Do nothing.  Pretend it’s just the howling wind.

That is, unless the wolf is your competitor, and it’s your client’s house. And you are already comfortably inside.  Then do something—but not the something you might have done even just a few years ago.

Yesterday’s pop business advice would have led you toward panic at best, conspiracy to keep the wolf out at worst.  Your energy would have gone negative, aimed at your own safety and security.  You would have jumped to block the door—or created a smokescreen of chaos so impressive that you hoped the wolf either could not penetrate or would give up trying.  Then you would resolve the chaos that you created within the walls of your client’s house, showing your heroics, your rare form.  In doing so, you would be trying to prove that you, and only you, can serve your client in all areas, at all times. Your brand diluted, your client knee-deep in your own chaos, your clutch is strangling the best of what you brought to your clients.  Worst of all, the work is not fun anymore, and even less meaningful.  And the wolf is looking better and better to your client every day. 

Nothing about that shameful scenario works in today’s business climate, or will ever work again in this century.  The challenge of the recent economic times has thinned out the herd—the weak competitors are gone and the remaining competitors are strong.  As for the house, well, let’s just say they don’t build them like they used to: the client’s expectations have changed and her relationships are more flexible and permeable than they once were.  In other words, your client knows better than to get lulled into a comfortable (and exclusive) consulting relationship.  She is competent, and your best advantage lies in not needing to have an advantage. Your partnership works when you develop it as a co-creation of partners, a synergy of thinking, and speedy knowledge transfer that brings you both a sense of shared success.

In this scenario, the wolf at the door can be your best ally, your greatest catalyst for success with this client.  And not in the tired “every crisis is an opportunity” kind of way.  Really, if you are as good as you think you are, the wolf should not frighten you.  In fact, if you are frightened when your competitor comes calling, then you need to look carefully into the gap between how good you think you are and how good you really are, because there’s some “opportunity” there for you to be better. 

No one can inspire you to be better like that wolf at the door.  Who better to challenge you, to push you to see new angles and potential areas of growth?  You and the wolf have an opportunity that could benefit you both:  the chance to grow in mutual admiration and even collaborate to create breakthroughs that could not otherwise have happened.  You are positioning the work for moments of collective brilliance, where you are doing what you do best and so is the wolf. That combination is electric and propels the client’s forward momentum in otherwise impossible ways. 

Open the Damned Door

If the client moves to answer the door, be the first to greet the wolf.  Offer a genuine and authentic welcome, and a transparency that is uncharacteristic of the past.  Share your brand; engage the wolf in real conversations about your strengths, your brilliance, and possible synergies that lie waiting between you.  Open these conversations to your client.  Model new ways of partnering for your client’s shared success.  Be open about what is challenging and difficult and where there are bumps in the road.  Be the same partner and collaborator no matter who is and who is not in the same room.  Never, never throw the wolf under the bus in front of your client. 

The wolf is giving you the greatest gift and best opportunity to showcase your best work.  Rarely will you have the chance to bump up against something or someone who compels you to sharpen your skills, ratchet up your rigor, and focus in this manner. So, get your work in order and tie up any loose or fragmented elements, then get busy looking for possibilities to conspire with the wolf for the greater good of your new shared client.

You will be better because of the wolves that come knocking, and your client will be even more convinced that you are the best.

Think of the French Revolution—or the media portrayals of Tea Party rallies—and you will see the traditional view of the crowd. Historically, we have used pejorative words like mob or rabble to describe crowds. They carry the image of danger, hysteria, an assembly around the lowest common denominator, irrational violence. They are, above all, to be avoided.

That is all changing, and with good reason: crowds make us smarter.

The technological breakthroughs of the past 20 years—particularly the Internet and open sourcing—have opened our eyes to the idea that large crowds can carry wisdom. Inspired by this observation, organizations are deliberately assembling crowds, whether physical or virtual, and capturing the insights that arise from them. So Toyota brings together vast user networks for input on its products; Procter & Gamble connects with more engineers online than it does within its corporate walls.

Pioneers in Organizational Development—like Barbara Bunker, Billy Alban, and Kathie Dannemiller—have long touted the wisdom, both evident and apparent, in large gatherings of people connected to a cause. But one massive shift has drawn popular attention to crowdsourcing: the overwhelming complexity of today’s problems. Simply put, the challenges that organizations face today are so intricate, with so many unknowns and unknowables, that they need as many people as possible to look at them and bring their perspective.

We refer to this dynamic as the Four Corners Breakthrough. When the world operated in steady state, as it did until about 30 years ago, a single perspective on the marketplace—like viewing an accident in an intersection from one corner—was sufficient. Today’s complex problems, however, require a bigger picture of the world: a sharing of information and viewpoints across departments, across shifts, across functions, across sites to get a 360-degree view. This enables organizations to reduce the unknowns, clarify their view of the unknowables, and better position themselves to solve problems.

So it is with crowds today. They are becoming places to tackle complex, multifaceted problems, with each person bringing her or his perspective to the collective. What we may be seeing, in fact, is that the larger the crowd, the greater the chance of its arriving at a breakthrough insight into the entire situation. Yes, the crowd needs to learn how to work together, but that learning does not need to take a lot of time.

We have been privileged to witness these dynamics at work. Following in the footsteps of Bunker, Alban, Dannemiller, and others, we at Kaleel Jamison have convened up to 2,000 people at a time in visioning and problem-solving sessions. It is a pleasure to see them succeed in ways no other method could achieve.

At this point, many organizations have not optimized their skills in managing large-group dynamics. But that will change. As more and more crowds solve more and more problems, the word will spread that crowds can work—and can even be brilliant.