“I was a consultant for thirty-seven years.”

“You know, you say that a lot. Maybe mix it up a little. Y’know, I was a consultant for a very long time. . . or almost forty years or something.”

This is a conversation I had several times with Billie, my editor-wife, while writing Traveling the Consulting Road, and now I’m having it again as I’m finishing up Change Leader? Who Me?

It’s not like I never did anything else. Since childhood I’ve been a failed newspaper boy, lawn mower, snow shoveler, caddy, Howard Johnson’s soda jerk, bus boy and waiter, gift shop stock boy and retail salesman, college theatre tech assistant, ice cream factory worker, summer stock actor, scene designer tech director of a college theatre, under-employed actor, cab driver, bar tender, hospital MICU orderly, personal hygiene factory worker, day laborer, administrative assistant, booking agent for celebrity speakers for nine years, and consultant for a very long time.

Now I’m a writer. As Billie says, “Retired? You’re still working, Alan; you’re just not getting paid for it.”

I write because I look back on my life, and want to share what I’ve learned along the way. My books could be called, Don’t Do What I Did: My Mistakes . . . as a consultant . . . as a change leader . . . or in life.

I’ve learned that I’m not alone in looking back at my younger self asking, “Could I really have been that dumb?” That’s because, once you’ve learned something, it is hard to conceive of ever not knowing it.

So I felt/ feel compelled to record my learning for others who follow behind. Here are some things I learned about consulting.

Consulting is about change.

When I entered the field, I thought consulting was about providing information. Consultants researched the firm and the industry and provided a strategy, or a new way to organize, or a way to cut costs.  I didn’t get that no one ever hired a consultant to keep things they way they are. There is no firm called Status Quo Partners. And yet . . . when I started, change was a dirty word.

“Don’t say change; you’ll scare the client,” a partner once told me. He showed me a cartoon. Everyone wants change; no one wants TO change.

Clients frequently asked for a solution, a new strategy, a new organization, new market entry, a new system, and by that they meant a new information technology system (IT). Much of the consulting industry was structured around those solutions. There were strategy firms, organization firms, and IT firms. Many consultants just delivered the solution the client asked for. The best consultants asked “What problem are we trying to solve?”

Some clients rebelled at the ‘P’ word (problem) as much as they did the ‘C’ word (change). “We don’t have problems and we don’t want to change. We just want a new [fill in the blank].” Some clients and consultants described outcomes – more revenue, more profit.

What clients want

Another consulting partner once told me, “Clients want more revenue or more profit. Be very careful of a client who wants both. That is probably a turnaround, which is an entirely different animal, and promising ‘profitable growth’ is the biggest trap in consulting.” He went on to say,

“There are three kinds of projects:

• Revenue generation ̶  sales, marketing, product innovation,
• Profit improvement ̶   cost cutting, process improvement, and automation, and
• People stuff ̶  restructuring, training, and conflict resolution.”

“But doesn’t the people stuff produce either revenue or profit?” I asked naively.

“Yeah, maybe, but clients don’t think that way. More top line, more bottom line, or ‘fix the people.’”

Over my time in consulting change became less of a dirty word. Many of my clients realized, “it’s all people stuff.” Over time my change practice evolved to be described by the tag line, “helping leaders make strategic change,” and much of my work was helping people develop one of three growth capabilities, Innovation, Integration, or Improvement.

Innovation was sometimes described as ‘big change.’ Innovation often had more revenue generation focus. Improvement had more of an efficiency or profit improvement focus. Integration focused on the organizations adoption of innovations or improvement. Integration was described as alignment, or “getting everyone on the same page.”

I often was hired to restart or “fix” a failed change effort, which usually arose from a lack of integration. Those who ”bought in” battled those who didn’t, or those who anticipated unintended consequences battled those oblivious to them.

Consulting is a helping profession

No organization can change unless the people in it change. People must do something different or differently. You can’t change someone else. To help someone else change, you must first be asked. As Carl Rogers, American psychologist, wrote, “Help that is not asked for is rarely received as help. It is seen as interference.”

Change is a choice. A consultant can help by providing information and insight to clarify why change is necessary. A consultant can help clarify the expected result and a vision of the outcome. The client must internalize those. In my experience that happens most easily when the client participates in the development of the why and the vision. Most importantly, the client must choose to act, to measure, and act again to make the change happen.

“Always remember, it’s the client’s business,” a mentor told me. She was warning me against “going native,” joining the client’s organization. I realized that my role was to help not to do. Oh sure, there was lots of work that I did, because a client needed an extra pair of hands, or a specialized skill that I had, but when I was at my best, I taught the client what I did. I worked myself out of a job, and left the client more capable than when I arrived.

In my last years in practice, and certainly in the years since I retired, there has been a focus on how technology is changing consulting. Big data, algorithms, digital transformation, generative artificial intelligence will lead to superintelligence. As long as people are involved as customers, suppliers and workers, there will be a need for leaders and consultants to help people innovate, integrate, and improve.

The best helping professionals, teachers, doctors, therapists, etc., listen thoroughly, provide only the help required, and then step back. They learn, and change themselves in the process. I finally figured that out. It is my hope that those who follow me in the world of consulting don’t take as long as I did to learn.

Traveling the Consulting Road: Career Wisdom for New Consultants, Candidates, and Their Mentors is a complete consulting career guide. This book describes what it’s like to become a consultant including how to get hired and promoted, how to start a consulting firm, whether to become an independent consultant, and how to find and serve clients.

The book includes clear descriptions of consulting frameworks, tools and methodologies in the consulting toolkit to master at various points in a consulting career.

A cynical reader said, “A great book, but written for new consultants who won’t listen, and old consultants who don’t read.”

Another reader said, ”feels like waiting out a three-hour weather delay at the Admirals Club at O’Hare sitting next to a seasoned industry veteran willing to share his accumulated wisdom.”

Available here

Coming soon

Change Leader? Who Me? Hard Earned Wisdom for Those New to Leading Change is a collection of stories and essays about what it takes to lead change. There are stories about ordinary people who share insights about leadership and change. There are concept essays from my years “helping leaders make strategic change,” including descriptions of change “levers,” and skills to help start or accelerate change. There are some unusual leadership models ( e.g., a Ritz shoe shiner, and Bruce Springsteen). This is a fun read, written in my irreverent, anecdote-laden style.