Grant Harris teaches leaders to fix the process, not the people. Then he created the friction he helps clients remove, and it cost him a speaking deal.
A cold inbound lead arrived in his LinkedIn inbox: an association with budget approved, a president who had seen him on LinkedIn and wanted him, and a fee close to what he hoped for. Instead of accepting the offer, he proposed a leadership session and extras before and after the talk. The planner had to go back with new questions, review a second proposal, and reopen a budget that was already approved. He was not selected, and he says rightfully so.
Grant is the founder and president of GTH Consulting, a Certified Diversity Executive, and a speaker and consultant on what he calls human-centered performance. He explains why he did not ask “why not me,” how he debriefs a lost deal instead, and where showing value belongs: in discovery questions up front and in the conversation after a successful engagement.
We also get into what he calls accurate accountability. When the same problem shows up with different people under the same conditions, stop blaming the person and inspect the process. It is not automatically the leader’s fault either. He offers one question to replace “Sally messed up”: what part of the process made this outcome possible? He covers where process friction hides, why retraining alone rarely fixes it, and how a late autism diagnosis shaped his view of capable people mislabeled as rigid, aloof, or disengaged.
Show notes, transcript, and links: https://markgraban.com/mistake370
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