Humble Consulting

SIXThe Humble Consulting Focus on Process

Probably the most important rule of thumb for keeping a constructive Level Two helping relationship alive is to avoid content seduction. The odds of the outside helper being able to come up with a workable helpful content suggestion is, in my view, extremely small. The important point is to not confuse empathy with content seduction. Empathy is understanding the client’s situation, and maybe even being sympathetic to it, but never forgetting for a minute that you are not in the client’s shoes and therefore cannot possibly figure out what to do that might work in his culture. On the other hand, once you have a sense of what the client is after, you and the client can explore adaptive moves together and, ...