"Flawless Consulting" is a big claim as JosephPelrine pointed out. (Moved from TheFlawlessConsultingFieldbook page):
For some reason, "Flawless Consulting" sounds like an oxymoron to me. Could you tell me/us some more about the ideas behind this, or about the techniques involved? - JosephPelrine
In Flawless Consulting, Block and company address the process of consulting distinct from the domain in which you are consulting. How can you do that process well, even flawlessly? How can you do that given that your mere presence is disruptive, and the people bringing you in are under some kind of stress or you wouldn't be there? Worse, you aren't the only person involved, so how can you make the process "flawless?"
GeraldMWeinberg? famously said:
Consulting is influencing others at their request.
Delivering consulting defined this way is it's own skill, distinct from knowledge or skills in the domain you are offering, or skill with the simple mechanics of contracting and showing up on time. FlawlessConsulting is about the idea that the process of the consulting engagement is itself important, and that you own your participation in that process. As the consultant (vs. the client) you probably own that process a bit more than the client does. You are the expert, after all.
Block and company provide advice, including:
So, FlawlessConsulting is about the practices that will allow your expertise to be used by your clients.
I recommended this book to a successful Manhattan lawyer with a long-established practice. Initially, he complained that the book was "hard to read." Probing further, it turns out that "hard to read" meant that the book was hard for him to read, quickly. Too much to think about on every page, too many things to use right now, and things to try or skills to develop. That is the right problem to have, I think.
So, you think you know something that would help other people, if only they knew it also? How you offer that better way is also a Big Deal (tm). FlawlessConsulting is about that. About the title - FlawlessConsulting is a target to try for.
Highly recommended -- JamesBullock
So "Flawless Consulting" is the same as "good consulting" or "effective consulting" plus a bit of overoptimism? I expect I'm too cynical, but titles like this set off alarm bells in my head. Not just because it seems like hype, but also because if the title means anything more than "effective consulting" it must imply some sort of effort at flawlessness, which I bet is counterproductive overall. (If your goal is to do the best job you can, you'll take risks where appropriate. If your goal is to avoid flaws, you'll be more inclined to play it safe.) In any undertaking that's so much about human relationships, I think it's a mistake to aim at perfection. It might be different in domains where perfection is (in some sense) both measurable and attainable, like mathematics or software development; but not in consulting any more than in politics or acting or writing poetry. -- GarethMcCaughan
Wow, that was fast. I usually get time to clean up my typos before comments appear. Hi, Gareth. Pleased to meet you.
You are right that titles such as "Flawless Consulting" often indicate snake oil for sale. This book isn't one of those. This book is also an example of a kind of collision in worldviews that I don't have a solution for. You are exactly right in your points about "perfection" meaning something like "perfect solutions" - in math, perhaps engineering, some might argue computer science.
There's another take on flawlessness, which would include taking appropriate risks, and taking them well (to use your example.) This book is about the latter, while doing consulting. You are right in identifying the trap of seeking perfection that "flawless" can suggest. Block's "flawless" consulting includes avoiding that trap. I don't have a crisp articulation around this particular language trap. There's a kind of different use of words like "flawless" that tangles up different kinds of thinkers sometimes. I find myself on either side of that one from time to time. -- jb
Here is what Block means by "flawless" (2nd Ed. p 49):
In the book, Block spends a great deal of time explaining the phases and what it means to "complete the business of each phase." That's more than I want to summarize. Block also defines authenticity (2nd Ed. p 37):
Whether you accept Block's definition of flawless or not, I'll bet you can find at least one idea in this book that helps you improve your consulting. --DaleEmery
I can quite see that if we take each point above and negate it, then such a consulting engagement will be flawed, in that regard at least. (Does this, by Meyer's principle, make them platitudinous statements?). Is fulfillment of all of them the totality of good consulting? I don't know. Maybe. The use of "flawless" here looks like marketing hyperbole for what is good material able to stand on its own merits. Why do people feel the need to do that? --KeithBraithwaite
I suspect that in Block's case, his intention was not marketing hyperbole but psychology. Too many consultants feel like crap based on the results of the assignment. Block is saying that if you will do these things (and they are not easy things to do), you're doing as well as can be done. --DaleEmery
Also way, way too many consultants feel all warm and proud of themselves based on domain expertise delivered so badly it guarantees the client won't do what they need to do at least until the organizational memory expires. Would that there were more of this kind of limited "flawlessness" in consulting, or many other aspects of work.
That said, I am less enamored of Block's later books than the earlier ones (this one is earlier) exactly because he seems to have drifted off into psychology, and soft space further than I am comfortable with. But that's for a review of a different book. -- jb
I don't think all the statements are platitudes according to Meyer's criterion. For instance, although "behave authentically with the client" sounds platitudinous, Block has (so Dale says above) actually given some meaning to that term "authentically". I don't think it would be insane to say "Don't bother the client by chattering about what you're experiencing as it happens; wait until you're done and summarize concisely", for instance. But yes, some of them are platitudes. That's not always bad. To state a set of platitudes is to say more than that each of them is true; it's to say that this set of platitudes is a particularly good one. Especially if (as Block apparently does) you say furthermore that these platitudes are the only ones that matter; that if you attend to them, you're done. Thus one can build principles out of platitudes. It's certainly not nonsensical to negate Block's claim about flawlessness and say that there's more to consulting well than his four requirements.
In fact, I'll go further. Block's claim that fulfilling those four requirements constitutes "flawless consulting", if he really makes that claim and if Dale's quotation accurately defines his meaning of "authentically", is not merely non-platitudinous; it is false. For example, one can be obnoxious and rude to clients while still meeting those four requirements, but I think obnoxious rudeness is enough to stop one's consulting being "flawless". (Though there may be clients who need swearing at occasionally.)
The one thing that gives me pause is that third point. "Tend to and complete the business of each consulting phase". Very broad words, those. Perhaps anything that isn't (in a more usual sense of the word) flawless would be deemed to violate it, as a failure to tend and complete the business? I don't think such a broad interpretation is compatible with what Dale quotes Block as saying: "Even if the project aborts in the early, contracting phase."; in fact, I am having difficulty finding any interpretation of the third point that isn't contradicted by this. Oh well. Maybe I need to read the book.
Oh, and hi in turn to James. -- GarethMcCaughan
I can see how the bits I've quoted, all by themselves, without the three-hundred pages of supporting detail that Block provides in the rest of the book, could seem like platitudes. --DaleEmery
I'm just starting FlawlessConsulting and already I can see how discussions like this can get started. Block seems to use some words in quite quirky ways. There's "flawless" of course, but also "authentic", which seems to mean "being true to yourself; not falling into believing serving the clients needs is all there is, even at the cost of your own beliefs about what is the best course". But overall I like this book already. -- DuncanPierce
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