This is from Phil Runkel on 3 September 98 in reply to posting from Kenny
Kitzke on same date.
What can you do instead of giving advice to clients?
When I did organizational consulting, I said explicitly to
clients that I would not tell them the answer to their
difficulties. I would not tell them actions to take that would
take away their difficulties. I would not give advice; I would
never say, "Do this." Some prospective clients, it is true, were
astonished that I was offering to help but was saying that I
could not solve their problems for them. And it is true that I
did not have to capture clients to make a living. My salary came
from other sources. But I think the number of clients,
especially corporate clients, is increasing who understand that
consultants can only help them to help themselves.
What I could do for clients was to make opportunities for
them (1) to discover what co-workers wanted and how ready they
were to join in cooperative problem-solving, (2) to organize to
start reducing difficulties, and (3) to build their own
home-grown, continuing consulting group. Consultants can break
out time and occasions more easily than the clients, because they
work outside the clients' everyday rules.
Notice here that I am not giving advice to you. I am not saying
that you should do what I did. It may be that you will see in what I say
an opening or opportunity you had not seen earlier. Or that may not
happen; it may be that my way of thinking cannot fit you or your clients.
I cannot predict what sallies, proposals, concepts, and so on can enable
you to take the new direction. But other things than merely imitating can
happen. It may be that what I say enables you to see new meaning in what
someone else said. And so on. So if there is anything useful to you
here, good. If not, I can only wish you better luck next time.
But aside from all that, I like to think that the best help to a
consultant often comes from clients.
I wish you well.
--Phil Runkel
