CIO Mind

I wish I have had read Gerald Weinberg book long ago, when I was a client.

Gerald’s book “The Secrets of Consulting” dispel some of myths associated with the consultants. By the way, it looks the consultants are human, too.

One should read at least the first chapter: “Why consulting is so tough”.

As per Gerald there are three laws of consulting:

• In spite of what your client may tell you, there’s always a problem.
• No matter how it looks at first, it’s always a people problem.
• Never forget they’re paying you by the hour, not by the solution.

Managers don’t hire consultants to solve problems. No manager ever has a problem. As Gerald puts it:

In the culture of management, the worst thing you can do is to admit to anyone that you have a problem you can’t handle by yourself. If you really need help, you have to sneak it in somehow without admitting in public that there is any problem at all.

This is related with the issue of face saving. In CEE countries this is even more important than in US or UK. According to Hofstede “Power Distance Index” (PDI) and “Uncertainty Avoidance Index” (UAI) are much higher around the region compared to Anglo-Saxon cultures.

Also work of Edward T. Hall shed some light on this. Monochronic versus Polychronic time perception makes a significant difference in problem acknowledging and solving.

Sometimes the first task of client and consultant is to define the problem as “opportunity for improvement”.

I do remember my client days when I use to say: “We don’t have any problem; we just don’t know exactly how to improve this”. Now looking behind, I understand that we had a serious problem, but we launched a “major improvement project” not a “problem solving project”.

Next time when you convince yourself to bring in some consultant, spare some time and admit that you NEED help.