The Consultant’s Curse

Though I’ve been a professional consultant of one kind or another for over forty years, I sometimes still fall victim to the Consultant’s Curse.

What’s the Consultant’s Curse? I thought you’d never ask. Here’s a strong hint from my mentor Jerry Weinberg’s Fourth Law of Consulting:

“If they didn’t hire you, don’t solve their problem.”
—Jerry Weinberg, The Secrets of Consulting

Yes, the Consultant’s Curse is that consultants have a weakness for offering unsolicited advice.

Invariably, when I do, it doesn’t work out so well.

Here’s a painful personal example, portrayed by the illustration above.

Why are consultants susceptible to the Curse?

First, the bad news.

Though we might wish otherwise, consultants are like everyone else. We’re imperfect people, not gods, who don’t know all the answers and make mistakes. The bad news is that this reality sometimes leads to feeling insecure about ourselves. We incorrectly believe that:

• If we call ourselves a consultant we should be able to answer any questions and deal with any problems in our self-professed or certified area of expertise; and
• Not having an answer to everything may mean we are unworthy or weak.

When we feel insecure about our role as a consultant, we want to hide these false concerns from our clients. So, we say we can help, instead of stating either that we can’t help, or need to think about whether we can help. Insisting that we can help may momentarily make us feel better, but ultimately, it’s not helpful to the client and destroys trust. Such consultants typically don’t stay consultants long unless they have high-enough status/credentials to fool their clients or can find enough new clients with whom they can repeat their know-it-all claims.

However, even if we “know what we know” and are comfortable sharing our limits with clients, we are still not immune from the Consultant’s Curse.

I succumb to the Curse when I decide that I know a client’s problem before I’ve heard or uncovered everything relevant to the problem. Eager to be helpful and to strengthen my feeling of self-worth, I start explaining how I’ll help.

Then what usually happens is that:

• The problem I’ve come up with isn’t what the client actually wants help with.
• I’ve got the right problem—but the client doesn’t want me to solve it!

Also, not everyone is my client!

Furthermore, I can succumb to the Curse when the person I’m talking to isn’t even a client! For example, a friend shares how she’s feeling about a difficult situation. Instead of really hearing what she has to say and making sure that she knows I’ve heard her, I jump to a possible solution to what I’ve heard as a problem and start talking about that. The Curse—aka a form of mansplaining in my case—strikes again!

The good news

The good news is that wanting to help people is a common and noble human impulse. Thank goodness for this! A world where everyone only thought about themselves would be a dismal place. Jerry Weinberg, in his book with the Seashores What Did You Say? says that according to their observations, “most people cannot live more than three hours without offering someone else an observation about themselves—often in the form of advice.”

In my experience, most consultants (and people) genuinely want to help others, rather than being motivated by fame, money, or ego-stroking. They feel good when they’re successful.

When you enjoy helping, what’s difficult is to refrain from offering people advice before checking whether they actually want it.

How to avoid the Consultant’s Curse

(OK, I’m talking to myself somewhat here.) When you are tempted to offer unsolicited advice to a person:

• Resist the impulse to jump in as soon as an idea enters your mind. Instead, shut up and listen to what people are saying.
• Wait until it’s appropriate to speak, usually signaled by a pause in the conversation.
• Reflect back what you’ve heard, to check whether your understanding is accurate. Listen to the response, and, when necessary, ask questions that clarify your understanding of what was said.
• If, at this point, you believe you’ve identified a problem, notice whether the person has communicated that problem, or whether you’ve identified a problem that you think has been overlooked. If the latter, find out if what you’ve identified is actually a problem for the person involved!
• If both of you agree that there is a problem, ask gently if they would like to hear your advice. For example, “I have a thought about that, would you like to hear it?”
  • If the response is some variation of “yes” carefully note any hesitations or caveats they express. For example, “Do you have an idea about just dealing with X.” Or, “Will it take long?”
  • Accept any kind of “no” gracefully.
• If you’ve got a “yes”, confirm what you understand they want to hear from you, share your advice, and then check their understanding of what you said.

Two final reminders

Sometimes, you just need to listen.

I’ll let Jerry Weinberg have the last word. “Never allow yourself to forget that consulting is the art of influencing people at their request.”

Do you suffer from the Consultant’s Curse? Share your observations in the comments below!