Kent Meyers writes:
>Should a consultant use as a criterion of success that he become
>dispensible, or become indispensible?
She should become "dispensible," in my opinion. As a matter of course,
I've always worked to eliminate the need for me, so to speak. As an
internal consultant, my approach was to disseminate what information I had
that the client didn't, then let go and let grow. (I've shared my analogy
here before; ensuring the soil has been prepared, till the field, plant
the seeds...but the tending and harvesting and crop rotation must become
the tasks of the organization's members. This compliments the philosophy
of "teaching them to fish" rather than giving them the food.)
As a personal development coach, my approach is to help the client
discover their own expertise and again, let go and let grow. Now my
clients prepare the soil, till the field, and determine what seeds to
plant. My continuing relationship might be characterized as "weeding" the
garden periodically, but even that can be dispensed with if the
conditioning was done well.
Even as a parent, my objective is to give my children the tools to work
with so they create their own futures. Indispensible spiritually?
Maybe...
As ever,
--Ginger Shafer The Leadership Dimension "Bringing leadership to life!" (c) vshafer@azstarnet.com Visit my homepage for the latest AOIA activities: http://www.goodnet.com/~jawz/AOIA
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>