One fundamental decision

I stumbled across a guideline a few years ago that changed my approach to consulting. It said:

My job as a consultant is to help my client make one fundamental decision they wouldn’t have made without me.

(I think it was a quote from Peter Drucker, but I can’t find the original source. Reply if you know where this comes from.)

Once I’ve done this, my work with that organization is done.

If both my client and I agree that I’ve done this, my work with that organization is a success.

(That doesn’t mean the work has to stop at only one fundamental decision. I could help a client make many fundamental decisions they wouldn’t have made without me. But if I haven’t helped them make at least one, I can’t say I’ve done my job.)

This applies to anyone (or any team) who consider themselves a strategic partner as opposed to a production partner. Stereotypically speaking, some get hired to think and others get hired to do. (And yes, there’s much fertile middle ground between the two.) Years ago, I decided I wouldn’t take on projects that required me to create someone else’s idea, as I always want to impact both strategy as well as execution.

In the past few years, I’ve started to share this idea explicitly with clients at two specific times in talking to them:

1. In the sales process when we’re deciding if working together is a mutually good fit
2. Again as a reminder on the first day of working together when we kick off the engagement

Most of my clients loved this framing. (The ones that don’t typically wouldn’t hire me.) But I can remember one client in particular that balked at this idea the first time I mentioned it. When I asked them why, they admitted that they wanted to hire me, not to help them with something that they wouldn’t do without me, but mostly to validate that what they were doing with their design system was on the right track. I hedged that they’d be paying a hefty sum for me to not do much other than give occasional thumbs ups; they wisely retorted that they saw my expertise and presence as an insurance policy, and people pay a lot of money for insurance with the hopes they don’t need to use it.

Generally, I don’t like taking this kind of work. I like making money as much as anyone, and even moreso if I don’t have to do much for it since I’m pretty lazy. In every engagement, however, I want to ensure that my client feels good about the money they’re spending on me, regardless of how much or little the amount is. No one I know likes spending money on insurance, especially if they don’t use it. It’s seen as a necessary evil, which is the opposite of how I want my clients to feel about working with me.

I also want to feel good about the work I’m doing. Sitting around giving thumbs up and down gestures when prompted makes me feel like Commodus from Gladiator?: an arrogant and spoiled egotist.

The antidote to that dynamic is to hunt for the fundamental decisions that change trajectory for better or worse. That work is worthy and valuable.

Even if you work in-house, you can still adopt a consultant’s approach. Instead of thinking of it as an engagement you’re hired for, change the framing. What’s one fundamental decision your team wouldn’t have made this week unless you were there? This month? This quarter? This framing keeps the focus on how you add value to the work and the team you’re on.

Otherwise, you’re staff augmentation.