Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
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Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#2You know, this is really important to learn. If someone wants to put a bean up their nose, you tell them that you don't think it's a good idea and explain why, but step out of their way. When they realize that their plan was an objectively bad idea, they're more willing to listen to you the next time around.
Sometimes people just don't appreciate that you're trying to help them, and need to learn from experience (myself included).
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#3This really is excellent advice. I've never quite phrased it this way, but the mental image is very funny and smart. I wonder what the approach would be to using this analogy with an actual client, manager, or team.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#4If somebody puts that on a t shirt ill buy it. Bonus points for a funny cartoon.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#5Dear Author:
Have you considered writing a humor column? I am sure it would be well received. That was a truly funny article.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#6sometimes big companies hire me to tell them what to do with their beans, then they are disappointed that i did not tell them to stick them up their noses.
in the next step they claim i missunderstood the question, the question was not really about "what to do with the beans", it was more about "how should we stick them up our noses in the best way"
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#7If somebody puts that on a t shirt ill buy it. Bonus points for a funny cartoon.
I can see a whole line of bean and nose t-shirts:
"It's simply a beans-and-noses situation" "Are you enjoying your nasal-based legume implantation experience?" "And so the bean starts its wayward journey"
PS.
Brilliant article - what a great way of putting things.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#8This person is assuming that people want his advice, or to tell them why they're wrong.
Very often people are intent on doing something that seems stupid to you, but smart to them. In that situation they really don't want to be told that they are wrong and the best thing you can do is stand nearby, ready to dial 911.
Sometimes the only "right" response is "I would not have thought of doing it that way. What can I do to help you make it go well?"
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#9Of course, if they answer they enjoyed it and it was wonderful, then they are not someone I can relate to or help in any way.
Or, of course, you might be about to learn something, since sticking beans up your nose is a metaphor you chose for something you think is so stupid you would never actually try it.
Re: Rule of Consulting: You can’t stop people from sticking beans up their nose
#10Gerald Weinberg's Secrets of Consulting is a masterful (yet whimsical) meditation on this subject. It's one of the few business books everybody should read, except it isn't really a business book, it's a people book. Much of the material is counterintuitive. It's kind of like Dale Carnegie for human irrationality.
The book begins with the premise that just because someone is paying you for advice doesn't mean they actually want your advice. It goes on to argue that successful consulting is not about fixing problems so much as navigating contradictions.
The other profession that deals intimately with contradictions between what people say, feel, and do is psychotherapy. I've often thought that consulting is therapy for businesses - a curious kind of therapy that by consensus is never explicitly discussed. Weinberg learned a lot from his excursions in the psychotherapy world, and this book is his best distillation of it.