A week ago, my dog George had a problem standing up; he did not want to walk. His appetite was voracious as always, and when we went to buy a roasted chicken, he jumped out of the car and walked right to the chicken-stand, but he was in pain and feeling “down-in-the-mouth”, his bones creaking like….my bones!

Since George is 14 years old, I was convinced that time was coming for him to “cash in his chips”; I took him to the vet expecting the worst.

Dr Yuval was in the lobby when I walked in. George was dragging himself behind me. Yuval says- “George has a backache; wait a week and it will improve”. No tests; no nothing. He observed. He did not ask me – and of course, George didn’t say a word. Lo and behold-he was right. George is getting better.

A skilled eye is very important in veterinary medicine because animals don’t speak. A skilled eye is important in OD because human’s do speak…at times they sprout  a lot of nonsense because of fear of reprisal, a tough job market, suspicion or in the case of senior managers, towing the party line.

A consultant would be wise to constantly observe, and not only listen to the spoken word. Not only at the beginning of a project. Rather, all the time.

Here are a few things that I have observed-and in brackets, what the spoken words were, when relevant.

• Excessive gating procedures to speak to senior managers. (Our middle management needs to assume more responsibility)
• Lovely lobbies, and cramped quarters for customer support people (Customer service needs to be digitalized)
• Executive parking places (our senior staff come early and work like dogs)
• People playing solitaire on their pc’s (we have a very tough workload)
• People smiling at each other at meetings
• Dirty toilets (we are interesting in improving wellbeing)
• Everyone texting, all the time (we have a problem of communication)
• Inappropriate clothing (clients treated rudely)
• Differential size of office space (favouring the Finance Dept)
• Similar ethnic background of FSU+ family names in one department (the electricians are not transparent)

Always pay attention to the contrast between what you see and what you hear.

I thought George was dying. George kept his mouth shut. Yuval saw it all.

“Not a word was spoken. The Churchbells were all broken.” (Don McLean, American Pie.) 

+FSU Former Soviet Union