Michael
Glad you did not resist
Making the assumption that consulting is relationship based makes
sense to me. It fits with some of my other experiences about how
you begin to work with organisations in the first place - they
have all been by reference from other consultants or people I have
met and built a relationship with.
So maybe the issue is in the lack of relationships between
consultants? If we could successfully network and build a
community perhaps we would have a clear understanding of who we
might collaborate with to build our collective competence?
I am struggling with the notion that working from a position of
righteousness to fix something which is wrong is likely to lead us
to work beyond our competence - I would imagine it could be just
as likely to make us want to ensure the best help available is put
to the task?
In many ways consulting is an isolated profession - in Oshry's
terms I would imagine we would be modelled as MIDDLES - thus we
are likely to lack integration, be individualistic etc.. I have
even heard stories of people within one company 'compete' for the
work. Does the capacity to work in such an individualiistic
correlate with high ego needs? I know it is something I often
have inner dialogues about - so 'needy' made sense. In some ways
more than greedy, so many of the consultants I know have a passion
for what they do which seems to override their material greed (ie
they do stuff for free etc..) but I still see them exhibiting the
same tendencies re this issue of agreeing to do work which might
better be done elsewhere or in collaboration with someone else.
So maybe in building our collaborative community we
develop individual and joint materials which can show what we
can't do as well as what we can??
I do think there is hope - more than anything the responses I have
had so far on the list and privately to this thread give me hope.
Thanks to everyone - I am in a much better place, I have learnt
things about myself and the issue. Once a few days have passed
and I am confident more gems are not coming I will synthesise my
learnings and post a note.
Julie Beedon
VISTA Consulting - for a better future
julie@vistabee.win-uk.net
--Julie Beedon <julie@vistabee.win-uk.net>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>