Value-Based Fees: How to Charge—and Get—What You're Worth: A Guide for Consultants, Second Edition

3.4. MEASURING THE UNMEASURABLE

The CEO of a $600 million operation told me that his objective was to create better teamwork among his direct reports. His own total compensation package was about $2 million a year. I asked him why (the value) he wanted to do this, and he told me that improved teamwork would achieve the following goals:

• Free him up from petty turf issues

• Allow him to focus on the board's requirements for expansion

• Evaluate which subordinates were possible successors

• Speed cross-functional collaboration (since subordinates erected the turf boundaries that their bosses designed)

• Reduce the high frequency and long duration of meetings that were necessary to sort out all the conflict

This was obviously a high-value project. But how would we know that we had achieved something? "I'll know it when I see it, believe me," he said, but I didn't believe him. "How would you prove this to the board," I asked, "or to a newspaper reporter doing a story on how much you and I have improved teamwork?"

We arrived at the following measures, which he and I would agree were present, or not, through observation and participation, which would improve by degrees and would require about six months for complete effect:

• Meetings would reduce in frequency and duration, and agenda items would contain fewer and fewer issues to be resolved among departments.

• Customers would cease complaining that they were receiving conflicting advice, duplicate bills, and too many sales calls from different people. ...