A heart in mouth moment

When people used to ask me what I do for a living, I'd always respond: “I’m a consultant… and I wish I didn’t need to follow that with the word ‘but’”. The line usually raised half a smile.

I've long since stopped doing that - and not just because it was a pretty pallid attempt at humour. Instead, I decided to define what it means to be a great consultant in my own terms. Over the years I have managed to develop a practice that reflects who I am, the ethics and values that matter to me, and what I'm able to offer as a human being. As a result, I no longer feel the need to reference the rest of my industry. I leave them to it.

The type of consultancy I practice is:

• Caring as well as challenging
• Reparative as well as revolutionary
• Creative as well as commercial
• Feeling as well as thinking
• Inside out as well as outside in
• Concerned about doing with not doing to
• In service of brilliance not perfection
• And, most importantly: heart as well as head.

What this work has helped clients to achieve – in Corporate Punk as well as my advisory practice – is testament to the value of adopting a 'humanity-first, humanity-always' approach.

I’ve seen breakthroughs that I never would have thought were possible – breakthroughs that saved jobs, empowered teams, and even turned around entire businesses – in circumstances where it looked like the chips really were down. I've seen people achieve things that have blown their own minds, never mind mine.

In the end, it’s the clients who are responsible for the results. Their achievements are theirs to own. The consultant’s role is to enable. The focus of the work should be to help others lift their spirits, thinking and action to a level at which meaningful breakthroughs become possible. This is what I get out of bed – with my drive, my ambitions and my imperfections – to do every day.

So, when I say I’m a consultant, there’s no need for a “but”. Consultancy, for me, is a beautiful vocation – and I bet you don’t hear that very often, do you?! But, when it comes from a place that is heart-centred and grounded in a deep desire to lift up those you serve, it can be precisely that. Each engagement offers a chance to change things for the better and do some good in the world.

A few months ago I set out to capture this ethos on my advisory website. I wondered if it might be possible to communicate through the 2D medium of electronic pixels the kinetic, warm, human atmosphere of the work that I do. To articulate a truly human-first form of consultancy in a way that is no surface, all feeling.

The lovely thing was that the design and copy didn’t come from me. It flowed from the clients themselves: a group of remarkable CEOs and senior leaders who kindly shared their experience of the work we did together. When I finally plucked up the courage to ask them to spare the time, I was taken aback that no-one said ‘no’. And each of them described how the experience had helped them to navigate through difficult circumstances to a better future. I’m honoured to have made a contribution to their working lives, and grateful to them all.

I’m also grateful to Toby Ingram and the team at Scarlett for their exceptional partnership throughout the difficult process of transforming client insight into a coherent creative expression. It takes guts to abandon industry norms. Thank you for a collaborative experience that made that possible.

It doesn’t matter if this site fails to resonate with a lot of the ‘business community’ – or, for that matter, the consulting industry. I have faith that the right people will understand. To steal a belief from Corporate Punk, sometimes all you need to reach the audience you seek is three chords and the truth.

This website expresses the naked truth of who I am, flaws and all, and the work that I do.

It’s pretty radical (for consultancy at least).

It’s pretty beautiful.

And it’s pretty scary to let it go out into the world. But that’s the consequence, I think, of putting your heart into your work.

philhq.com