I find myself wondering how I can take my skills to the next level. I have been an internal consultant for over 25 years. I continue to work at getting my expertise used and making a difference in my organization, my community, and the world. As l look for experiences that will take me to the next level, I sometimes find myself seeking “Advanced” consulting skills.
What I have learned when I am struggling to use my skills and make a difference, is that I really need to go back to the basics. World-class athletes have known for years that the key to top performance is going back to the basics. Golfers go back to their grip, stance, and set-up. Baseball pitchers focus on their arm slot and grip on the ball. Quarterbacks work on their footwork and release point. Basketball players work on the five basics of dribbling, shooting, running, passing, and jumping. As consultants—internal and external—we need to go back to the basics of Flawless Consulting by asking ourselves these self-diagnostic questions:
1. What is the agreement I have with my clients?
2. Am I focused as much on the relationship as the technical part of the work?
3. Do I truly listen to my clients/partners and share back with them what I hear?
4. Do I give support to others by specifically sharing what I appreciate, and the impact it has on me and our work?
5. Do I ask for what I want, specifically, clearly, and with empathy?
6. Do I take time to get my own clear picture of the situation before sharing my recommendations or jumping into implementation?
7. Have I identified what my own contribution is to the exact thing I am complaining about?
We sometimes hear from participants in our Flawless Consulting Workshops that it is “too basic.”
When we explore this further, we find people think they are doing the basics of consulting, but in reality, they understand the basics but aren’t implementing the basics.
We can always advance our skills in the area of our technical expertise, but our consulting skills just need more practice with the basics. When I coach individuals who are trying to get their expertise used, and they indicate they need more advanced skills, I discover several things:
They don’t put into words what they are experiencing.
They don’t listen and share with their clients what they hear.
They don’t ask for what they want.
They don’t recognize and manage resistance in themselves or their clients.
They don’t regularly share their appreciations (support) with others.
They quickly jump to implementation without taking the time to get a clear picture (discovery) of the situation.
They don’t provide feedback to others to get a collaborative decision to proceed to a solution that will be sustainable.
Intellectually, Flawless Consulting is very basic. It’s easy to understand and many people would say it is common sense. Unfortunately, it isn’t common practice in many organizations. The hard part is implementing the basics.
Here are the basic “Be’s”:
Be Authentic
Be Direct (Put into words what you are experiencing)
Be Compassionate (Empathetic)
Be a Model for the organization you want to create
If you are struggling with getting your expertise used and you want to improve your business and personal relationships, get back to the basics!
Jeff Evans is a Vice President at Designed Learning and oversees delivery, product quality, and managing our team of international consultants. He’s been partnering with Designed Learning for over 25 years. He’s delivered training in more than ten countries to a diverse set of organizations and participants, including engineers, managers, manufacturing executives, healthcare professionals, human resources and IT.
Flawless Consulting is the popular workshop and book by Peter Block, which are designed to develop skills that increase an internal consultant’s ability to have a strong and positive impact on their client’s business results. Individuals in staff positions such as human resources, training, organizational development, information systems, finance, safety, purchasing, and engineering have all benefited from Flawless Consulting over the years.
Recently, I was delivering a workshop to one such group: Human Resources. Near the end of the second day and after much exploration of the Flawless Consulting process and skills, a participant asked, “I love all this content for myself as a consultant. It would be great if my client could hear it as well. Do you have a class for them . . . on how to be a flawless client?”
After some laughter and agreement in the room, we talked about this idea of the flawless client. Who are they? What do they do or not do that makes them flawless? How can we as consultants help?
In his book Flawless Consulting, Block asserts that a consultant is a person in a position to have some influence over an individual, group, or organization, but with no power to make changes or implement programs. Most people in staff or support roles are really consultants, even if they don’t call themselves one. And if we take that thinking further, many of our clients may find themselves in the consultant role, too.
Most professionals are working in cross-functional, cross-business groups and other work models that do not maintain strict vertical business units grouped by function and geography. So, a client today may be a consultant tomorrow.
If we agree that any client may also be a consultant, the answer to how we help them becomes a whole lot simpler. Here are some ideas.
While we don’t have a workshop called Flawless Clients, we do have Flawless Consulting. Anyone inside your organization who is in a position to influence without the power to make the changes would be an excellent candidate. Invite them to attend—and if they do, get together to talk about what they learned and how it can help your own relationship moving forward. Many leaders/clients have attended the workshop and found great value in the experience.
Remember, we learn from each other—directly or indirectly. By being a Flawless Consultant, you are inviting your clients to learn from you through what you say and what you do. Have a discussion about the consulting process—specifically, as part of your conversations to lay the groundwork for how you will work together, not just what work you will do. Encourage questions and be intentional in sharing what you are doing and why. Throughout the process, ask the question, “What did we learn from that?” Push the pause button to reflect before moving on to the next task or step.
In any consulting agreement, maximum client involvement will occur to the extent that you involve them. Our goal as Flawless Consultants is to be collaborative, where the engagement is a 50/50 partnership with our client to solve a given problem. When collaborative, the client must be actively involved in data gathering and analysis, setting goals and developing action plans, and finally, sharing responsibility for success or failure. When we are collaborative, problem-solving becomes a joint undertaking: the better the odds for success after the consultant has left and the more that is learned.
When we are being authentic with our clients and completing the business of consulting in each phase, we are being Flawless. Even so, it won’t always mean our clients become flawless too. According to Block, “Your job, as a consultant, is to present information as simply, directly, and assertively as possible, and to complete the tasks of each phase of the consultation. That’s all there is to do, and it’s within each of us to do that perfectly.” Do that perfectly, and perhaps your clients will follow.
Beverly Crowell is an experienced facilitator, speaker, thought leader, and author specializing in the areas of business operations, organization, employee and human resources development.
How powerful am I? What is power? Are you empowered? Power over? Power by? Power with? If only I had more power! Do I really want more power, or do I want more influence? Is there a difference?
As I think about all of the relationships of my life, power seems to have a major role. As a child, my parents had power over me. As a student, teachers and administrators had power over me. As a new employee, I gave my boss and my senior colleagues power over me. As a poor citizen in my city, I gave power to the government and institutions. We have learned that the world works on a class system that relies on the belief that we must have people who have power and people who are subservient to power. In the subservient role, I seek safety and control, yet I give up freedom and choice.
Is having more power the answer? Why do I want more power? What will I do if I get more power? I believe our search for power is the wrong search. What I want is to influence others so that I am heard and my ideas are utilized.
I want to influence in all aspects of my life. My family, my friends, my colleagues, my boss, and my fellow citizens in my community.
When I seek to influence, I claim my own power. Not power over others, but power with others and power to contribute. I can co-create shared endeavors with others by valuing their expertise and laying claim to my own expertise.
As a citizen in a community or an employee in an organization, I can claim my power by not giving it to someone else or attempting to take it from someone. There will always be someone with more money, more status, and more experience than me. I, however, have expertise and other contributions to offer every relationship. I am unique, and I claim this uniqueness while honoring your expertise and uniqueness. The brand-new employee, the person living on the fringe of society, both have unique expertise, perspectives, and gifts to offer.
I have come to realize that I give power away and deny my own power too often. I regularly give power to others, especially if I perceive they have power over me, and sometimes I use it as an excuse not to own my own power. Influencing without direct control—that is my everyday challenge and goal. I want to influence because I have expertise and other capacities to offer the world. It’s not only technical expertise, it is relational expertise. Influencing without direct control is the premise behind Peter Block’s groundbreaking work, “Flawless Consulting: Getting your expertise used.”
Accelerate building trust by clearly understanding what people want.
Articulating what you want.
Deal with challenging partners.
Solidify agreements to achieve sustainable results that are good for individuals, teams, organizations, and the community.
Learn how to assertively claim your own power by influencing others and seeking to be influenced by others.This will build relationships and will ultimately result in successful, sustainable communities and organizations. I look forward to seeing you there, or on some other workshop in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I wish you well as you grow your capacity to influence without direct control.
When explaining Flawless Consulting to a friend outside of my regular consulting world, I like to highlight building authenticity and awareness in relationships. I want to highlight how Flawless Consulting and it’s structured framework lets work projects be approached differently and allows people to enter into projects more consciously. I appreciate these elements because they lead to a more effective project, with an opportunity for greater impact, by building the relationship along with technical expertise.
Yes, the Flawless Consulting® Workshop offers a consulting model for consultants to be better at what they do. But it is not only for consultants. It is for everyone. Why? Because everyone, regardless of their role, has the option of being more conscious of what work they are doing, why they are doing it, and how they are doing it.
Many times in an organizational setting, we are assigned to a project. We may be the leader or an individual contributor. The project kicks off, members of the team share introductions, they briefly clarify roles and outcomes and then they dive in. The work begins and continues without a pause. Sooner or later, some varying degree of issues or group dynamics inevitably rises to the surface. These issues span from the level of leader engagement to the project approach, project tactics, team roles, or external organizational influences. The list could go on. You have been there, right?
Flawless Consulting Phases
The Goal of Flawless Consulting
The purpose of the Flawless Consulting Workshop is to slow down. It asks you at the beginning of a project to define the type of relationship you want. This helps you better navigate the work and discover more about why the work is being requested. Organizations constantly deal with competing priorities and an endless list of projects that urgently need to get done.
The Flawless Consulting Model helps project leaders think through the original ask to ensure that it is the right ask and the right approach.
This is where authentic dialogue and strong relationships come in handy. It is also what the workshop helps you practice. In the end, your client (your boss, manager, or peer) is thankful because they now have more information they need to proceed. This saves organizations time and money, which is never arguable. It also builds trust, one conversation at a time. This ultimately contributes to the type of culture that enables employees to thrive.
Flawless Consulting is for Everyone
On the surface, yes, this training might look and feel like something strictly for consultants. In fact, it really is for everyone! After learning and practicing the concepts, you will leave refreshed and ready to go back to your current organizational challenge with new ideas and ways of being.
When I tell friends about this training, they always seem intrigued. In some sense, I think everyone can relate. They like the idea of forming deeper relationships and doing more meaningful work. I’m grateful to help build this capability inside of organizations. I also look forward to continuing to share these core concepts from Peter Block. If you’d like to know more about how this training could help your particular organization, please reach out to us!
Many years ago, I was introduced to what is now one of my favorite books, Leadership and Self-Deception by the Arbinger Institute. I was intrigued by the title and mostly curious about the term self-deception. What is it—and do I have it?
In simplest terms, self-deception means that we do not see ourselves and the people around us as they really are. The authors of the book explain: “It blinds us to the true cause of problems, and once blind, all the ‘solutions’ we can think of will actually make matters worse.” As a Flawless consultant, it’s a truth I’ve seen played out all too often.
Critical to the success of our consulting relationships is the ability to “tell it like it is,” and that often means sharing with a client how they have contributed to the problem they’ve hired us to solve. Often, we are asking them to take responsibility for something they have been unwilling or unable to confront.
So, how do we as Flawless consultants challenge our clients to see themselves, the people around them, and the problem as it really is?
It’s called feedback—and through our experiences, we’ve learned there are specific criteria which must be followed if you want the feedback to be heard, accepted, actionable, and most of all . . . matter.
Flawless consultants use specific, descriptive, clear, and simple language. They are non-judgmental but deliver the feedback assertively. We actively encourage reactions to the feedback to surface doubts and reservations so that we can support and address any concerns the client may have with moving forward. We also identify the client’s contribution to the problem that is within their control, and inspire the will to act by showing the impact on the business, others, and the client themselves.
Often, the anxiety we feel in giving difficult feedback is our own, not the client’s. Saying it can be much harder than listening to it. However, our goal as Flawless consultants is always to get the client to act on the underlying issues. Doing so will require us at times to indeed “tell it like is” so that our clients can see a clear picture, free of self-deception, so that the problem can ultimately be solved.
How often have I been asked, “We can’t take 3 days away from work for a workshop, so can you cut it to two days?”
There’s a lot of pressure to “cut the time AND cover all the material AND include practical exercises to build their skills”. If it’s a three-day workshop, people want it in two. If you reduce it to two days, they want it in one!
Here are my favorite reasons as to “WHY we can’t do a three-day workshop…”
5. “Our people can’t take 3 days away from work for training; they’re too busy.”
4. “Three days costs too much. We’re trying to contain expenses”
3 “Other people only take 2 days.”
2. “We know there is slack time in any workshop. The first day is usually slow.”
And my # 1 favorite reason, “Why we can’t do a three-day workshop”, is…
1. “Our people are intelligent, experienced, fast-paced, multi-taskers who get bored easily.”
Let’s face it. We’re all addicted to speed… we’re all too busy!
While there is some truth to all the reasons listed above, we can’t condense the time and still do everything. The question is, “Do we want to teach content (short lectures with some Q & A) or equip learners (practice the skills)?
If we shorten times, something gets sacrificed. Let’s think about what we lose and what it costs. I see three things that we sacrifice when we shorten workshops.
The first and most impactful is practice. Flawless Consulting workshops emphasize practice, individual and team, in a safe environment. Practice lets people know quickly how they’re doing. You have someone to coach you and offer suggestions. You get to try various approaches to see how they work. Without practice you are less likely to use the skills you’ve learned. And practice usually gets cut when we want to shorten a workshop.
Next, we limit relationships. Flawless Consulting workshops have people working in pairs, trios, and small teams We want people to work together, to build teams and networks yet we give them few opportunities to actually meet and talk. In a one-day workshop, we just begin to recognize people and then it’s already time to go.
And last is contemplation time. Flawless Consulting workshops build in “time to think, ” individually and collectively. As we think, questions emerge and possibilities occur. We begin to learn. Without contemplation, we tend to stay in our old mode of thinking and very little changes.
So, what’s the cost of reducing the time? The training may end up being superficial, lacking depth with little change occurring. Without practice, people usually lack the patience and confidence to try something new. The result? The experience is seen as a feel-good or entertaining time with limited value. The money and time spent are wasted.
I’d love to hear your stories. Drop me a note. Let me know how it’s going.
Flawless Consulting Skills offer a different approach to consulting conversations! When participants learn about some of those skills, they tell me that “You can’t do or say that in our culture; you can do that in your organization, but here, it’s just not acceptable.” I hear the same thing from people in Barcelona, Chicago, Dublin, Istanbul, Tokyo, or Vienna – all across the planet.
What is it that we can’t do because of their culture?
We would like to talk about our wants, raise tough issues, offer alternatives, or deal with resistance but the risk feels too great. We feel that neither certain individuals nor the culture is ready for a different conversation. Our desire is to have Clients that see us as valuable, competent, and relevant.
We worry that using some of the Flawless Consulting Skills may disrupt the organization. Our experiences bias our thinking. So, we keep it safe. We do what the Client wants us to do. We don’t raise tough issues. We say “Yes” when we want to say “No.” Better to keep things comfortable. We “live with it”, blaming the culture and hoping that things change in the future.
Yet, we created the culture we complain about through the conversations we have with each other. If we want a different culture, we need to change our thinking, and change our conversations!
What does it take to do that? Courage!
Courage is about owning the choices we make and owning the results of those choices. It means taking a risk to deepen a relationship. It means tough conversations about unspoken issues.
Courage–the foundation of Flawless Consulting–is being authentic. It is about talking in simple, direct words with compassionate, respectful tones. It means having tough conversations, listening to others’ concerns, and being slow to give advice. Courage is offering choice and freedom. It is a precious gift to give others.
So, what do you do to act with courage?
1. Ask yourself, “What’s keeping me from trying these skills?”
What are others doing that makes me cautious or concerned?
When they do that how do I respond, what do I do?
What response do I need to choose to change the conversation?
2. Practice! This will build your confidence.
Even if you think you already use the skill or think the skill is inappropriate, take advantage of the time to practice in a safe environment–especially during the workshop.
Have a colleague practice with you.
Video yourself using your cell phone.
3. Start with friendlies!
Talk to a couple of Clients that you have a good relationship with and tell them you want to start using the skills and ask for patience as you try them.
Until you’ve had some practice and built your confidence, avoid trying them on your toughest Clients
4. Start using the skills with everyone.
…And if you choose not to use the skills, own your choice. Don’t blame the culture or others!
I’d love to hear about your acts of courage. Drop me a note. Let me know how it’s going.
We have very little resistance in our culture, Charlie.” came the statement from a participant. “We feel that our open collaborative culture promotes working together and so we just don’t encounter much resistance.”
I’ve heard those words in the Flawless Consulting Skills workshops. They come from a mindset – strategy or approach – that staff or service groups develop toward internal consulting. This mindset believes:
The customer (client) is always right.
Our client is in management and they know what they want.
Our job is to serve…to respond to their requests.
We do not question the clients plans.
We avoid disagreeing with the client since it could be seen as a challenge to the client’s authority.
Our goal is to make things work using our expertise, our special and unique knowledge.
With such an approach, internal consultants often minimize their wants, skip Discovery & Feedback phases, and move quickly to Implementation. In Flawless Consulting, the name for such a mindset is the “Pair of Hands Role” in which the Internal Consultant takes a passive, transactional role deferring to the judgment and wishes of the client.
The upside of such a role is that decisions come quickly, implementation is fast, the Consultant knows what to do, and conflict is avoided. The hope is for a successful outcome based on the client’s plan. It fits into the work smarter and harder pressures of today’s world.
The downside is that the Consultant assumes the client has correctly identified the situation and its solution. Such an assumption may impact the Consultants’ credibility and reputation if the client is wrong. Also, the Consultant may be under-utilized offering little to identifying the situation accurately or generating ideas for an effective solution. Over time, the Pair of Hands approach can lead to the Internal Consultant being seen as low value added.
The most severe consequence comes when we don’t have a real problem or implement the right solution. This costs time and money in rework and damages our credibility.
The Pair of Hands role is a choice based on a mindset wanting to serve and please our clients. It’s not good or bad, right or wrong. Like every choice we make, it has consequences. Knowing those consequences before we make a choice is helpful.
So little or no resistance from the client may be a sign that we’re operating as a Pair of Hands. If we want to change that, we need to change our conversations. The “Contracting” meeting from Flawless Consulting describes that new conversation and helps build the skills needed to move toward a real collaborative role and a real partnership.
I’ll leave you with something to think about.
“What is my approach (mindset) to working with my clients and what are the results we’re getting?”
I’d love to hear your stories. Drop me a note. Let me know how it’s going
This post on how the lure to set up programs to manage performance improvement ultimately undermines consulting effectiveness continues our series that looks at what interferes with our capacity to serve, even in the face of our best intentions. It speaks to both internal and external consultants experiencing the tensions between doing what is popular and providing genuine service to a client.
Part 6: Consulting Complexities: Performance Management . . . Let Me Do It for You
In a culture in which profitability and efficiency are the priority, accountability becomes everyone’s favorite word. We think that there is a relationship between holding ourselves and others more accountable and increasing performance. If we can just tighten our accountability grip, the organization would deliver more. This illusion creates a market for methodologies and consultant services that promise better gripping power.
There are consulting firms that guarantee concrete results in return for a fee. If you don’t see the results, you don’t pay the fee. This is the ultimate in performance consulting. How could a consultant make this kind of guarantee? Simple. Take over that segment of the business that you promise to improve. The consultant becomes a surrogate manager, and the line management clears the way and effectively steps aside. The people in the unit live under the power of the consultant, and generally the consultant delivers on the “performance improvement” by instituting closer controls and having fewer people doing more jobs.
This is not really consulting. It is something we might call “in-sourcing”: bringing into the organization, on a temporary basis, surrogate managers who are willing to take a difficult stand, reduce head count, confront people in a way that the permanent, resident management is unwilling to do.
Even if the job needed to be done, the use of consultants in this way undermines the legitimacy of the consultant role. Consulting is no longer educational, advisory, or capacity building. Line managers cast the consultant in the role of the Serpent in order to protect their own good image with their own people. When we go along with this, it may be good for our business, but hard on the service dimension of the profession.
There are milder forms of performance consulting, the main problems of which have more to do with taking measurements than with taking charge. There is a widespread belief that anything you cannot measure does not exist. And internal staff groups are under more and more pressure to be more business oriented and return-on-investment–minded than in the past. Hard to argue with in theory.
The risk is that staff groups will no longer be in the business of cultural change or confronting the culture with its own blindness. Performance consulting will drive staff groups to be more like the culture that surrounds them. This will reinforce services that treat only symptoms and seek acceptance at the cost of some greater impact than the consultant or staff group has the potential to make.
There is great pressure for this, especially in the human resource area. The HR function comes under siege because much of its value is hard to quantify. In periods when people concerns are in remission, the push to “rationalize” HR almost leads to its elimination. There has to be a way for qualitative services to demonstrate their value without sacrificing the power of their unique perspective.
As a millennial in the midst of her career, I find myself exposed to a range of diverse colleagues and clients with regard to age, gender, skill set, title, role, background and overall life experience. Some are leading in their industry or just getting started with their working professional career, groomed with the latest best practices. Others have spent decades in different corporate roles, taking on new projects and challenges, rising up the ranks. Regardless of their generation and different experiences, they all face one thing in common, human dynamics.
It is the intangible skill set of connecting, relating, understanding, influencing, and aligning that seems to affect everyone in their organizational system, from individual contributor to senior leader. Technical acumen is needed to thrive in today’s technologically advancing society, but your business cannot thrive on technical acumen alone. Ignoring the more difficult aspects of human dynamics in the workplace can drag down the culture due to a reluctance to address the “here and now.” This is emotionally draining and contributes to workplace stress. Heeding behavior allows you to not only deliver a great end product, but work with others on the team Flawlessly. This is the main focus of Peter Block’s workshop’s and book, Flawless Consulting.
What does it mean to act Flawlessly? Does it mean to complete the work on time and on budget? Perhaps those things may be important and critical to the project’s success, but what about behavior?
Pure awareness, intentional reflection, grounded integrity, and operating with conscious choice is Flawless.
I invite my diverse colleagues, who may be experiencing challenges, to explore further with me. I ask you to dive deeper into the presenting problem to understand the influencing factors I ask you to deepen your own awareness into your own contribution to the problem. I invite you to that space in-between both subjective realities where insight is flickering in the dark. Confronting discomfort, letting go, and listening for the new path forward. This is where the magic happens and a newfound opportunity to mitigate resistance and co-create a healthy and effective solution.
When I see friends and colleagues struggling with interpersonal or group dynamics, I remember how universal this challenge is. It transcends industries, levels of hierarchy, and global culture. This work is ongoing and is the work for us all in the midst of our dynamic and diverse lives. To evolve and sharpen technologically is an imperative for change, so is the need to cultivate conscious awareness in service of your personal and organizational mission. It’s emotional, it’s uncomfortable, and it feeds your soul.
