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1-Page Summary of Humble Consulting
Hilfsbereitschaft, Neugier und Fürsorge
There are many ways to help companies solve problems, improve their processes and increase their success. Globalization and digitalization have made the world more complex, leading to chaotic situations. This is due to the fact that cooperating technical areas have become independent and developed unique cultures. In addition, there are increasing numbers of nationalities within a company working together on common goals. Therefore it becomes increasingly difficult for people from different cultural backgrounds to build trust with one another in order to work together effectively. Furthermore, there’s little time for real interaction between employees because of how quickly business changes today. To be able to provide good advice in this chaos, we need a new approach. One such approach is Humble Consulting (HC), which means unbiased consulting
The focus of the HC is on three points: you must want to help your customer; you must have genuine curiosity about them; and you have to ask helpful questions that will reveal what’s really going on. It’s important for consultants that they adopt a humble attitude when using the HC method in their consulting process—humble with regard to the client’s problem, as well as humble regarding the difficulties involved in adjusting. Also, it calls for giving up professional distance and building a personal relationship with the client. Only then can you truly help them find their way through an adjustment process that they’ll need to take by themselves but only if there’s trust between both parties.
Über Beziehungen
Our lives are all about relationships. These relationships can take on many forms, but they all need to have a certain symmetry in order for them to function well. In essence, the success of any relationship depends on how it’s built through interactions between the people involved. Relationships can be categorized into four stages:
__Level-Minus Relationships: __This is a relationship that’s characterized by negativity and hostility.
__Level-1 Relationships: __This is the every day, respectful and polite way of interacting with each other. Such relationships are essentially transactional and impersonal. * __Level-2 Relationships: __Here you acknowledge the other individual as a person. This relationship is more superficial but already marked by commitment and basic trust. Level 2 isn’t really personal yet, but can be improved through appropriate behavior and serves as a foundation for HCs (Highly Creditable).
Level 3 relationships are intimate and close friendships.
When it comes to the HC, we can say that customer and consultant often meet at a Level 1. The problem is that a transactional relationship quickly arises: the customer doesn’t open up completely, and the consultant gives an oversimplified diagnosis. Thus, of course there cannot be any real positive change because the underlying worries haven’t been uncovered. Therefore, in order for there to be an effective HC, you need a very good Level 2 relationship. You respect each other but question things on a personal level which bring out what’s really troubling your client and allow you to help them properly. For this you need complete openness; however don’t confuse this with intimate trust within a Level 3 relationship. It is not desired or allowed for consultants to get too close to their customers in such a way as they would have in such relationships before (i.e., when they were still friends).
A case study: A company hired the author to understand why things weren’t working and what needed to change. They interviewed engineers, but didn’t talk with management beforehand about how they saw the situation. The diagnoses and recommendations made by the consultants failed because of this lack of information—they neglected a key stakeholder in their process.
