During the Free-Con before the PASS Summit last year I learned about the book Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully. I am not a professional consultant but I do some “odd jobs” from time to time for others. But the subtitle for the book is “A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully”, which is good stuff for anyone, consultant or not. I ordered the book a while back but only just got around to cracking it open. It was an easy read and I managed to get through it in about a week by squeezing in some reading time throughout my day.
The author does a wonderful job of interspersing his personal anecdotal stories along with his proprietary “laws” and “rules”. An example of such would be as follows:
The Rule of Three: If you can’t think of three things that might go wrong with your plans, then there’s something wrong with your thinking.
The Titanic Effect: The thought that disaster is impossible often leads to an unthinkable disaster.
The Hard Law: If you can’t accept failure, you’ll never succeed as a consultant.
As you read the book you start to get a sense that the author would have been successful in whatever path in life he would have chosen. Some people are like that, they have a way of observation and communication that puts them in position to be knowledgeable and capable of handling a variety of situations. (For another, go read The Genius: How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty
I had more than a handful of favorite stories from the book. I especially liked the Orange Juice test (p32), which really hit home to me. Whenever I am presented with a problem I usually think of 5-6 reasons why it cannot be solved. With the Orange Juice test you understand that most problems can be solved, especially if you have money. As a consultant your role is not to tell your client that something cannot be done, rather it is to tell them “…I can help you, and this is what it will cost”. At the point it is up to the client to decide if the price matches the value.
The last thing I will leave you with is a quick story found on page 65:
An optimist and a pessimist are arguing about philosophy. The optimist declares “This is the best of all possible worlds.” The pessimist sighs and says, “You’re right.”
I’ve added this book to my library, it is in the Professional Development shelf.
Thanks for the recommendation. Sounds like a book I will pick up and read.
Another book you might be interested in is “Getting Naked: A Business Fable about shedding the three fears that sabotage client loyalty’ by Patrick Lencioni. It is also a quick read.