Practicing What We Preach: OD Consulting and the Cobbler’s Children

We’ve all heard the age-old story of the cobbler’s children having no shoes. What’s the OD consultant’s version? Too often we’re so busy doing strategy, values and metrics work with our clients that we don’t get around to doing it for ourselves. John Ledwith from Sandia Labs is a great example of someone who does make the time. John is the Organization Development department at Sandia. That means he’s pretty busy. But he’s made time to get clear about important strategic questions and created the Strategy Map you see below. Robert Kaplan and David Norton developed Strategy Maps as part of their larger work on the Balanced Scorecard.

John explains, “As I was doing Balanced Scorecard work with my clients I began to think about the sustainability of my own practice. That’s where my Strategy Map came from.

I have shared my own Strategy Map with folks in my organization that do similar work. I have also used it with clients to illustrate what it looks like. It is also a way of educating people about my practice.

The strategy map focuses me on my client and the work I do with them. Starting with my basic strategic intent – why am I doing this work and what do I hope will be the impact? What are the benefits and experiences I strive for them to receive? How are they better off as a result of engaging me? Every other perspective in the strategy map (financial, internal and learning and growth) is designed to support these value propositions being provided to my client. The tool helps keep me and my practice centered on what is truly important. It also raises my awareness to those things that I may not be paying enough attention to. It permits me to model to others both the benefit and how to use the tool.”

What tools and approaches are you using that you are advocating to others? Do they help you improve your own practice? It is often easier to make sure those you are consulting to or managing strive for excellence. An equally important question – one that John has asked of himself: “Am I holding myself accountable to those same high standards?”