When Max Verstappen was a young racer, he was coached by his father Jos, himself a former F1 driver, to develop what would become a world-championship-winning skillset. Jos demanded discipline, relentless practice and total focus. With deep expertise, lived experience and uncompromised standards, he taught Max to train both mind and body to master the craft of motor racing. Their shared goal was clear: for Max to become the best driver in the world. History shows that their vision became reality. However, despite Max's relentless focus as a driver, he is often considered to be blunt and lacking finesse during media interviews as he is not well-trained or concerned with PR polish. Subsequently, it is unlikely for Max to successfully transition into an F1 media personality upon retirement from racing.

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In the business world, the same principles apply. We often see ambitious professionals with excellent technical skills eager to build their project management and leadership capabilities, but without the right guidance, they head down the wrong path. This leads to costly complications such as poor decision-making, fractured teams and high turnover of resources. Being exceptional in their technical domain does not automatically make them great leaders or project managers.

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These risks are amplified when firms attempt to take on business transformation programs utilising inexperienced internal resources when specialised expertise is required. These often high-performing and highly-regarded employees are tasked with complex transformation initiatives despite lacking the necessary depth of knowledge or experience. As a result, time and budget are spent on misaligned efforts, leading to costly missteps and the intended change either fails or delivers only a fraction of its potential.

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There are many clear examples, including:

• When project management is handled by individuals without strong delivery expertise, tasks are often assigned to sub-optimal resources, dependencies are overlooked, and teams become overloaded. This leads to inconsistent progress, wasted investment and declining confidence in the PMO.

• When change management is assigned to well-meaning but inexperienced staff, critical activities such as impact assessments, communication planning and readiness evaluation are often missed. The outcome is confusion, pushback and changes that fail to embed, forcing costly reworks and missed opportunities for early adoption.

• Firms that have attempted business process automation without seasoned specialists often experience productivity losses rather than gains. Without specialist design and implementation skills, automation can unintentionally slow workflows, introduce new bottlenecks and reduce the very efficiencies it was meant to improve.

• When Data migrations  led by inexperienced staff that jeopardised entire datasets, creating long-term issues that hindered operational efficiency. Poorly executed migrations often result in corrupted, incomplete or inconsistent data, leaving firms with legacies that persist for years.

• Poorly implemented business intelligence systems that produce unreliable reporting that erodes trust. When dashboards and reports are built without deep system and data knowledge, together with the necessary commercial insights, leaders often lose confidence in the information provided, weakening strategic and operational decision-making.

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Just as elite racing drivers rely on expert coaching to reach the podium, firms that invest in true specialist capability give themselves a better chance of achieving transformational success.

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If trusted advice and specialist transformation support is needed in your firm, let's connect.

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Robert Wagner, Partner, Harriss Wagner Consultants and Advisers​

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