Consulting and the art of self-deprecation

by | Nov 29, 2007 | Consulting

Today’s blog brings humor to your desktop (or PDA), along with some perspective on what consultants can learn from comedians.

According to Wikipedia.com, comedians use self-deprecating humor “to avoid seeming arrogant or pompous and to help the audience identify with them.” Sounds like a good strategy for anyone looking to build trust and rapport with another human being. Sounds like an especially good strategy for anyone in the consulting profession. Ask any client who has worked with consultants over the years – they’ll have at least a few horror stories to tell about the Big Important Expert they hired. That creates messes we are all left to clean up.

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Truth, lies, and unicorns revisited: how to speak honestly in business

by | Nov 20, 2007 | Client relationships, Trusted advisorship

This is our last post (for now) on the subject of lying in professional services (click here to read our first blog posting on the topic). Today’s blog offers a socially acceptable way to put hard truths on the table. It’s called “Name It and Claim It” and it starts with a caveat and ends with telling it like it is.

Caveats are forewarnings that compensate for what we are about to say. An example might be, “I wish I had better news …” Acknowledging the sometimes harsh truths that follow, we rob them of their power.

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Truth, lies, and unicorns revisited: why all business advisors lie

by | Nov 15, 2007 | Trusted advisorship

Continuing our conversation on the pervasiveness of lying in professional services (click here to read our first blog posting on the topic), today’s blog explores why business advisors, when weighing the two options of telling the truth and telling a lie, often choose to lie. Yes, that’s correct, we lie even in cases where an objective analysis would suggest that truth-telling would benefit us more.

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Truth, lies, and unicorns revisited: the pervasiveness of lying in professional services

by | Nov 6, 2007 | Client relationships, Trusted advisorship

I am continually struck by how often I confront my own tendency to lie with clients. Yes, I said lie. Think you’re squeaky clean? Hmmmm … I’m not so sure. Try out our five-point checklist to gauge the depth of your own trustworthiness.

In the article that Charles H. Green and I co-authored in early 2007, we asserted that business advisors (or for that matter, people) who don’t lie are like unicorns: not inconceivable, but pretty unlikely. I am no exception. I bet the same is true for you.

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Consulting made funny?

by | Nov 1, 2007 | Consulting, Improvisation

“Think improv comedy is just for laughs? Think again. It’s fertile training ground for dealing with the unexpected – you know, like in a sales conversation, when a client asks a zinger that you never saw coming. I discovered the magic of improv comedy a few years ago when I decided it was time to learn how to get past the “frozen-ness” I felt when something like that happened to me.

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