07.30.10
Pickled!
I don’t think I’ll end up writing a third “Agile Blindspots” post… there was something that I was feeling very passionate about back in February but, for better or worse, this time I simply waited for the feeling to pass.
It has been a busy year. I knew that new ventures are all-consuming, but knowing it and living it are two very different things. I’m closing in on a full year as an independent consultant, the last six months of which have been with one client. Things have been going great and the client is looking for ways to extend the contract; possibly through the end of the year.
That’s a long time to spend in the same environment, and this comes with a significant danger. In Weinberg’s book, The Secrets of Consulting (you can find the book online, but you’ll probably have to buy it used), he refers to this as “Prescott’s Pickle Principle”:
Cucumbers get more pickled than brine gets cucumbered… A small system that tries to change a big system through long and continued contact is more likely to be changed itself.
I experienced this first-hand in a recent conversation with a friend and colleague who just started working with the same client a little over a month ago. I had just had a closed-door meeting with a member of upper management in which they laid out their plan to address several challenges in their organization. I didn’t completely agree with the plan, but I have worked with this group long enough to know when the decision is final so, except for a few clarifying questions, I accepted the news with very little feedback. As I explained to my friend how this might impact him, his response was “this is the wrong solution. It’s going to cause more problems than it solves!”
My initial thought was “technically he’s right, but he doesn’t have enough experience with this client to know when to accept the inevitable.” And that’s when it hit me: I’ve been pickled.
My job as a consultant is to be a change agent. “Long and continued contact” with a client diminishes my ability to fulfill that role. That is why Weinberg gives the following advice:
To avoid getting pickled, a consultant must not spend too much time with one client. If you can’t avoid this, at least break up the time by working with other clients, even for free… It’s hard to be effective, though, if you’re always switching jobs or clients. Change generally takes both time and continued contact, or at least one of the two. The challenge, then, is how to get the client in long, continued contact with some kind of brine, without the consultant even being present.
The challenge indeed! There is a natural tension: time and continued contact erode a consultant’s ability to affect change, yet affecting change takes time and continued contact. I think there are ways to counteract this and I hope my efforts to do so in my current situation will prove effective. But it is also important to recognize the warning signs and to act in the interest of both your client and yourself.
What are some ways you’ve found to keep your clients “in continued contact with some kind of brine without even being present?”
George Dinwiddie said,
July 31, 2010 at 10:22 am
The only solution I know to keeping clients “in continued contact with some kind of brine without even being present” is to reach a point where they’re their own change agent. This is, of course, easier said than done.
I know of no way to do this with an organization. I can do it with individual people, though. Not every person, of course, and each person is different. But change happens one person at a time.