Is it the people or the plan? What do you do if it’s both?

I get it. You’re thinking, “Here we go again - just another one of those stupid constructions: Phablet, Hangry, Bennifer or Brainrot.”

But I think Coachsulting is a different beast.  

A team is about to launch a major change. The plan looks good. The leaders can explain it to the team and other leaders. But the work stalls like a ‘65 Impala. People are unsure who owns the decisions. Managers are having different conversations with their teams. No one has created a plan to address the inevitable resistance to change. 

Here are three approaches to this too-big-to-fail project heading for a wall.

Try a Consultant. An expert in a specific field who is paid to share specialized knowledge, analyze problems, or help improve performance. AKA, diagnose a problem, build a plan, hand it to the client, spend two weeks at home recovering from weekly coast to coast travel, then meet their new client.

You can work with an Executive coach. These professionals help leaders see the assumptions and behaviors getting in the way of high-performance.

Or you can hire a Coachsultant.  An individual with expertise in bringing business consulting and coaching together to address the broader challenges facing a team or department: readiness for a new initiative, leading through change, building a high-performance culture, and getting the team to the performance level needed to execute on strategy.

These challenges can’t be conquered by either a coach or consultant alone. Only by bringing both disciplines to bear, challenging a leader's thinking while bringing real operating experience to the problem, can you solve issues that threaten the project or the company.

When the honest answer to any of the questions below is "both," a Coachsultative approach is necessary.

1. Is the team ready to execute this initiative, or is that execution dependent on decisions not yet made?

2. To deliver a successful project, what has to change: the plan, or the way the team works?

3. When leaders agree in the room and renegotiate in the hallway, is the problem the strategy or the leadership?

4. When an initiative stalls, what does it need: a better plan, or a different way of working?

Most projects fail due to a confluence of factors - people performance and plan viability are top contenders.  Coachsulting is meant to address both before potential failure becomes a reality.

Think back to your last stalled initiative. Was it the people, or the plan?