Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting
Mar 7th, 2007 by Bethany
A couple of weeks ago I discovered Peter Block’s book, Flawless Consulting, and read it through in a day or two. I was surprised to find that he wasn’t writing it just for people whose title is “consultant.” He talks about how everyone who does a project for someone else in an organization is really a consultant, and then he goes on to say that every consultant (internal or external) has a choice about whether to take on any particular project. For some reason this was news to me, but I was encouraged when I read on and he said that most consultants feel that it isn’t their place to have needs, but to simply serve the people and organization they’re working for.
The book is subtitled “A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used” and in it Block explains that consultants have expertise, and organizations or people ask them to use their expertise to help solve problems, but most of the time the consultant doesn’t have the power to implement the changes/solutions to the problem that they recommend. Because of this, the consultant often leaves a project feeling that the know what the problem was and how to fix it, and they did their best to explain it to the decision maker, but that nothing would change despite all that. Block’s approach to getting your expertise used is to always have the responsibility for the project be 50/50 with the client from the beginning, to be as perfectly authentic with the client as you can, and to make one of the goals of the consultation to teach the client so they can deal with the problem themselves (or at least deal with it better themselves) the next time they encounter it.
I especially liked Block’s attitude that one should be authentic at all times. Unfortunately, one of his illustrations of this principle struck home to me. He gave the example of a client who is going on and on and on in minute detail about the history of a project. What do you do? Keep sitting there, looking interested (but really zoning out, bored out of your mind), and assume that he’ll get to the point sometime because he must just need to get this off his chest. That’s what I would probably do, anyway. Is that authentic? No. Block says the best thing to do in this situation is say something like “I’m getting lost in the details and having trouble staying with you. I’d really like to hear what the main point is because I’m excited to get going on this project.” That’s authentic.
It’s an excellent book on how to work well with your boss, your co-worker who keeps handing you their projects, or your customers, getting your expertise used while teaching and maintaining your integrity and even enjoying yourself. I wish I’d read it years ago!