Two Crucial Lessons Every Consultant Must Learn First
 Good consultant is a leader. If not, why hire one anyway? I was reading Gerald M. Weinberg's book Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach  . This is good book that helps you build technical (and beyond) leadership skills. Good consultant paves the path to an optimal solution for the problem at hand. See? The ingredients are lead, problem, solution. | |
I have learned that if one of the ingredients lack, the consulting gig fails. My morale drops. My performance suffers, My brand gets hurt.
Although I like to learn lessons learned from hard knock school of real world, I wish I have learned these from Weinberg's book first. Learning these two could save me frustration and misery.
Lesson Number One
Weinberg writes:
"Lesson number one is this:
Wanting to help people may be a noble motive but that doesn't make it any easier."
My interpretation to this one is that if the problem not stated clearly you won't be able to solve it (help people). Everyone might be aware of some sort of the problem. Be alert - different people see the "problem" differently. Business annalists, operations folks, developers, end users/customer, stakeholders, who else. They all aware of the "problem". Your goal to formalize it and get them all (or key ones) buy into the definition of the problem. That is tough...
Lesson Number Two
Weinberg Writes:
"The second lesson to be learned is,
If people don't want your help, you'll never succeed in helping them, no matter how smart or wonderful you are."
To me this lesson is another part of Lesson One. If the problem is not clearly stated, if there is no owner of the problem you, the consultant, will be fixing minor stuff, with less impact if any. Not very shiny work to do.
Conclusion
Economy declines, tough times. I believe it only will boost the demand for high performing Consultants. Consultants that can help people fast, Consultants that lead to the solution of the problem at hand, Consultants that can identify that their help is wanted.
What're your crucial lessons you think every consultant must learn first?
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