Additionality

At People & Transformational HR Ltd, we are a consulting organisation based on the "market" or industry definitions. At best, we're Professional Services - which is a really grand term but often in the drop-down list on websites when you categorise the work your enterprise does, is the nearest option to what we do and stand for.

Lately, I've been researching the "future of work" (yes, I know it's back) trends, analysis and "thought leadership" (yes, I know, an angel just lost its wings 'cos I mentioned that). It's clear that there is a shift back to this being the hot topic, and it is a welcome one. Not because of any attachment to hype or peddling nonsense ideas of us in flying cars (although last year, the US Aviation Authority did approve a licence for a flying car - Jetsons - here we come).

However, I've been using this phrase - Additionality - in conversations with clients and potential clients lately because it's right, proper, fair, ethical, accurate and needed, rather than consulting or advisory.

Our clients probably don't need consulting or advice. They might like some new ideas and even radical thinking, and they might welcome the experience, expertise, capabilities, imagination, and graft that the team and I could bring to their work, projects, programmes, challenges, opportunities, and needs.

I feel, sense, think and believe they need additionality.

In all those ways I mentioned above.

• They don't need standard decks rebadged from previous work for others.
• They don't need things "done to them" and then have to live with the aftermath of a battery of consultants who've left them "transformed."
• They don't need 11 models they don't really get or are relevant to them just because they're out there (confession - I can be really model-tastic at times - it’s a vice I have).
• They may not even need tools and tips. They can use a decent Generative AI tool and some other digitised assets they could find themselves.

Hence, I think that they probably need additionality.

Extra heads, hearts and hands to create some temporary form of additionality.

And that's what's important to me—not just intellect or even experience (though undoubtedly, that adds value when used wisely). Not just a temporary resource (though again, at times of crunch, that's powerful and useful when done in the right way).

The heart bit. Belief. Aligned to things like the proposed strategy or change venture's spirit, work, outcomes, and impact. The ethics of it all. Understanding and appreciation of legacy, rituals, and systems, but the ability to not just be nostalgic but respectful of the positive anchoring of what makes people, teams, and the organisation what it is.

A commitment, dedication, devotion even to the things that matter beyond the economics and financials, not just a "passion-play" and hopeful "word-confetti" declaration of intent, but the connectivity between humanised ways to shift from mechanistic, instrumentality-based efficiencies to more rounded, wholesome, and prosperity-based ways to be successful, sustainable, and soulful.

That's additionality, too.

Even the smallest of social-enterprise entrepreneurial consulting advisors will be bracketed with the giants of consulting.

I will assume that even the most gigantic corporate consulting firms want to create value for their clients. And make a good economic proposition themselves in doing so.

I saw a recent graph showing the largest firms' size and capitalisation. It was vast and showed no signs of getting significantly less vast.

Indeed, additionality might even be something they see themselves as. But the acid test for me is,

"What do you bring AND share whilst you're additional that means when you're no longer that addition, the people who've asked you to be additional to them temporarily are better, more able, sustainable once you've subtracted yourself?"

We have a statement of intent for our way (which I've shared before) and is pertinent to this: "..we stand for enabling our clients to start with us, and succeed without us."

I would suggest that (linking it back to the future of work thing I started with) additionality will be one of the most important factors for consideration in the 2020s version of work heading into the 2030s.

• Additional skills—to shift from those things we can and will outsource to digitised machines. More understanding about behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, prejudices, desires, and how to steer our attention away from two crucial psychoses in the world: Greed and Power. We would do well to focus on the intelligences and capabilities of the intellectual, social, emotional, and spiritual sorts.
• Additional resources - we will (according to predictions) have more time to put into things that are complex, creative, collaborative, compassionate, and, we all hope - congruent with the balance of the planet's ecosystems and biodiversity.
• Additional science - wherever you sit on the climate crisis - man-made or otherwise - biodiversity is being lost at a rapid rate and needs us to exit capitalism's growth-at-any-cost mindset and move into regenerative, restorative, repairing approaches. New soft drinks need replenishable water supplies; new battery technology needs renewable energy sources; new digital platforms consume power and assets no matter whether they're tracking carbon sequestration or a mindful game.
• Additional wisdom - 180 Zettabytes of data created in the 21st century alone does not necessarily make us wiser. We need machines to extend our cognitive capabilities into this realm. We'll never read all the books we could, and we'll never teach in time for the shifting ways the world operates. There's a paucity of wisdom in the world and not just in business. But how many companies have a NASDAQ/FTSE equivalent of the value of their wisdom? None of them. But their cash-relatable assets? Every penny of it.
• Additional influence—no more selling to please. How about choice, agency, and a more elegant form of product, service, and governance? That should influence things beyond the crude, narcissistic, and even addictive ways we're influenced now. Don't play to fear or compulsion; play to positive stimulants like being wiser, more socially intelligent, technically advanced, and more evidence/science-based from the grinding mince meat of profit-based capitalism to a more circular and graceful form of growth, expansion and improving people and the planet.
• Additional ethics - No more "I'm smart because I can get you to buy our app/car/clothing" to "I'm smarter because I can get you to improve your life, our lives, and the planet's life-giving elements. Which happens to help my enterprise grow and prosper. And I'll do it transparently so "Planet Earth" will be my ultimate auditor.
• Additional economics—I'm not naive in thinking that since the dawn of "tokens," money has "made the world go around." Commerce, trade, profit, wealth—they won't go away in a hurry. From Adam Smith through Karl Marx and now to Marianna Mazzucato, Alex Edmans, and Rutger Bregman, what should—and I truly hope will—happen is prosperity over profit. I spent 2021 reviewing economics simply because I didn't understand it enough, why people never had enough. 

Sure, some of the world's great wealth has given us philanthropy, but I'll defer to Mahatma Gandhi's wisdom and his Seven Sins:

1. Wealth without work,
2. Pleasure without conscience,
3. Knowledge without character,
4. Commerce without morality,
5. Science without Humanity,
6. Religion without Sacrifice,
7. Politics without Principle

• and of course the Additional Strategy. To enact all that should help the planet and people prosper. 

And for this, I'll defer to the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals.

1. No Poverty
2. Zero Hunger
3. Good Health and Well-being
4. Quality Education
5. Gender Equality
6. Clean Water and Sanitation
7. Affordable and Clean Energy
8. Decent Work and Economic Growth
9. Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure
10. Reduced Inequality
11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
12. Responsible Consumption and Production
13. Climate Action
14. Life Below Water
15. Life on Land
16. Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions
17. Partnerships for the Goals

Without being all "communist" about it, every enterprise (of any denomination or size) ought to have the SDGs as part of its strategy. OK, perhaps a local window-cleaning business might not think they can solve poverty or life below water. Still, there's a consequence to all that business consumes and does with its resource utilisation that could link to some of these more explicitly.

So what’s the point of this?

Not all consulting, advisory, or professional services enterprises are about additional profit only. Many of the smaller businesses I am linked to are having a really hard time (we all are. It’s not a micro violin moment), and some of that is because procurement rules, clampdowns and bids are either stilted towards “professional RFP players” or are mired in such bureaucracy and inaccessible parameters that only certain companies can get into the line of sight.

Some people are good at selling even if their product is a dud. Others have amazing products but aren’t selling-oriented. You may say, “They need to improve their sales or business development.” I say, let’s have people who are entering that market space learn to appreciate how to get the best people to become their “additionals” and not just those good at gaming the system.

So:

• No more imposition. 
• No more selling stuff we don’t need just because there are targets for growth. 
• No more imposing leaders whose only measure of success is the numbers game and profiteering.

More virtue and alignment to additional, bigger goals than profit.

More sincerity in what people can bring that is truly additional.

More focus on additionality as the core reason we want to bring others nearer to help us achieve additionally noble things.

We are the additional, and we'll be happy to bring that to everything we say and do.