In baseball, you practice hitting off the tee. You practice hitting whiffle balls. You practice hitting 50 MPH lobs in the cage.
You practice your mechanics until you croak.
Then the game comes and you can stop thinking so much.
You’ll crush the fastballs.
And you’ll even be ready to handle the curveballs.
“Let’s put together a deck.”
Heard that before?
That’s the go-to solution for Big 4 consulting firms.
Any decision, big or small, that’s the answer.
A PowerPoint deck.
The irony is that the decks are intended to make these consulting firms look like they have all the answers. Yet, they actually do the opposite.
Copious words and bullet points? Flow charts and meaningless jargon? Excessive company branding?
C’mon.
Might as well add a slide at the end of the deck showing what they charged to put it together. And, don’t forget to include all participants’ billable hour they’ll charge for the meeting that unveils the fancy deck.
How about a 10-minute phone call instead?
Stats don’t lie.
In last night’s MLB Wildcard game, The Kansas City Royals came back to tie or go ahead three times. They stole seven bases. They won in the bottom of the 12th in a game that almost lasted 5 hours.
But stats don’t tell the whole story.
“That’s the most incredible game I’ve ever been a part of.”
“That will go down as the craziest game I’ve ever played.”
“It was absolutely epic. You don’t write a story like that.”
The guys on the field who have been playing elite-level baseball their entire lives don’t even tell the whole story.
To get the whole story, you have to see it.
Feel it.
Last night’s MLB Wildcard game was one of those stories.
You had to see it to believe it.
What a story.