The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook & Companion, 2nd Edition

Chapter 9Flawless Goes to Parliament

Joe Maalouf

WHERE IT IS WORKING: PARLIAMENT

From the beginning, Joe Maalouf saw through the veil that the consulting skills ideas were about consulting. He has conducted workshops for Designed Learning for more than twenty-five years, yet his more profound gift is to take the ideas into the civic arena and trailways of the common good. Academic institutions, legislatures, the United Nations. He has affirmed in his being and his work that trust is at the center of whatever we are up to. I have never been called by the United Nations. Joe has.

What follows is how Joe brings the partnership ideas into each place he ventures. This opens possibilities for each of us to do the same. What is not explicit in all of our descriptions of the work is who we are as human beings. This is at the center of what Joe has to offer us. His integrity, commitment, and goodwill have produced the invitations he has received. That is the point for each of us and the people we serve. The work we do is to affirm those radical and enduring qualities in our clients regardless of the setting where we and they show up.

Over the last few years, especially since COVID, many clients are waking up to the fact that it’s time to be more flexible. Transformation is a big buzzword, and I’ve been privileged to work with a lot of clients along the same lines as Peter Block’s Flawless Consulting concepts taught by Designed Learning: empowerment, partnership, accountability, belonging, ...