Bay Consulting Group has had an
enviable list of international clients—and success stories—to match its
domestic activities. Utilizing the same problem-solving approaches and
techniques abroad as at home, Bay Consulting has helped the governments
of Portugal and Hungary and worked as well on projects in Ukraine and
Britain.
But regardless of location and
native tongue, says Bay Consulting’s Hans Jansen, there is one
universal truth when organizations are faced with the need for
transformational adjustment. “People don’t like change,” he says. “They
don’t want to leave their comfort zone, which is usually very narrow.”
Given that iron law of human nature, Hans adds that, “It helps to have
an outsider in the room—and it can be even better to have a foreign
outsider.”
The Old World has more history
than the New, and that means it can present even greater challenges to
get people out of their comfort zones. That was certainly the case when
a U.S. foundation approached Hans to help break down barriers to trust
in Ukraine as that country moved towards democracy in the mid-1990s.
Hans’s assignment was to help
develop an environmental regulatory system to prevent a reoccurrence of
the 1984 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Still smarting from the calamity,
the key environmental stakeholders would not even speak to each other.
Hans’s change mechanism was a new Ukrainian television public affairs
program he helped develop, part of the transition from a state-run
authoritarian media to alternate voices supporting the fledgling
democracy. Using a round table format for the show, Hans brought
together environmental activists with representatives from industry and
government. Despite the seriousness of Chernobyl, these groups had
never spoken to each other since the disaster, let alone been in the
same room.
The TV round table helped break
down the silos. The group even developed some common environmental
objectives. Nevertheless, despite the program’s success in this effort,
the show stepped on too many toes and was soon cancelled. Not even the
fact that senior Ukrainian government officials shunned state media
voices and turned to this new public affairs program to learn what was
really happening in their country could save the program.
Earlier in Hungary, Hans helped to
pave the way for that country’s westward turn. Based on his Toronto
experience, Hans was asked to lead a bid to host a world’s fair.
Although Budapest ultimately failed to obtain the 1988 event, the bid
effort put Hungary on the western map as a credible, outward-looking
nation that would welcome progressive change. In the process, Hans
helped punch holes in the Iron Curtain which fell a year later.
In Portugal, Hans worked for a
London-based group concerned about maintaining British influence in
that relatively poorer nation as it prepared to join the European Union
in 1986. There was concern that Portugal, in suddenly opening its
borders to the rest of Europe, would experience an economic shock
resulting in hardship. Hans focused on a proposal for northeastern
Tras-os-Montes, one of the country’s poorer regions, to soften the blow.
Specifically, he developed an
economic plan based on the region’s traditional wine industry,
establishing standards for local vineyards. At the time, recalls Hans,
wine was cheaper than water. But Hans’s recommendations also embraced
the need for libraries, schools and public infrastructure, all of which
were eventually built and helped make the area relatively prosperous.
In Britain, thanks to his
experience with the CRTC, Hans won a bid to help develop a regulatory
model for the broadcast industry as it opened itself to more private
competition. The Dutch followed suit, and Hans obtained yet another
contract.
But, throughout, Hans followed the
same basic consulting practices. “First, you have to overcome
differences and build commonality. Then you need to have explicit and
achievable objectives. And, finally, you need strategies and an
operating plan.”
