My observation is that more and more organizations realize the business benefits of creating an environment where people can work and play well with others. However, when I get a call from an organization to enlist my help, I sometimes have to be a code-breaker.  While organizations more often these days can be brutally honest and say, “we have a manager that is an abject disaster, or “the members of this department hate each others guts, or “the senior management team is like a dysfunctional family, or “we are doing well, but we want to be proactive to take our performance to the next level, there are others who are more circumspect in describing the issue. When someone is direct with me – it is very refreshing , and we can begin to look at possibilities of how we might partner.   However, when the person on the other end of the phone speaks in code, getting to the root of the issue depends solely on how quickly and accurately, I can break the code.
In going through some old files, I found my notes from a conference call with the senior human resources officer for a large multi-national publicly-traded company that shall remain nameless to protect the innocent , namely me , but for purposes of this story I’ll call Workworld. In the spirit of full disclosure, this is not a company for which I did any work. However, here is the coded conversation.
The human resources person began by saying that Workworld currently has a product management training program that has great content because it came from the leading textbook on product management, but has not had the impact that was intended. She continued to say that Workworld was seeking someone to revamp the curriculum, and that I came highly recommended.  When I ask why the existing program has not been as effective as it could have been, I am told the following:  “There have been ˜infrastructure problems‘ in the product management area.  The product managers come from a variety of backgrounds in the company, have a range of performance issues, and need to develop their skill sets to a level commensurate with the expectations of their job requirements.  The senior vice-president of product management has insisted on an urgent timeline for this group to transition from being a transaction based business to one that has more of a strategic focus with an emphasis on driving financial results, and he has the budget and the accountability to make it happen.  He wants a curriculum that includes pre-work, an evaluative component, and competency certification.  [Editorial comment , Notice the use of "buzz words in bold type.]
Here is one possible way to decode the conversation:  This senior human resources officer has absolutely no power or voice in the decision of who Workworld will hire to design the training program. I am a name on their list but not necessarily highly recommended.  I am simply the next in a string of consultants who have already told Workworld they were not available.  The new Senior Vice President of Product Development is a high-powered MBA who finds dialing a phone beneath him (or he never learned how) and so he has asked the human resources officer to screen consultants. Moreover, someone created the training program without involving the product managers in the design, used an academic text for the content, and now has no agreement among the managers on how the training applies to day-to-day operations.  The “infrastructure problems may refer to the fact that historically the product management area has been the place where the company dumps marginal performers so they can’t do any harm to the real business.  Now times have changed, as well as the management, and Workworld now wants this area to make money for the company.  Unfortunately, the current staff , through no fault of their own – is not qualified to do this.  The new senior vice-president has been given the dollars and authority to fix the problem, but he does not have the chutzpa to fire poor performers or transition employees who should have never been put in this position in the first place to new roles.  So he wants a consultant to come in, develop a demanding training program, evaluate who can cut it and who cannot, be the taskmaster that he isn’t and get rid of the dead wood.  And this work needs to be done right away because this guy is toast if he can’t show results by next week.
Now, the reader might detect a certain amount of cynicism in the manner in which I have recast the situation.  However, one of my previous clients who was working for Workworld and had hoped to reach me prior to the call from the VP of Human Resources corroborated much of my intuition about this company , including that I was one of multiple consultants that they called.  The point of this story is this.  There are many excellent places to work out there that consciously work at doing what is necessary to build those excellent work places.  What these organizations have in common is leadership that has the ability and willingness to speak honestly about what is working well and what is still missing that needs to be present to be a great place to work and they take the appropriate action.  When they bring someone in from the outside, they are equally honest, they speak clearly in a manner that needs no decoding, and they welcome the partnership and perspective that an outside person brings.  And from the perspective of consultants such as myself, they are the organizations with whom we love to work.