"So, what kind of consulting do you do?"

I’m not sure how to answer this question. And I get if very often, so I should get some standard answer ready.

Now, I know you may expect me to answer with a clever and unique one-liner. Or that I start rattling off the industries I work for, and do some impressive name-dropping. Perhaps you hope I will start listing all kinds of projects and topics I have ever worked on and we can then see if one of them matches yours.

I can do all of that.

But I typically don’t.

You see, I have found that true, impactful consulting is not about delivering a service, building an answer, mass-manufacturing the slides.

True, impactful consulting is about finding out the real issue behind the question. The true opportunity that may have been hidden until the questions of the consultant came. That’s the start.

It’s about building a deeper understanding of what’s involved and what matters. Constructing new points of view, new ways of thinking about an issue. Not in isolation, not by importing some cookie-cutter consultants, but by integrating the consultants’ outside view with the internal power of your own people.

And that’s what the magic is. Everything that follows, is rooted in that initial work and that connection between inside and outside people.

I don’t believe in consulting that talks about synergies.

I don’t believe in consulting that only caters to the C-suite.

I don’t believe in consulting that is interim management in disguise.

I don’t believe in consulting that is only about the facts and figures.

I don’t believe in consulting that leaves only a glossy set of slides and some vague words behind.

I don’t believe in consultants who enter a room, ignoring all present, and go straight for the highest-ranked client person.

I don’t believe in consultants who have worked in one job or industry their whole life and now go around copying what they see as best practices to any and all takers.

Because that is a kind of consulting that is disrespectful. Detached from reality. Disconnected from the people who will have to suffer the consequences.

This kind of consulting is an illusion. This kind of consulting pretends that there is an ideal solution that later will be taught in case studies at business schools as if the consultants knew all along what the right answer was (u-huh, right).

I know there is another way.

I know we can work with the people.

I know participative consulting works.

I know working with the people in and of the organization works.

I know presenting analysis, a diagnosis, scenarios, co-created with the people in the organization, works.

I know helping the people in leadership positions connect with the organization works.

I know helping the people to build their plan and implementation process together works.

I know that a team is not designed, not created, but grown and nurtured.

I know leadership is not a function but a responsibility anyone can take at the right time for the right reasons.

I know that psychological safety is not a construct we set and forget.

I know strategy is not a document. It’s a living and breathing conversation that guides each decision any and every employee takes. It helps everyone to understand what to say ‘yes’ to, and how to put that into practice.

So that’s why I believe in participative strategic consulting with a coaching attitude. If you do too, then please connect with me.