What if you had to manage an extremely challenging business problem, and a consultant said that their company had a methodology to help your organization make significant, measurable progress toward your goal in 100 days?

How would you respond? Me too. I’d be skeptical.

Rapid Results – A Different Approach 

Schaffer Consulting based in Stamford, Connecticut has an approach called Rapid Results that is designed to do just that. I have had first-hand opportunities to witness them in action at two different companies with multiple projects, and their success rate is astonishing.

Most of their clients are larger companies with revenue more than $500MM. With hundreds of Rapid Results projects over the last several decades, they have helped organizations achieve the targeted goals more than 90% of the time.

I spoke with Logan Chandler, Partner at Schaffer Consulting to gain more insight into how they work.

“We focus on driving results and demonstrating to organizations how they can achieve greater results and strengthen capabilities at the same time.”

In my experience, Schaffer’s work teaches companies how to develop and use muscles they haven’t exercised in the past. They start by working with leaders to identify major, strategic opportunities, and then assembling one or more teams tasked with setting and achieving measurable goals against those opportunities in 100 days or less, creating a sense of urgency.  Teams are cross-functional and create work plans, milestones with hands-on support from a Schaffer team member. The team is results-driven, and achieving their goals requires them to actively and rapidly experiment to figure out “what it’s going to take.”

“Rapid Results projects carve complex initiatives into a series of fast-cycle sprints designed to put points on the board and accelerate learning.”

I like to think of it as an MVP (Minimum Viable Product) – although in this case, it is often a minimum viable process. They guide teams to test approaches and recalculate or replicate actions quickly.

The benefits of Rapid Results are clear:

• Performance improvement: teams achieve specific, targeted goals like revenue growth, new customer acquisition, increased market share or internal performance improvement.
• Develop strategic capabilities:  teams are charged with capturing their 100-day learnings – the innovation or changes they used to deliver the goal – so these learnings can be scaled and sustained more broadly in the organization.
• Build execution capacity: Achieving ambitious, measurable results helps strengthen the ability to innovate, adapt to changing situations and improve overall execution.

Roots of Rapid Results

The inspiration for this approach came from a keen observation during an emergency. Decades ago, a Schaffer client in the refinery business had a 10% headcount reduction, leaving 2,700 employees to run the operation.  When a resulting strike caused 2,250 works to walk off the job, the remaining 450 executives and supervisors had to figure out a way to keep the refinery running.

In this ‘emergency mode,’ some incredible things happened. People worked more collaboratively, faster and without concern for precedent or hierarchy.  They knew what they had to get done. And they did it, running the refinery for more than 4 months while the strike dragged on, and tripling production during that time”   

According to Chandler, the lesson of this example is that crises can tap into existing organizational potential in ways that achieve dramatic results.  “Every organization has untapped reserves of talent and energy.  Rapid Results is a way to unlock that potential and help teams break through the structure and hierarchy that so often becomes a hindrance to moving swiftly.”

Lars von Kantzow is a seasoned CEO who ran Pergo, the leading brand in laminate flooring, Nomacorc, the global leader in synthetic wine corks and is now President and CEO at Nomaco, a custom engineered foam solution company. According to von Kantzow,

“I have had the privilege of working with the Schaffer team on seven projects over the last five years in two different organizations. Each Rapid Results activity had a very successful outcome. They have a deceptively simple methodology that makes the team achieve the seemingly impossible task in one-hundred days. Without a real crisis, they create the atmosphere of one that helps empower the team to act swiftly, urgently and decisively.  It is as if Schaffer has an invisible hand, guiding the team to accomplish goals no one believed we could achieve.”

 Lessons from Rapid Results

• Time Constraints: Time constraints can have a powerful impact on projects. Too much time doesn’t provide a sense of urgency.
• Holding Teams Accountable: When picking a cross-functional team, you have to hold each other accountable for the work you commit to doing. Accountability is core to success.
• Test, Fail, Try Again: By creating conditions to experiment and try things quickly, you can build confidence that something different might work. Overthinking it doesn’t help. Experiment in the field, learning, adjusting and trying again can make a big difference.
• Ask What Has to Be True: When organizations break down silos and limiting beliefs, businesses can become energized. You dive right in. You are action-oriented and create quick response feedback loops that allow for rapid course correction.

Although I haven’t participated as a team member, I have worked with several organizations who have deployed Rapid Results with eye-opening outcomes. In one case, the challenge was opening up major new customer segments and finding ways to shorten the sales cycle. The team set a 100-day goal of gaining purchase agreements from 3 of the largest customers in that segment; the team ended up securing 4 agreements.  In another instance, a team was challenged to find ways to build a distribution network quickly and effectively disrupt a category.  The team set a goal of adding 35 new distribution outlets but by the 100^th day the innovations that team developed and tested resulted in their adding 111 new distributors.  I also strongly believe that imposing a time-constraint is critical to success. It forces action.

The Rapid Results approach is a catalyst for companies that are stuck and want to quickly change their situation. Want to learn more about Rapid Results. Connect with Logan Chandler at Schaffer Consulting  or email Logan at lchandler@schafferresults.com

Photo by zack Mccarthy

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