Early last year Shawn and I delivered a workshop on narrative techniques in Hong Kong for a group of Masters students who were engaged in projects for several clients of the university. About two-thirds of the way through the workshop... [Read More]

I saw this question in a blog post by Mark Schenk: About two-thirds of the way through the workshop one of the students asked “when do we get to the stage where we can tell the client what the answer is?” This literally stopped us in our tr... [Read More]

In a brilliant and thought-provoking post, Jack Vinson of Knowledge Jolt from Jack writes:I've been learning in my consulting practice that when I come across as having the answer I never get as far as I do when I offer a suggestion (that I think will ... [Read More]

That's an elegant little technique; simple, clean, yet grounded in really good thinking.

Not that it matters (since it works), I'm curious about why it works. Seems to me, for several reasons:

1. As Bruce MacEwen pointed out in his post, honest admission of a lack of godliness is refreshingly unpretentious, and tends to bring people along with us;

2. Reciprocity--you ask their opinion, so they're inclined to listen to yours;

3. It appeals to the other person's desire to "play consultant" too and offer up critiques;

4. It shows you're not afraid to brook criticism for the sake of moving the ball forwards;

5. You are honestly soliciting their opinion (at least, I'm assuming you're sincere about it--if not, all bets are off);

6. You're refraining from the "hard sell" of pushing your ideas.

That's why I come up with, and I don't doubt it works on more levels yet. Very sensible suggestion, thanks.

Some might think that clients just want to know what the answer is, and not have their time wasted with a lot of verbiage dealing with the background and reasoning that goes into it. I think that is true….and false... [Read More]