“Consultant for thirty-seven years? What? You couldn’t find a real job?”

Bada bing.

I was at a wedding yelling to be heard over the band’s bass, turned to teeth-rattling volume.

“You know what the definition of a consultant is?” Shouted this friend of the bride’s father. “A guy who knows a thousand ways to make love, but doesn’t know any women.”

Bada boom.

“As you might imagine, after thirty-seven years, I’ve heard all the jokes.” I half-smiled and asked him what he did.
“Zinc recovery and remanufacture.” I didn’t know any zinc jokes so I moved on.

Consultants get a bad rap.

I didn’t know that when I joined the field, but it soon became apparent because at every client site and every backyard barbeque somebody had the killer consultant joke. “A priest, a rabbi, and a consultant stood at the Pearly Gates. .  . .”

Some people have no idea what a consultant does and peppered me with question after question resisting every attempt to change the subject, “How ‘bout those [insert sports team here]?” And for me that would be a sign of true desperation because I don’t follow sports. No, I mean, I really don’t follow any sports.

So many people think that consulting isn’t real work that I used to introduce myself at leadership workshops I ran like this:

“I’ve been a consultant for many years. Aside from running my own business, most of what I know about business comes from observing and talking to people like you. As a result I’ve become quite good at ‘Talking about Work.’” This has given an abiding respect for people who actually Do Real Work.”

It always got a laugh and I think people cut me some more slack than they might have otherwise.

I came to describe myself as being in the business of helping companies change, that is helping them innovate or helping them improve. That often led me to the pieces of what I did, running initiatives, training, measuring results, etc. That, at least, the zinc recovery guy could understand.

I asked myself why people both understand what consultants do. People may not know the law, but they understand what lawyers do. Sure there are a lot of lawyer jokes. They may accuse lawyers of being dishonest, but they don’t accuse them of not having a real job. People may not want to be an accountant, but they know what they do and don’t hesitate to hire one at tax time.

Perhaps, the only professional I heard have similar difficulty explaining his work was an actuary. A client of mine had a business that sold pensions to companies. As an actuary he looked at the age and health statistics profile of a company’s workforce and estimated how much money the company would have to contribute to their retirement plan each year. At a party, I once heard him say,

“Actuary. It’s like an accountant, only more boring.”

One problem with people not understanding what consultants do is that there are so many different kinds of consultant. After all, a consultant is someone who gives advice or assistance. (Pay attention to that distinction, advice of assistance, I’ll come back to it in a minute.)

Advice or assistance at what? Could be anything, strategy, manufacturing, data mining, recycling. Consultants often get past this by describing who they work for, “I’m a management consultant.” Most people have heard of the large management consulting firms, like McKinsey & Company, or the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). If you look at the websites of those firms and didn’t really understand business, you might still have difficulty understanding what they do, apparently everything.

So if you are a consultant and you want people to understand what you do, you probably need to describe the part of a business you work in and what outcome you are trying to achieve.

“I help manufacturing plant managers reduce cost through managing inventory turn.”

“I plan new business to business marketing approaches to increase sales.”

“I help senior leaders implement strategic change, getting everyone on board, planning new processes, training new skills, and measuring results.”

Advice or Assistance

I did say I’d come back to this. Advice or assistance is one way of describing two different kinds of consultant, the content consultant and the process consultant.

The content consultant typically works in one industry, like airlines, or banking,  or group of industries, like transportation, or financial services. As a result of this specialization they have expertise and can offer advice. They provide answers through industry research and knowledge. They may also have functional expertise, strategy, marketing, or operations.

A content project begins with a client question and ends with a consultant report, recommendations, advice.

The process consultant provides assistance. The process consultant may also have some experience in an industry or a function or both, but the orientation is different. The process consultant may ask many more questions. The process consultant may seem more like a teacher or coach. The process consultant may work in many different industries and typically stays with the client longer than the content consultant.

The process consulting project often starts with an outcome, something the client wants to do.  A process consulting project often ends when the client has either achieved the outcome or at least is well under way and knows how to proceed. The client no longer needs assistance.

Help

Both content and process consultants provide help. Content consultants provide helpful information. Process consultants teach the client how to do something.

Carl Rogers, the American psychologist, said “Help is defined by the recipient. Help that isn’t asked for is usually perceived as interference and not help.”

A Real Job

Earlier in the piece I whined about consultant jokes and the “bad rap” that consultants get. The bad rap (negative description), the bad rep (poor reputation) that consultants get may be due the Rogerian definition of help.

A consultant who doesn’t listen, but is quick to offer advice or assistance isn’t perceived as helpful. He is seen as arrogant, a know-it-all. A consultant who offers advice when the client wants assistance is perceived as “a guy who knows a thousand ways to. . .” a talker not a doer.

So if you are a consultant, be clear about what your client wants, listen more than you speak, and wait to be asked for help. Then provide what is asked for.

This won’t stop the jokes at parties, but at least your client will know you have a real job.