Business advice: a minefield of uncertainty
Business owners can choose from a wealth of advisory and mentoring options should their business suddenly face a crisis. Ralph Penning steers you through the minefield.
There are unexpected similarities in functionality between the human and corporate body in the sense that both fall ill and in that the cure depends very much on the diagnostic and curative skills of the attending practitioner.
Similar in both, the range of available service providers is immense and the choice depends to a certain extent on the patient's belief and ability to pay.
The real difference exists in the way most individuals approach available sources of intervention. In respect of personal health the tendency is to start with a registered general medical practitioner and failing to achieve satisfactory outcomes or referral to a specialist to resort to alternative healers.
In addressing business problems on the other hand, most affected sufferers tend to rely in the first instance on informal advice, mainly from friends and relatives, and then graduating to more formal sources. This may account for the proverbial "too little too late" syndrome in business crisis intervention.
With a host of advisers, consultants, coaches, mentors and facilitators plying their trades, it is little wonder that the average small to medium business owner is confronted by a potpourri of choice that defies his/her ability to make an informed decision.
It is encouraging to know that help is at hand.
The Consultation Group that represents stakeholder interests in Project Collaboration, a joint private and public sector initiative to build business capability in New Zealand, adopted a recommendation to bring into being, as a matter of priority, a register of qualified business advisers and facilitators.
It is intended to open this for public access on a designated website to enable business clients in need of competent advice and intervention to select a suitably qualified and experienced private practitioner according to identifiable credentials.
The registration scheme is designed to take the guesswork out of the selection process and when fully implemented will be an essential resource.
Mentoring options
While appreciating the role of BITC mentors, whose assistance is freely available from Economic Development Agencies, users may not always appreciate the limitations of essentially peer-based informal mentoring in critical business situations.
Consumers of the service should be aware that mentors, who volunteer their knowledge, cannot be held accountable for their opinions. In fact, they should not even attempt to directly advise their mentorees, but help them to work through various options with the final decision firmly resting with the business owner.
Mentoring on higher and more formal levels is provided by the NZ Institute of Management, which scrutinises, trains and accredits mentors drawn from its senior ranks of Associate Fellows and Fellows, who invariably have a broad knowledge base to draw on, are widely experienced and in many instances hold formal qualifications. In the formal advisory sector, the Australasian Institute of Enterprise Facilitators is a generic source of competent advice and intervention. Its professional members are accredited on the strength of formal qualifications, practical business experience and facilitation skills. They are expected to proverbially "walk the talk" with a professional level of accountability to achieve pre-determined outcomes bereft of the vaguaries inherent in many other forms of intervention.
Last, but not least, are the traditional professions of chartered accountancy and law, who may not in all instances give the client the benefit of expertise in a wide range of business disciplines, but are regarded as experts in their respective fields in so far as it affects or is the cause of the problem that needs to be solved.
The question everybody in business needs to ask themselves is whether s/he is prepared to live with the consequences of the consultation to determine the need and preferred outcome of it. If a lack of markets or dwindling profitability is causing concern, it befits the occasion to involve somebody prepared to make a commitment to improve the situation.
Following a critical analysis, the practitioner should be prepared to give you an undertaking that set objectives will be met, provided the client follows a prescribed regime of corrective action. The fee for the intervention should be measured in terms of the realisation of expectations.
This invariably calls for a practitioner who is bound by professional standards of an accrediting body like the NZ Society of Accountants, Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Australasian Institute of Enterprise Facilitators and NZ Institute of Management and supported by professional liability insurance, which cannot be expected from a mentor who voluntarily gives his/her time.
In other instances where there is an assessable malfunction, with cause and effect clearly identified, the reasonable expectation must be that the adviser will facilitate corrective action to remove the inhibitor, redress the imbalance and restore the business to good health.
Seek advice first
Unfortunately evidence points to an inclination on the part of business owners to seek competent advice as a last resort, rather than to invoke it at the first signs of trouble. Many business owners also fail to see the advantages of involving a consultant with a view to increasing business capability, accelerating growth and improving profitability. It also is a wise investment to involve outside expertise at the outset of the business to plan its development and build a solid base for its incremental improvement in sets of predetermined time frames.
Too often the consultant becomes the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, when earlier intervention would not only have saved the business, but better still would have set it on a path of solid growth with realistic rewards for its stakeholders.
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