Christmas has just gone and the New Year has just begun.

Every year, in the western hemisphere, at least, best season’s greetings mean that we’ve come out from meals in overweight unhealthy conditions, and that the wishes for a happy, prosperous new year will turn out what they are, that is, wishes.

The two are closely related, that is overweight and new year wishes, because they both need a “diet” to be overcome.

And it’s not difficult to imagine both diets either.  Overweight has to be fought against by means of a rigorous diet.  More sport(s) and eating less – less carbohydrates, less beef, less sweets and cheese, no alcohol.  More veal and chicken, more fish, more vegetable and fruit, rawer carbohydrates, and so on.

Every company is now enhance by ATION – for example  enhanced by means of more product or service innov-ation, more personnel motiv-ation, more customer satisf-action, and so on.

DIET – ATION
At a personal level, it’s all about Diet-ation, therefore.

At a first glance, and to newcomers maybe, what strikes me most is that anywhere or any time you look around, you’ll find someone shouting at you that he or she’s got the best diet, for your overweight conditions or for your company’s lack of drives.

This should look quite surprising.  Human beings are all more or less biologically the same, though there are relevant local and cultural differences.

The same principles apply to companies and organizations, as well: people invest money, wait some time for the enterprise to ripen, then they expect a pay back from their investment. It’s like crop or animal growing.

Therefore, what’s good for one man should be good for the majority.  What’s good for one company should be good for their majority.

But we find, instead such a number of available “diets” – both for people and companies.   Each of them proclaiming to be the best, that we’re confused, we don’t know what to select or which one to select.

MOST COMMON RISK AND FAILURES
The most frequent risks or failures of dietitians (people) or consultants / trainers (companies or organizations) are:

• One: To disregard the previous client’s or customer’s habits; newcomers are lured with quick and amazing results at almost invariably rock bottom prices.
• Two: “Diets’” check lists or guidelines are usually very detailed on the contents of diet’s ingredients in term of proteins, fats, fibers’, or consultancy and training themes training schedule.   Such diets very often are copies of previous ones, to which only the addressee’s name was changed.  They’re of very little value to the new client or customer. Examples are very many, they’re very abundant on the Internet.
• Three: Any “diet” can hardly be compared to any other, so the “patient” has to rely on his “healer’s” judgement. Looking in the Internet and reading jokes, I found the latter far more significant and real than the former readings.

An example of this – often funny – is how you are judged by friends you didn’t see for a long time: one says you have put up weight, the other says you’re emaciated.

Companies are just the same: the truth lies in the eyes of the healer.

• Four: Due to the confusion mentioned above, the me-too-medicine practice has grown to become a me-too-diet and a me-too-consultancy (training), too.

Though we’re not concerned here with peoples’ diets – though healthy people perform better – we’re more concerned with companies or organization’s “diets”

There’s seldom a company that has no problem.  And conversely, there’s often a company that’s not aware of its own problems.

It can sound like an axiom.  We must not look at the services offered by consulting or training organizations for this theory to be demonstrated. We’ve only to watch and listen to TV to be aware that companies and organizations – more or less large – all of them have problems, but problems only become visible when it’s too late and they can’t be hidden anymore.   And especially, larger organizations – have to publicly admit they sensed there was something going wrong but they preferred – or had to – for a reason or another not to disclose their problems.

Greedy consultants (fortunately they’re not all like that) are therefore very ready to offer their healing services at the highest possible price, that may have some side benefits.

Such consultants choose the best possible timing to offer their services.  The company or organization looks to restore its good image as soon as possible, and a brilliant consultant’s name adds value to this process.

The brilliant consultant’s diet won’t be much different from the ones he has already given his customers.  He knows their problems, their needs and he knows they’ve money to spend.

He’ll tell them his services have been thoroughly tested with impeccable results.

The outcome of this company – or organization – re-organization project is very likely to be a success.  The greedy and therefore not naif – consultant never thought to disclose to his customer the true outcome of the project, so the customer will never be able to evaluate the project’s results.

If the results are good, all the merit will go to the consultant – or healer.  Any negative deviation will be blamed on customer’s negligence.

It’s exactly what still happens to many companies / organizations buying turn-key IT systems.  They only realize that what they’ve bought doesn’t work only when the system seller and his technicians have gone out of the door and the buyer has to pay more money to get them back in and make the system run.

One more thing: there’re probably more “cures” available than people or companies willing to take their pills. Diet-ation also rhymes with infl-ation, in this sense.

I recently received an Internet survey asking me how many books I’ll read in 2015: I was tempted to reply “just one, but a real good one”.