As the leader of your organization, you recognize that it’s your job to set strategy, move the organization forward, hit your goals and deliver impact.
That’s a tall order for any leader even in the best business climate.
When you consider that markets are complex, dynamic and fluid, and industries are highly competitive, the expectation that one person can do all this is pretty daunting.
While most of the time a leader is perfectly capable of setting strategy and executing without additional assistance, there are other times when that same leader benefits greatly from working with an outside advisor.
So how do you decide when to engage someone to assist and when to go it alone?
These are the signs that it might be time to bring in an objective outside advisor:
If you need to move your organization in a new direction and into uncharted territory, it might be a good idea to engage an outside advisor. An advisor can provide the expertise and know-how to help move you along the learning curve and avoid pitfalls. Having someone who’s been there and done that is, more often than not, invaluable.
If you find yourself trying new approaches and strategies to move the needle for your organization and you still have the same results, it might be a sign that you need some new thinking to change the outcome. Often a leader will be very clear where she is trying to go, but all her efforts to get there don’t lead to the desired results. This can feel like the movie Groundhog Day, and finding someone to challenge your thinking and present new options will help you get out of the loop.
There are times when everyone in leadership is just running at maximum speed and no one has the time or energy to step back and think strategically for your organization. You could argue that the job at hand will still get done when your team operates like this, but if you’re honest, what are the chances that something new, innovative and strategic will emerge from a team that is tapped out? When you know you need to be thinking about strategy and you can’t for the life of you imagine finding someone to task with that job, it’s probably a sign you need to leverage outside support to do that work.
Perhaps you’re thinking that you have the team to get the job done, but the potential risk of going down new paths and time it will take to figure it all out are greater than the expense of hiring an outside advisor. When this is the case, finding an outside advisor who can mitigate risk for trying new initiatives and help you reduce the time from idea to execution is money well invested.
As a trusted advisor, I clearly have a perspective on this that might be a little self serving. Just as you wouldn’t try to be your own doctor or attorney, I’m not sure you should try to be your own strategic advisor. Trusted outside advisors have a track record of driving results with dozens of clients. They understand where you are, what’s ahead and where you’re going. Of course, you know your organization and market best. but marrying your knowledge with that of someone who brings a thorough, disciplined process for articulating strategy, creating a plan and measuring results is of the better (and winning) combination.
