Or The Eleven Focus Areas for Consultants to Sell Services.

This list is from Alan Weiss’ Million Dollar Consulting. The fourth edition of the book was released in July and about half way through the book, Weiss says that he got out of organizational consulting because all the problems started to look the same.

1. Leadership is inept in that key people are not serving as avatars of the behavior they are seeking in others.
2. Team building is sought when, in actuality, the organization has committees and needs committees, not teams.
3. There are silos headed by powerful people who are defending their turf.
4. Problem solving is prized over innovation, and “black belt nine delta” nonsense takes over people’s minds like a bad science fiction movie from the 1950’s
5. There is excessive staff interference instead of support, typically from HR, finance, IT, and/or legal.
6. There are too many meetings that take too long and are overwhelmingly focused on sharing information—the worst possible reason to have a meeting. The organization’s talent and energy are being squandered internally instead of being applied externally
7. The customer’s perceptions of the organization’s products, services, and relationships are different from the organization’s perception.
8. The reward and feedback systems are not aligned with strategy and are not encouraging the appropriate behaviors and discouraging the inappropriate.
9. Strategy and planning are mistaken for each other.
10. Career development and succession planning are not wedded.
11. The organization is bureaucratic , in that it focus on means and not ends.

So, do these look like the same problems that you over and over again in the companies that you work for and with?