The power of semantics

I blame the banking industry. During my impressionable years, they inundated me with the concept of Christmas and college accounts, along with other earmarked funds. Now, I’m writing this as displacement activity, to prevent myself from transferring my luggage from my car to the truck. I might’ve lost some of you, there.

Tongue-in-cheek, anyway. I take responsibility for my own actions, so the banks are off the hook. The internal conflict is that I’m leaving tomorrow for western Pennsylvania for a mini-vacation. There are some nice streams to paddle there, so I had considered taking a kayak. If I take a kayak, I’ll drive my truck.

There are also some very nice outfitters (paddling retailers) over there. If I take the truck, my kayak might multiply. I could come back with more than I went with. This is due, in part, to my kayak account.

Years ago, I started a consulting firm, specializing in strategic planning and marketing services. It was a cash cow from the start, but something stuck in my craw. The businesses that booked us were mostly encountering difficulties. No big surprise there, but I hadn’t thought that through in advance. They were malfunctioning because they were sick, from the standpoint of organization dynamics. It was seldom a case of a strategic issue. The flawed strategy was the symptom, not the underlying malady.

We could do the analysis and walk them through new strategies and procedures. But they would revert to the unproductive, because that’s what sick organizations do. The same with mentally ill people, except you can prescribe some Epival, Lexapro or other appropriate drug and attain some behavior and thought modification. There isn’t an organization pill and it’s all but impossible to untwist the aberrant thinking.

It wasn’t enough to me to run them through a program, cash the checks and leave them to their own devices. I wanted to produce results. That was the paycheck, as far as I was concerned. So, I modified my business plan.

We wouldn’t tell you how to get better results. We would get them for you. Within six months, your bottom line would increase by at least five times our fee. Guaranteed, or you owed us nothing. You can’t lose.

At first blush, that might seem like an offer you can’t refuse. But, I anticipated that it would reduce our bookings, and it did. The inherent condition to the agreement is that all control of the pertinent operations was turned over to us. It’s a given and only logical. If they could do it better, they would be, wouldn’t they?

Logic and veracity are not the friends of the dysfunctional. If the decision makers hired consultants, they could delude themselves that it was primarily the employees who were responsible for weak results. But, if the reins were taken from them for a turnaround, there was no way to rationalize away where the responsibility resided.

Were there business owners and executives who cared more about this than generating more profits? As a matter of fact, a lot of them. We booked less business than we could’ve otherwise, but felt better about what we were doing.

The relevance is that I get approached about doing consulting jobs, now. I can take a few days off work, analyze the situation, whip out an action plan and cut an invoice. But, I don’t have time to do it for them. I knew that going in and resolved that I can do a great job on the analysis and strategy, but it’s entirely on them to implement it or not. I don’t get the payoff of seeing the results, but that’s not the business I'm in this time around. It’s just “kayak money” to me.

Which brings us full circle. If I walk into a large outfitter in the next few days with a pocketful of kayak money (more like a bathtub full), I could easily walk out with a truck full of boats. Don’t tell me I'm wrong. I’ve seen me do it.

It’s the power of the semantics. I made it my kayak account and the die was cast. Unless I exercise control. I could go outside and move my stuff over to the truck. Or, I can coherently decide that the kayak money could just as easily be investing money, just by the power of changing a word in a label. Or, I can sit here and think of something else to keystroke so I don’t have time to change my mind.

Anyone want to bet? I can always use more kayak money.