Small Business Summit Center

Alan Ibbotson, UKNY Consulting

AB: Your business positions itself as helping with organizational change. Since you've been on your own, have you ever had to "eat your own dog food" by adjusting what you do. Was that hard?

AI: So much that I've grown to like the taste of dog food. The wonderful thing about our line of work, and being such a small firm, is that we are almost always working with companies bigger than our own. Even "small businesses" are bigger than we are, usually. What that means, essentially is that our clients are often providing a window into our own company future as we simultaneously bring structure, discipline and fresh thinking to help them overcome their challenges. We've had plenty of big company experience - we've solved most of these problems from the inside in our former lives, but being a consultant calls for a bolder, braver approach. That was equally as terrifying as it was liberating - the first time I sat across from a CEO and told him things he didn't want to hear I thought I wasn't going to make it out of there alive. Of course, he was actually very grateful and we've enjoyed a great relationship since, but when you've "towed the corporate line" and spent your working life stroking ego's, it's a shock to find that people actually do want you to be honest and forthright with your opinions. Part of the job of a consultant is to reframe existing challenges and opinions in ways that are more palatable, more objective and perhaps with a greater degree of comparison from outside. Apart from having to get brave and bold very fast, I've also had to implement basic business disciplines of course, but being a classic Type A, like many entrepreneurs, I've really had to learn to practice what I preach, by letting go - partnering with colleagues and becoming more of a team player instead of a hyperactive individual contributor. It's been a wonderful experience - there are a handful of clients I haven't even met yet because they're so expertly handled by someone else that I haven't needed to. I couldn't have imagined that 5 years ago. And it's good for everyone involved. It's said that the job of a leader is to create other leaders : I'm working at that every day, just like many of my clients. I'd like to think that gives me an empathy with them and that it helps to keep me grounded. At the end of the day, I'm a working class lad from Yorkshire. I must never get too big for my boots…

AB: What part of entrepreneurship have you worked at the most?

AI: I think the biggest challenge for many entrepreneurs is striking the right balance between working in the business and on it. Being a professional services firm, we're often working with other professional service firms who have very high standards. They've taught and influenced us tremendously in terms of our intellectual rigor and service standards, but they also helped us realize very early on that we didn't have much of an identity as a company other than our name, our expertise and a brochure of services. So we worked very hard on establishing what may sound very basic : who we are as a company, our purpose and values. In a world where "a consultant is a consultant" and "integrity" is in just about every corporate brochure on the planet, our differentiation became crystal clear when we were able to articulate our values: Possibility, Innovation, Action and Enjoyment. Interestingly, it's what our clients were already saying about us, but that just put the seal of authenticity on them. Enjoyment may not be the first word that comes to mind when you think about working with a consultant, but that's the point - it should be, and now that we say it, we always make sure that we deliver on that. It's important that our clients are always happy to see us.

AB: What would you do if you weren't in business for yourself?

AI: I'd love to be running a small hotel somewhere in the South of France or somewhere warm. Or taking people on Dolphin spotting boat trips. But I'd probably want to be my own boss in both cases.

Business Bio

UKNY Consulting is a boutique consulting firm based in Manhattan established in 2002 by Founding Partner Alan Ibbotson. In 2005, Gretchen Miller joined as First Partner. Together, we are The Changeologists. We help all types of companies overcome people and talent related challenges to achieve significant, lasting change. Our services include Change Management Consulting, Strategic and Organizational Planning, Executive Coaching, Management Development, Organizational Design and Employee Relations. Our client list includes both large and small companies - from Initiative Media, MTV Networks, Dyson and Doubleclick to sports teams like The New York Jets, to smaller independent firms like Sterling Brands, Consumer Dynamics and Vincent Partners.