Reflections on Transparency and the Role of Relationship Building in Digital Consulting

I am heading out on a business trip this week and find myself reflecting a bit today about the nature of my role as a digital transformation strategist and the importance of my relationship-building skills in my (and to some degree my clients') job success. As a consultant, I get to work with different clients and stakeholders which gives me a broad perspective on various initiatives within a client's organization and more externally across industry trends. That is really cool, and unique when compared to many Fortune 500 Manager, Director, and even Executive roles - they just don't often get the time and bandwidth, let alone agency at times, to step back and look at the picture beyond their domains. But let's be real, my outside perspective is only valuable if I can connect with and build strong relationships with the internal leaders who would need to fund and support implementing the ideas developed from that outside perspective.

I've always valued relationships, but until I moved into more strategic consulting I didn't fully appreciate how crucial relationship building is in the process of developing and driving an optimal digital strategy for an organization. Without trust, my ideas and recommendations can easily be misunderstood or dismissed as self-serving. And I get it, building and maintaining relationships can be a challenge and take time, but it's worth it for the success of the digital transformations that I am passionate about.

For those that know my career history, you'll know I started in process engineering, UX, and service design. I have always wanted to make work a more enjoyable place for employees and to use cutting-edge technologies and innovation to enable business success - because when businesses are killing it they are fun to work at. I see digital transformation as the best way of driving those same foundational principles at scale, and I truly just want to see clients succeed and lives made easier.

To do this, and to push innovation, I have to start with some principles of persuasion. I say this transparently to take some of the punch out of the word. Though the word persuasion conjures imagery of flattery, bribes, and threats, those tools don't sit in my belt. Persuasion and manipulation are different beasts; persuasion involves more listening, empathizing, and clear articulation of value propositions than dirty tricks. My goal is to understand each stakeholder's unique goals, priorities, current fires, and constraints and tailor my approach, verbiage, and ideas to align with them and their mental models. It's about reducing the mental friction of processing and parsing "what's good about this idea for me." I want to assure my clients that my unique perspectives are considered (not "thrown-at-the-wall-to-see-what-sticks") and that I specifically am sharing this with them as I think they would benefit in considering the idea as well. I'm not here to manipulate or mislead anyone. I'm all about transparency and open communication throughout the process, making sure my clients feel heard and understood. And let's be clear, I'm not talking about being purely altruistic either. We both have jobs and objectives (for you, achieving enterprise goals, for me, selling projects and resources) - but often our objectives can align. That sort of open, trust-based collaboration comes from a track record of transparent communication, which often takes time to build.

I'm excited to continue working with my established clients (and establishing relationships with new ones) to help them drive their digital transformation forward, but I try to approach it with a sense of humility, knowing that without building and maintaining strong relationships, my ideas won't be fully understood or implemented. I know that regardless of the tenure of our work history, I constantly sit on that fine line between being perceived as "a snake oil salesman peddling wares to meet quotas" and "a guy with some good ideas that might be interesting to consider." And because relationship building takes time and hard work (see Brenee Brown's marble jar analogy), it's just not worth it to me to ever accidentally trip into the snake oil camp. Sometimes, it even ends up with me recommending clients prioritize projects that my team can't deliver on, or where incumbent competitors make our winning new work a pipe dream. But I believe that honestly supporting clients in their goals pays long-term dividends.

Anyway, that is enough public self-reflection - I have to get packed up and jump on a plane. Hopefully, I can continue representing myself in the above light on this trip, and that my stakeholders see and appreciate that. But no worries if they don't - over time, I'm sure they will :)