We just completed our second delivery of BossaNova’s Advanced Facilitation Skills for Consultants program. We saw once again that a consultant’s biggest fear when it comes to facilitating client events is, hands-down, dealing with difficult group dynamics – you know, managing the client who’s overly talkative, highly argumentative, prone to ramble, stubbornly skeptical, and the like.
We were recently asked to create a Consulting 101 for a group of IT executives at a very big company. In today’s blog, we share the eleven “Rules to Consult By”, a distilled list that represents what the best of the best in consulting practice on a regular basis. Here we’ve turned it into a short self-assessment. See how you do! Be honest.
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.