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?

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!

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.

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 1: Consulting Complexities – Introduction
• Part 2: Consulting Complexities – The Commercialization of Service
• Part 3: Consulting Complexities – How Growth Undermines Service
• Part 4: Consulting Complexities: How Intention Gets Undermined in Change Management
• Part 5: Consulting Complexities: Our Love of Leadership
• 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.