Paying for Professional Advice? Use It!
Many people engage professionals for a wide variety of services, and then elect not to follow the advice or direction that is provided. Medical doctors are familiar with this scenario. Physicians treat a patient, perform tests, and identify a specific malady that the patient possesses. The doctor then prescribes a treatment regimen—could be medicine, physical therapy, abstaining from certain food or beverages. The patient fails to follow the advice and wonders why they are not getting well and continue to remain sick.
OVERVIEW
Paying for professional help is the best solution for a problem that you do not have the expertise or experience to address yourself. If you don’t know how to do something (or do something very well), you find a professional and allow him/her to be able to assist you.
A career services colleague (a “headhunter”) recently told the story of a position that his firm successfully filled. Then, three months later, the company released the selected employee during the initial probationary period. The issue: the employee “did not fit!”
When questioning the recruiter on what went wrong, he said, “We strongly recommended against this particular candidate. We had a host of reasons why he was not the ideal candidate for this position. However, the hiring authority liked this candidate and selected him over our objections.”
Well, 90 days in to the 6-month probationary period, the selected candidate indeed did not work out and was released. The recruiter will have start over.
Why did not the hiring authority take the advice of the professional they hired to do the job? They hired an expert and then did the exact opposite of the expert’s recommendations.
OUR ADVICE
In the many engagements we are retained for, we always try to provide the client with the best possible solution to whatever challenge or problem we are asked to address. Our final recommended solution is the result of many hours of hard work, carefully reviewing all facets of the problem and identifying the one ideal solution that will best fulfill the client need.
There is no reason to spend money frivolously—there is no need to seek validation for an act or decision if that is what you wish to do. Go ahead and do what you think is right. If it does not work out, then engage professional help to resolve the problem.
Experts normally have the education, expertise and involvement to be able to not only identify the right solution for the problem, but also provide the robust rationale on why that solution fits this project.
If you need help addressing a challenge, call us. We have the experience to give you the right answer. Learn more about our operations management and organizational management services here.
