The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion, 2nd Edition

Chapter 4Consultant, Flawed: A Story of Eternal Internal Triangles

Ken Murphy

This piece by Ken Murphy could have been placed anywhere in the book. It is a fictional account of a crisis in the life of an internal consultant. The nice thing about writing fiction is that you can tell the truth without having to soften it to protect the guilty. I am concerned that once Ken becomes a famous novelist, he will regret having written this piece out of simple generosity. You will find in the writing great insight into the humanity of our workplaces. I wish more of us had the courage and intelligence to describe the world as it really is.

The story is about being caught in the middle, which is everyone’s experience of work. No one is on top—ask any top manager how much power they have, and they will laugh at you. And no one is on the bottom—look at what workers can do when they decide to support or undermine the institution. We have an endless fascination with the plight of middle managers because we are all essentially in the same spot. The distinguishing feature of being caught in the middle is that there seems to be no way out, and we are left with several unattractive choices. At some point we come to realize that we are causing our own discomfort by attributing too much power to others. These people do, in reality, wield authentic power, and could cause us pain, but we tend to magnify the scope of their power, making it larger than life. Once we realize this, we look at them more ...