Ever hear of a Consultant who is offered more money for providing his valuable and cost-effective services and refuses to take it? Well I found one!

When Tom first told me what his “Strategic Partnering” costs, I nearly choked on my steak right at the Press Club. I thought he must have me mixed up with someone else. Didn’t he realize the Swiss are frugal?

What is his “Strategic Partnering”? I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but whatever it is I like it and it works. TMT provides some new policy language and manual, etc. revolving around Rules of Employment so he can leave the tools behind with the client. Then he offers you body and soul along with pre-paid consulting hours to help you use the new tools. So it’s a little bit like when we sell someone a major machine tool. We have to install it and maintain it.

We have been called Kaigai Tsusho in the past and are part of the Cosa-Liebermann group. The group has about 600 employees in Japan with diverse divisions from sporting goods on to watches and high fashion.

With the recession, machine tool orders are slack to say the least. Even before the worst of it, we began from about a year and a half ago to trim down and energize the just under 200 staff that we had in the machinery division.

Our consulting relationship with Mr. Nevins has been more than worth it. Although our company started in Japan in 1927, and I sometimes feel like I’ve been General Manager that whole time, I still learned many things from Tom. I believe I was always good at direct and frank communication with my managers and staff. I have worked with them many years. But Tom Nevins helped us run an even more effective man-to-man, heart-to-heart, communications campaign that made it pretty clear to poorer performers that it couldn’t continue. They could actually see why and were thankful for the honest, fair, and direct way we had to go at these problems.

Toward the end when we would work up strategies and severance packages on our own, Mr. Nevins would ask a lot of questions, draw us out and help us conceptualize the best program. He also had a number of meetings in Japanese with our Board of Directors, Managers, and even including the union.

Through all these communications and difficult rationalization programs we have had to adopt, if anything, I believe our morale is up. People try harder, are even more excited about their work. Everyone realizes that each and every one of us does make a difference. I am really looking forward to Tom Nevins’ new seminar program, which he will do in English, Japanese or a mix of the two.

If you ask Nevins what he costs, and he answers “there is a price, for sure, but there will be no costs to you,” believe him!

Franz X. Metzger
President
Cosa Japan K.K.
November, 1992