort poured into who will be speaking and what technology is used, rather than thinking ‘Who’s our target audience, who would benefit from it and how? We need to educate people to think about what they can get out the other end, what are the outcomes they are striving for.”

Scheepers pointed out that perception is important. For one Labour Party conference organiser it was important not to create a fancy affair, even though the event was in a five-star hotel. “Flexibility and accessibility are deal-breakers", said Scheepers, “always ask yourself if you really need things, you could save 10 per cent on your meeting cost. I’ve seen people manning empty registration desks for £10 an hour ‘just in case’ someone wants something. That’s surely what venue service level agreements are for.”

The five-point ROI methodology pyramid put together by the ROI Institute in Norway which claims to have a planning and evaluation tool for all events, was not taken too seriously. The first three pyramid levels, which include satisfaction with hospitality and content; what was learned and how to apply that learning, the panel thought were valid but no more than common sense.

Converting the business impact into a monetary value to then compare it with cost, in order to determine the ROI was not generally thought to be either achievable or even desirable. Glasgow thought the first three levels of the five-level pyramid were all measurable. “Public sector clients are happy with the first three. I believe the last t wo are just alchemy.” McGill said her sector was full of actuaries and insurance managers who loved to pick holes in such theories. “I don’t think you can get true, measurable, science with ROI.” Ferguson believes extracting value from an event comes down to defining the value you want to get and being clear about outcomes. Douglas said the kind of outcomes fro m events denoting succe ss included messages and lessons being retained by delegates.

What was measurable, said Glasgow, was the level of action and inte raction at the conference. “If key staff come back stimulated, then great, but I hate box ticking. It doesn’t have any value. It is impossible to measure outcome without changing that outcome by the process of measurement.” Philips sees a generational differences in terms of what is demanded and expected of conferences. Younger delegates, he said, weren’t interested in tablets of stone being handed down, or turned on by champagne receptions. “Old school thinking is ‘carrot and stick’, but the last 30 years have shown that approach has only a marginal impact on an individual’s thinking. More potent today are notions of autonomy and purpose.” He gave the example of using SpotMe technology. “Generation Y knows where the net working opportunities are", he said. “They want to be in charge, choose when to turn up, when to leave and get the outcomes they want.” He contrasted this with the older generation that sat still and took notes. For Philips, meetings are now about empowerment and the perception of value for time.

And, with little agreement that we have arrived at a meetings science of determining return on inve stment, it seems, the phrase, ‘time is money’ is still the trusted barometer in estimating real value for our panel, at least.

Karen is Sensei UKE’s Business Development Manager, responsible for communicating the benefits of Sensei’s range of leadership and human performance solutions to organisations throughout the UK and Europe.

Karen is a business professional with over 25 years’ experience in SMEs and blue chip
companies. Working in the UK and the USA, Karen has worked in a number of sectors, including private equity, digital publishing and healthcare.

SENSEI LEADERS OF THE FUTURE

'The future isn't what is used to be and it's time for a new breed of leader to emerge...

The recent economic crisis has placed leadership and how it is deployed in the spotlight like never before. It has also starkly demonstrated that many organisations simply did not have robust enough plans to survive without significant trauma. For many traditional leaders the last few years have simply been a challenge too far, as they have been caught holding on to false assumptions about how the future will unfold. Those in leadership roles now find themselves in many cases leading organisations that are bearing the scars of the recent recession. Their people are feeling battered and bruised and, in many cases, fearful of any more change that might threaten their livelihood.

To help leaders respond to this challenge in a smart and intelligent way we have developed Sensei’s ‘Leaders of the Future’ service, an innovative and cost-effective way to develop future leaders in today’s cost conscious climate. Our approach will:

• Deliver the sustainable value needed now to help fuel the growth of your organisation
• Embed a culture of candour that will unleash pent up enthusiasm and focus energy on improving performance
• Provide a leadership pipeline that helps you future proof your organisation

The recent global recession has taught us all some painful lessons and we have to take these on board if we are to ensure we have any future at all.

Developing leaders of the future is always an important but rarely an urgent priority for non-executive directors, CEOs and their executive teams. In fact, in the current economic climate it is common for this activity to be considered as just part of the overall training and development budget and this, as evidence shows, is one of the first budgets to be cut when the cost squeeze is on. Rather than fight this reality we have developed a more novel and, we believe, more realistic line of attack to develop the leaders your organisation needs to future proof your business.

This service draws on our award winning global consultancy skills and the latest training and facilitation techniques developed while supporting some of the world’s leading organisations. Our starting point is to work with you to co-create and design a highly tailored approach that recognises your current operational and strategic reality. Your world view and the value you need to deliver to give you an acceptable ROI guides what we do and how we will do it. Our aim is to ensure that the investment you will make in developing your future leaders is at least self-funding and preferably value-generative.

EXAMPLES OF ‘LEARNING THREADS’
WE CAN DEPLOY IN YOUR DESIGN

• Sensei Breakthrough Coaching
• Leadership Journeys
• Community Value Projects
• Strategic Deep Dives
• Participant Mentoring
• Operational Value Performance Projects
• Study Sessions
• Participant Skill Share Sessions
• Visit and Learn Experiences
• Team Stretch Activities
• Modular Highly Interactive Workshops
• Culminating in a ‘Leaders of the Future Conference’ - the participants’ chance to share what they have achieved with your executive team.

We will take your current view of the challenges your organisation will face in the future and mix it with our view of the challenges you may face. This approach, derived from helping some of the world’s leading organisations, will enable us to develop a unique and bespoke design that we can be confident will really take hold in your organisation’s DNA.

A co-designed approach of this kind is a long way from the ‘plug and play’ programmes that are now so common in the leadership development and training marketplace. In the Sensei design our consulting expertise complements our training and facilitation skills to ensure your leaders are exposed to a learning experience that really resonates and prepares them for the future.

The duration and the ‘learning threads’ deployed will vary to suit your organisation’s reality, degree of ambition and current operating constraints. Topics covered may be as diverse as:

• The art of leadership and what history can really teach us
• How to liberate the latent passion for change and tap the hidden productivity that is discretionary effort
• How to lead global, geographically dispersed, virtually connected teams
• What style of leadership has succeeded in your organisation in the past and what the future requires
• The role of the leader in reshaping and changing the prevailing operating culture to make it fit for the future
• Making the most of the globally connected, network savvy and internet enabled talent that is the current generation of graduates entering your organisation.

LEADERS OF THE FUTURE at a glance...

Sensei’s ‘Leaders of the Future’ service has elements of both give and take. Each participant will be exposed to leading edge personal development experiences that will equip them for life. In return they will be expected to give something back, both to your organisation and to the community.

Each student will have to complete at least one ‘Leadership in Action’ project that will be scoped and selected at the start and designed to deliver significant value to your organisation. They will also take a leading role in designing and completing a project that is of genuine benefit to local residents.

In this way Sensei’s innovative ‘Leaders of the Future’ service will contribute a real and sustainable ROI for your organisation as well as providing a positive impact in the local community.

WATCH MALCOLM'S LEADERS OF THE FUTURE VIDEO

CASE STUDY - BENEFITS AND RETURN ON INVESTMENT

One of our International clients headquartered in the UK had a substantial and growing business in Asia. They recognised that if they could develop their country leaders to a point where they could take on a regional EVP role, this would save them the cost of their current expatriate packages of around USD 750k each. The design we co-created took 8 country GMs through a 12 month learning experience and produced three leaders capable of taking up EVP positions. The ROI was never in doubt.

OUR EXPERIENCE

We have helped clients such as Unilever, Reckitt Benckiser, British American Tobacco, Maersk and Homeserve to create leadership development programmes that deliver real value, as well as a leadership pipeline that helps future proof their organisation.