The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion, 2nd Edition

Chapter 3Risk Is Where You Find It

Peter Block

Every conversation about change comes to a point where eyes close a little, jaws tighten, and the client and consultant find themselves looking out the window or at the screen in silence. It is a silence of discomfort. The feeling is similar to standing on a cliff or on the end of a diving board. These are moments where the risks inherent in any new possibility are starting to sink in. We are never fully prepared for these moments.

We think we are prepared, but we are not. What we had prepared for was to be right, accurate, insightful, and on target. We had hoped it would be enough to be right and this is the ground we hoped to stand on. If all we got from the client was disagreement, we would be fine. We are ready for disagreement. We have rehearsed arguments in our head, thought of ways to better overcome objections. This is the rational world, and we know how to win.

Interestingly, and with some disappointment, the wave of disagreement never comes. There are questions, confusion, other viewpoints, but most of the time, not real disagreements.

As a result, rehearsing the rightness of our position is preparing for a storm that never arrives. The rough weather does come, but it comes not in the form of disagreement. It arrives instead with the declaration that what we propose entails a risk people may not be willing to take. The question of risk is the overriding preoccupation in discussions about change.

NO PAIN, NO PAIN

The ...