Client: "I am in trouble, I don't understand what's happening and I need
advice".
Consultant: "OK, you pay me to advice you, tell me what your problem is"
Client: "The last couple of years I am in an almost continious state of
hyper ventilation when I observe the endless amount of books, papers and
articles that have appeared over the last years, focussing on an ever
growing amount of organizational and management issues. They have
fascinating titles like: In Search of Excellence, (Peters &
Waterman);Thriving on chaos,(T. Peters); Moral, Mazes, the World of
Corporate Managers, (R. Jackall); Towards a retro-Organization, (G.
Burell); Rhetoric and Myth in Management fashion (A. Kieser); The
Management guru as organizational witch doctor, (Clark & Salman);
Competing for the future, (Hamel & Prahalad) etc., etc. etc."
Consultant: "Hm; I don't see a problem, so what is your problem with
that?"
Client: "Well, I cann't keep up! why are they writing all these books? it
confuses me too much. I more or less read about the same things in just a
slightly different context and other vocabulary. Yet many of them claim to
be original and promise better control, while I think they are just
repeating eachother and things are getting more and more OUT of control!"
Consultant: "Why do you ask me?"
Client; "Aren't you supposed to have an answer? You're one of them!"
Consultant: "Well, you see, the world has become so complex that we need
all those books to keep on understanding what 's going on in
organizations."
Client: "Who made this world so complex and to what purpose?"
Consultant: "Good question! I guess WE did that to understand better what
we are actually doing for you, By doing so we keep on discovering new
information and concepts that has to be experimented with in your
organization. But of course, we also try to find an answer to the question
why all our efforts not too often have the promised effects." .......Hey!
Perhaps I should write a book about that?!".....Thank you, Mr. Client, you
helped me a lot.
Client: "Great! Don't forget to mention my name and our company in the book!"
End of consulting session, the client was billed for $ 500,-- but he will
get a signed copy of the new book.
Who's who, in this little parable? Who or what is being served here in this
little story that perhaps has happened to you?
I am worried about our profession as consultants.
Our clients ask a simple question we give them a complex answer. Why?
Is it our task as consultants to uncover problems, point out potential
crisises and present black scenario's management wasn't aware of, but
frighten them the moment we confront them with the facts? Is it our task to
offer our clients the latest models in consultancytrends as a solution for
the problems we made them believe they have?
Sometimes I have this feeling of being trapped in a conspiracy together
with my clients. I don't want to be in search of excellence, nor do my
clients. The both of us are in search of simplicity.
Clients and consultants joinly contribute in fullfilling some of Harrison's
Information paradoxes:
" The more information we get, the more we drown in it and the harder it
gets to take decisions."
and:
"We have an increasing amount of sofisticated organizationaltools at our
disposal, but the fluctuations around us only get bigger"
Aren't we ourselves causing this growing informationhunger by collecting
more and more information in books? Aren't we ourselves causing these
fluctuations by constantly creating new conceptual frameworks? What is it
that we are so afraid of to forget, that we have to write it down in books
and zillions of Gigabytes? It seems to me it has to do with a kind of
continiously loss of memory. Perhaps we still haven't come at the inside
of learning, or have we come way beyond it?
Another statement:
I think I understand why we keep on doing things of which we could be
aware that they don't work!
George Santayana has imo the best answer for this moment in one simple
sentence: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
But to remember, don't one have to forget first?
Couldn't we as consultants have this wonderfull task to protect ourselves
and organizations for too much learning and this silly hang for always new
management-concepts?
In my opinion that is only possible if we - to begin with - stop producing
the latest fashion in management and start focussing on simplicty. A nice
next step would be to stop giving answers to managers. Instead: learn the
manager the art of questioning. The past has learned that consultants too
often didn't hear the organization's real question: How can you and me
keep it simple?.
I have some questions to the list:
Can simplicity be learned?
Who and what do we serve by making the world so complex?
Whom of you feels offended by the above stated? Tell me/us why!
Show me/us where I am wrong or right.
Just reflect!
Share anecdotes!
Here's a joke a manager told me the other day during a seminar on Crisis &
Renewal:
McKinsey knocks on the door to Heaven. Peter opens up and says: "Oh no! YOU
are not getting in here!"
McKinsey's answer is brief: " I don't want to get in, I am here to send
600 away!"
Where ever you are: Have a nice day, or night!
Winfried Deijmann
--Winfried M. Deijmann - Deijmann & Partners - Zutphen - The Netherlands Artists, Consultants and Facilitators for Organizational Learning and Action Learning Events <Winfried@universal.nl> Phone: +31-(0)575-522076 Fax:+31 (0)575-527310
"An educated mind is useless without a focussed will and dangerous without a loving heart" (unknown source)
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>