Interview: William Seidman

[Robert Morris]

William Seidman, a recognized thought leader and expert on management decision-making in high-performing organizations, is co-founder, chief executive officer and president of Cerebyte. Seidman contributes an in-depth understanding of the processes required to discover and use expert wisdom to create extraordinary organizational performance. As the CEO of Cerebyte, Seidman has led engagements for Hewlett-Packard, Jack in the Box, Intel, Sears and many others. Seidman received a doctorate from Stanford University, where he spent eight years studying management decision-making. As part of his doctoral dissertation, he developed a groundbreaking technique for analyzing management attitudes, cognitive process, and behavioral patterns. He can be reached via email at [e-mail].

Morris: Before discussing Strategy in Action in 10 Days, a book you co-authored with Michael McCauley, a few general questions. First, please explain the path that led the two of you to the founding of Cerebyte in 1997.

Seidman: We were consultants in project management. One of our clients wanted help with a major project. We discovered that the problem was not really one of project planning but one of knowledge. Specifically, there were 650 people working on this project, with six expert product designers. These six experts were completely overloaded and to some degree the 644 other people were sitting around waiting for the six.

The client asked us to find a way to get the knowledge from the “expert six” to the other 644, without having any consultants involved. They specified that it had to be done with software and they were willing to lend us some of their personnel to help define the process and technology.

Our consulting company wasn’t interested in the idea, but we were. It ended up taking us 2 years to figure out how to get the expert knowledge from the experts and nearly 5 years to figure out how to get everyone else to consistently embrace the new knowledge. It was a long, slow learning process.

Morris: What was the company’s original mission and to what extent (if any) has that mission changed during the past 13 years?

Seidman: Originally, we wanted to provide managers with a set of tools that would help them manage their business. Although we have interpreted this differently over the years, we still are pretty close to the original mission. We are focused more on improving performance, which is usually the primary benefit of improved management, but, overall, we are still pretty much doing what we started out to do.

Morris: What do you know now that you wish you knew when you founded Cerebyte?

Seidman: Our most valuable insight is this: how hard it is to establish an innovative product and process even if everyone says they want it and even if it has incredibly strong proof points to support it. More specifically, we thought there would be an openness to innovation in the area of performance improvement because almost every organization talked about the need to improve performance and there was widespread agreement about the ineffectiveness of the available approaches (e.g. training classes) at improving performance. However, there was actually a tremendous amount of resistance to change, even if everyone thought it was a good thing to do. It was only when the science actually caught up with what we had been doing, and became widely accepted that the resistance to change decreased.

Morris: Although there is great diversity among Cerebyte clients, in terms of both size and nature of business, which major challenge do all of them face? How specifically does Cerebyte help them to respond effectively to that challenge?

Seidman: They are serious about making the changes in their organization required to significantly improve performance, usually in a particular focus area. In many cases, it is a “change or die” situation for them so motivation and disillusionment with traditional approaches are high. We help organizations improve performance, faster, more completely, more predictably and at less expense than has previously been possible.

Morris: Over the years, you have no doubt interviewed hundreds of candidates for positions in your firm. What are you most eager to learn about each candidate and which questions have been most helpful in accomplishing that?

Seidman: Actually, we have hardly interviewed anyone. From the very beginning, our goal was to grow revenue and revenue per person, not headcount, so we have worked very hard to automate and outsource everything not specifically in our core strength. There are three of us, and have been for quite a while. We can handle all functions, including effectively supporting a large number of customers, and we can do so with only our network of people and companies.

Morris: Do you differentiate leadership from management? Please explain.

Seidman: Yes, though primarily in the leadership programs we develop for our customers. To us, leadership is much more about creating a compelling vision and providing the support and resources that enable the team to achieve the vision (in our terminology, it is about guiding “transformation”) while management is much more about the administration of the business (i.e. “transactions”). We find that this difference is most important when there are significant challenges to the organization. Managers retreat from performance improvements to a survival mode – Did I make my numbers today? –whereas leaders look at the challenges as an opportunity to drive the organization forward, even if it means taking some significant risks.

In addition, we know that “operational excellence,” which is the focus of management is a subset of leadership so if you have great leadership, you get the best of both worlds. It doesn’t work the other way though. Managers, even good ones, literally think differently than great leaders and need extensive education to become leaders.

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If you wish to read the complete interview, please contact me at [e-mail].