Subcontractors

Like most Australians I am cheerfully, obnoxiously monolingual.  It's remarkable how infrequently this is an impediment to working in Europe.  Not one of my clients speaks less than 'business English' and most not just fluently but eloquently.  One of the great luxuries of my provenance is that I can travel the world assuming that the other guy has the skills to bridge the language gap.

Only when I'm asked to train a European non-English sales team is my (lack of) language a barrier.  Asian and Middle Eastern sales teams do not insist that suppliers like me are fluent in their language.  Conversely, a salesperson contentedly living and working in Lyon or Nuremberg with no ambition to climb the corporate ladder has no more need for English than her Sydney-based colleague has for French or German.  European delivery is literally the only time when I'm expected to do the heavy lifting in terms of language and on my own I fail miserably.

In consultancy terms, I have a capability problem: I'm forced to subcontract the face-to-face component of such projects to other suppliers.  Readers of this Blog won't be surprised that I find this hard.  The self-reliance, not so say solipsism, of my Headcount: 1 work life means I rarely have to play nicely with others.

Earlier in the month I delivered a programme simultaneously in French, German, Italian and Spanish.  Well, four terrific bilingual trainers did the delivery whilst I shuttled from room to room giving a somewhat adequate impression of being in change.  It all went off as planned and we all left with reputations enhanced.

Drastically short timelines had forced me to recruit the trainers en masse.  Someone I trust at another consultancy gave me a strong recommendation and that trainer brought in three colleagues.  In an instant my capability issue was solved.  However, from the outset the four of them made it abundantly clear that they had a wealth of shared experiences and I was the outsider.  For some reason this bothered me and it took a while for me to pinpoint the reason why.  After all I spend my professional life as an outsider interacting with large groups who share many experiences not the least of which is working for the same company in identical roles.

My disquiet stemmed from the fact that my dealing with them oscillated between that of individual suppliers each requiring my undivided attention and a cartel negotiating en bloc.  And they were a cartel.  There was an awareness, subconscious perhaps, that my ability to replace any or all of them  was practically zero, especially as the project had to be delivered so early in the new year.  The role of shop steward was shared around; at different times each declared that he or she was speaking on behalf of the group.  A picture emerged near constant back-channel communication over my project's shortcomings.

No man likes being talked about behind his back.

Then less than a week before delivery I was forced into an across-the-board financial renegotiation resulting in a fee increase that pushed the project to the verge of unprofitability.  I later discovered that the shop steward in question wasn't actually speaking for the four but the implication that he was improved his bargaining position at the time.  By outsourcing the recruitment of the team I took myself out of the loop.

Perhaps part of the problem was that without an English language component of the project my prominence was lessened.  My main job was running interference for the the trainers in the presence of a less-than-perfect client.  It's not easy to be a coach when you're used to being a player.

One of the major failings of my career has been my inability to develop other trainers to a point where clients see them as interchangeable with me.  My personal brand has always been too strong and I've taken a perverse pleasure in that.  Yet without that facility my company's capacity for growth is limited by my Headcount: 1 diary.  Right now my earnings are entirely tied to what I can charge for my own time.  Learning to work effectively with subcontractors is an obvious first step in moving beyond this limitation.

I'm 43 years old and I cannot do this job in this way forever.