Insight #371:
Did you know they pay you for the contribution you make? Not for your experience or expertise. Initially, they might hire you for your experience and expertise. But that’s not why they pay you. They pay you to deliver on your experience and expertise.
I was rather slow to learn this lesson. (I thought they paid me because they liked me.) Here’s how the penny dropped for me.
For several years I survived as a management consultant and executive advisor. And all that time I wondered, “Why are they paying me?”
It’s not an odd question. It’s not about my well-disguised lack of self-belief. It’s about the hidden motives of my clients.
Some CEOs hire a new clutch of consultants almost every year until they find the ones who tell them what they want to hear. Some executives hire consultants as someone to blame when things go wrong. (Yes, I have been paid to take the blame.) And there are nervous decision-makers addicted to outside opinion, even when the outside opinion is not quite expert enough.
I have worked with these types. Briefly, because they did not hire me to hang around. Yet, as I’ve grown older, my clients have stayed longer. Because I’m smarter? Perhaps. Because I finally have clients who know how to extract real value from my marketing promises? Could be.
But here’s what I think happened. I shifted my focus from consultant to coach. Now I suggest. I don’t tell. (Well, sometimes I tell a client what to do. But only if the client keeps dithering.)
Consultants like to tell clients what to do. They might deny it, but they do like it. So did I until it stopped working for me. Why did it stop working for me? Because when you tell someone what to do, you own it. It is your idea. And if it is your idea, even if you aren’t the one implementing it, you might get the credit, but you will get the blame.
When I make suggestions as an executive or leadership coach, the mutual understanding is that if the client accepts my suggestion, then she must translate it into an idea that she can implement in her unique work environment.
Once my client has refined my suggestion, he owns it. By then he might no longer remember I suggested it, but I remember. And that, with my fee, is now good enough for me.
Today, consultants and coaches have a new competitor in the finger-pointing game. An artificial competitor, yes, but one who is soaking up the blame. For now.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“I once strutted as the hired smart consultant. Until I realized they hired me as the just-in-case fall guy.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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