discussion 7.1

Chapter 19 The Heart of the Matter

TO SAY IT ONE LAST TIME, maybe, consulting is primarily a relationship business. No matter how research-based or technical the project is, it will always reach a point at which the success of the work will hinge on the quality of the relationships we have with our clients. This relationship is the conduit through which our expertise passes.

The way we contact and engage people around our expertise is an applied art and takes a hundred forms. At times it is one-to-one coaching with an individual or team. It can be working with a group on strategy or technology, or running a training session. Underlying all the ways we work with clients is a set of beliefs about relationships, learning, and the nuances of how change occurs that ultimately define our practice.

While this book is threaded with thoughts about good, or flawless, consulting practice, I want to take a moment to be explicit about its foundational concepts. When I am lost, unsure how to proceed, which is most of the time, I return to a few ideas that ground me again and again and serve to reassure. Each of these ideas has as much to do with the heart as the head; in fact, finding and sustaining this connection may be the whole point. Consulting cannot be done well without genuine caring for the client, and the challenge is to find ways to embody our care in the way we do the work. Our care is expressed

partly in our behavior and style, but it is also a matter of how we structure critical elements of the learning and change process.

In a sense, our job is to be a learning architect. At our best, we design social settings that lead to insight, resolution of differences, and change. What follows are some ideas that support conditions under which learning and change are more likely to happen. None is fail-safe, each contains elements of adventure, and all flow against the stream of the conventional wisdom and the dominant culture. That is what makes them useful.

Choosing Learning Over Teaching

While we usually claim that we are in the business of helping our clients learn, most traditional educational or consulting efforts are more about teaching than learning. If you ask who is really learning at any

meeting, communication session, or training event, the answer is usually, “The person in charge.”

The dominant models for learning come from our educational system. If you look at most of our classrooms, the teacher stands in front, and students line up behind or around tables, facing the front. The agenda, the objectives, and the method of learning are all specified by the teacher. The teacher is in effect the supervisor of learning. This is the world that Ward, in the previous chapter, is chipping away at. Similarly in consulting, the consultant is expected to be the change manager, even the change agent. The task of the client is to absorb what the consultant has to offer.

The classroom or consulting project run on this model is based on the need for predictability and control. Our need is to make the teacher or consultant central to the learning. It is partly a question of pedagogy and our desire to prescribe for others what we wish them to do. But we are not the only ones lured into an all-eyes-front approach. This classroom or meeting model is also demanded by the learners. If you decide to invite clients to define the agenda, create the learning process, and evaluate their own performance, you will probably face a revolt. Clients are so conditioned to be passive in the teaching-and-learning process that given the choice to manage their own learning, they will pass and turn the floor back to the consultant.

The result is that the teacher/consultant conspires with the participant or client to keep the teacher/consultant central and the student/client reactive. And one effect is that too often the consultant is the one who learns the most. Some of this is inevitable, for when we are forced to explain ourselves or teach others, we invest in the subject matter in a way that the client is not required to do. But some of it comes from our need to control what is presented and to specify what is learned and accepted. The symbol of this for me is the way we do much of our training. We have a passion for modeling videos in training, with predictable outcomes for participants. We promise a right way, make the way explicit by headlining the milestones and learning points, and then declare that the outcomes are predictable from the outset. We call it “good planning.”

The cost is that we rarely see people engage their full capacity to learn. Just as Tim Gallwey, author and creator of the Inner Game method of learning, has suggested, in most training and instruction, there is a great deal of teaching and very little learning. In teacher-centered formats, the real learner is the trainer, and the participant is engaged in a sophisticated form of imitation and absorption.

The real learning is in the act of creating the online course, the modeling tape, the headlined points, and the lesson plan. It is in the struggle to create that we find value. It is in the effort to understand and create ideas and practices that the learning resides. The container for that teaching, the participant, often leaves the session little changed. We know this, which is why we talk so much about measurement. The talk is an expression of our anxiety about the relevance of the process.

Learning as a Social Adventure

To bring value to the participant or the client, we need to design our efforts to support learning at the expense of teaching. As the education example shows, this means we need to build elements of surprise, discovery, and not knowing into our interaction with clients. We need to allow risk in the room, raise the stakes, engage in caring confrontation, offer strong support, and ensure affirmation of what each of us knows. These are what create learning.

Packaging an answer, putting it online, as we do with so many of our ideas and programs, interferes with learning. Granted, packaged consultation or training is faster, more digestible, more visible and predictable, and therefore more salable; it is a good short-term business strategy. But over time, it is like the alcoholic's hair-of-the-dog cure for a hangover. If high-control, predetermined thinking is the client's problem, we cannot fix it with high-control, predetermined answers.

If learning and change are truly our intent, a slower, more demanding, and more deliberative approach is required. We have to value

struggle over prescription, questions over answers, tension over comfort, and capacities over needs and deficiencies.

The Struggle Is the Solution

Most persistent problems that call for consultation have no clear right answer. This means we have to get used to facing the paradoxical nature of the workplace and the human beings we find there. Think about how you deal with situations where two opposing viewpoints are both true. Do we need more control, or less? More centralization, or more local control? Do people need more freedom, or will they abuse the privilege and go off in separate directions? Should we always tell the truth, or do we acknowledge the political nature of organizations? Will more technology and better information help, or is the problem one of motivation and lack of training?

Every consultation involves these kinds of questions. Even in very technical consulting, questions like these are embedded in the architecture of our solutions. We make a serious mistake if we choose one or the other, or even try to find a middle ground. We lose the benefit of the unique ideas at the two poles when we compromise for middle ground. The best outcomes emerge in the effort to understand the truth in both sides. The consultant's task is to evoke an exploration of the polarity, postpone the quick answers, and make sure that the complexity of the question is acknowledged before action is chosen. It is in the struggle to transcend both sides that a resolution is found.

For example, we need control, and we also need local choice. People need more freedom, and they will at times abuse it. More technology is vital, and motivation and skill are everything. It is the tension in these polarities that informs action that is based in reality and stays alive. If we can accept that this sort of tension is always present, then the action we take at a particular moment will in some ways not matter: whatever we choose, we will pay a price for it. So why not acknowledge this, see the struggle as the path, and resist the temptation of certainty and speed?

The Question Is More Important Than the Answer

What this means is that we have to learn to trust the questions—and recognize that the way we ask the question drives the kind of answer we develop.

We get stuck by asking the wrong question. The most common wrong question is that of the engineer in each of us who wants to know how we get something done. This question quickly takes us down the path of methodology and technique. It assumes the problem is one of what to do rather than why to do it or even whether it is worth doing.

The “how” question has several variations. Take them as warning signs.

· • How long will it take? We want to make good time regardless of where we are going.

· • How do we get them to change? If only they would change, we would be better off. The top thinks the bottom is the problem, the bottom thinks the top is the problem, and when they get together, both agree the middle is the problem.

· • What are the steps needed for…? Life can be reduced to a step-by-step plan. PowerPoint is the icon, points made for distribution to scale. Blueprints with milestones are the drug, and more discipline is the prescription that never cures.

· • How do we measure the effect? This implies that there is no value in the invisible world. It is the measure of reality that becomes the point. Philosopher Alan Watts once said that we have reached the point at which we go to a restaurant and eat the menu. We have become more interested in the definition and measurement of life than in living it.

· • How do we communicate this? The problem is they do not understand us. “A problem in communication” is the ultimate empty diagnosis. It denies real conflict and raises spin to the level of 
purpose. Our finest example of this is Washington, D.C., where the primary work of the political class is to manage image and the news. Questions of communication are most often the easy way out of questions of will, courage, and commitment.

· • What are other organizations doing or where has this worked? We want to lead and wish to go second at the same time. There is some value in discovering what others are doing: it gives us hope. More often, though, the question is a wish for safety, for when we hear where it has worked, we then talk of how unique our situation is.

These questions are so appealing because they demand so little. They promise a world that is logical and predictable. They also externalize the problem and are focused on change from people who are not in the room. What's more, they shrink the problem to manageable size by treating it as a matter of skills rather than questions of purpose and the use of power.

Beyond How

“How” questions will take us no further than our starting place. They result in trying harder at what we were already doing. The questions that heal us and offer hope for authentic change are the ones we cannot easily answer. Living systems are not controllable, despite the fact that they evolve toward order and some cohesion. To move a living system, we need to question what we are doing and why. We need to choose depth over speed, consciousness over action—at least for a little while.

The questions that lead to a change in thinking are more about why and where than about how. Some examples:

· •What is the point of what we are doing? We live in a world measured by wealth and scale. Are we here to make money, meet budgets, grow the operation? Is this enough? And who is the beneficiary of this? Who are we here to serve, and what price are we willing to pay to stay true to our answer?

· •What has to die before we can move to something new? We want change but do not want to pay for it. We are always required to put aside what got us here to move on. Where do we find the courage to do this?

· •What is the real value of our product and service? And in whose eyes? How valid is our promise, and what are the side effects of our delivery? Are our advertising and the way we present ourselves a picture we even believe is true?

· •What personal meaning do people find in what we are doing? What intrinsic rewards exist for us? Do we show up voluntarily, or have we indentured ourselves simply to sustain our life outside work? Many people think work is just that, work, and to expect more is to be a fool.

· •What would happen if we did nothing? When is change for its own sake? Maybe we should just get better at what we do now.

· •What are the capacities and strengths that we are not using fully? Give up on fixing weaknesses; find out what more is possible. Sometimes we do not even know our gifts as individuals and as institutions. What strengths do others see in us? Years ago in our consulting firm, we asked clients why they hired us. They said that what they found attractive was our seeming disinterest and reluctance in working with them. We were shocked. We thought that if we seemed aloof, it was because we were disorganized; they saw it as a sign of integrity.

· •And what are we leaving for the next generation? This question is for the second half of life, but it is still a useful focusing exercise. Our materialistic culture consumes its resources and bets on science or miracles to cope with what we leave for those after us. What will our legacy be?

These are difficult questions, ones that require faith and patience. They do not substitute for action, and at some point we do have to ask, “How?” But the why questions are designed for learning and change, and in that way they are very practical indeed. It is in the

dialogue about these questions that change occurs. They are questions for the client to engage in at the top and bottom and in between; they are not questions for the consultant to answer.

It is hard for some to engage in this level of abstract dialogue, even though these are the questions we each privately ask ourselves. No matter how difficult, these are the questions our clients must deal with publicly, because the route to genuine change is less obvious than a list and some milestones; without some depth to our inquiry, our thinking will never change, and we destine ourselves to the pursuit of quick fix and fashion. And if a consultant cannot pose these questions, who will?

Insight Resides in Moments of Tension

To value struggle, entertain maddening questions, and live with paradox in the service of thinking differently is hard. Really hard. Our instinct is to move toward comfortable subjects, reach for the habitual way of working. If we consultants propose questions about meaning and demand an extended period of reflection, we will be blamed for not being practical, action oriented, and step minded.

If we view this tension as a flaw in the process, we will jump ship at the first salvo and retreat into comfort. Many of my mistakes have occurred when I became anxious about the process and reverted to the safe harbor of action plans and lists. Once the actions were listed, we all breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at the familiar feel of milestones in our hands. That was the good news.

When I would look back at those times, though, the changes that came out of those efforts were always disappointing. Follow-through was weak, optimism quickly faded, and even the effort to push the changes along left most people feeling that nothing had changed. We just had more action items on our plate. I let those clients down by yielding to the tension too easily. If I had persisted with the difficult questions longer, asked for more rethinking of the basics, I would have served the client better.

Another source of tension might simply be the strained relationships among those in the room. If resolving this strain were easy, they would have done it before we got there. We are often faced with tension that is historical and tenacious. Everyone feels it, but no one wants to name it. Do we dive into it or manage around it?

Here is an example that still rolls around in my mind. I facilitated a meeting of eleven agencies that had come together to cooperate with each other better. It was a good cause, and a big event, to even all be in the room together. Halfway through the meeting, after getting acquainted and hearing some ideas on possible mutual interests, the momentum for action and agreement started to build. I had planned for more open dialogue, more discussion of differences, more reflection, more time in mixed groups getting connected.

I felt the pressure build, the co-planners huddled with me in the corner, and I yielded on the original plan. We broke people into their natural teams and asked them to come back in an hour with ideas on what this whole group could do together that their organizations could not accomplish separately. It seemed reasonable; that was why we were there, after all. At the end of the hour, the teams reported. To a team, each reported what that team alone might do to move its agenda forward. They were not prepared to cross boundaries, yield on the positions they had come to the meeting with, or trust each other in new ways. A group that had been convened to seek new cooperation devolved into their history of firm boundaries and negotiation.

The tension that was expressed in the desire to get to an action plan was really a defense against the deeper conversation about ways they were apart and the caution they felt in yielding positions that would be required for significant movement to occur. And the worst part was that I had colluded with them out of my own anxiety about being practical and useful. I tried to recover the next morning, but it was too late; the moment had passed, and the energy that might have led to a shift had been drained.

The door to new ways of thinking does not open easily, and it is the tension in the room that actually becomes the key. The tension points to where the resistance or doubt resides. Discussing the tension makes

insight and resolution possible. If we can see the tension as energy and go toward it, big insights will follow. If we manage around it, we risk losing the day, as I did.

When the tension surfaces, it needs to be named, discussed, and acknowledged. The consultant has to push the discussion into the difficult areas. We have to ask ourselves when we will be in a better position to move ahead. When will be a better time to discuss failure, conflict between individuals and groups, feelings of futility and doubt? More structure is not what is needed at these moments; it is courage that is in short supply. By naming the tension and supporting a discussion of what it means, we gain some learning about the emotional part of work.

This is what learning requires and what clients need from us. It is the patriarchal culture that wants to keep a lid on feelings, which is what running from the tension is about. The key is understanding that the expression itself is what is valuable, not the answer or resolution. If we can support both sides in expressing things they find hard to discuss, then the decisions made afterward will be of a different nature.

Capacities Bear More Fruit Than Deficiencies

Another element of change is the choice whether to focus on what is missing or on what is present. I once thought that my service as a consultant was to identify problems, and so I dedicated myself to figuring out what was missing. After capitalizing on weaknesses for years, I have changed my focus to seeing what gifts are there and where capacities lie.

There is a practical side to this choice. We should accept that we have harvested the yield available in the deficiency field. Why pursue a path of diminishing marginal returns? We already have the product of a lifetime of working on deficiencies. A lot more effort will yield few more results.