I've been reminded lately of the old adage that we tend to resist the ideas that we need the most. It has to do with this whole notion of being a consultant - and what that means. If you find this post is a bit more on the side of personal than professional - I hope you'll forgive me because I think it straddles both aspects of life. Every so often the universe smacks me with a painful learning, and when this happens I like to share it with you - my readers - because I hope it will remind you that we are all human, and that includes random consultant chicks who like to blog about workplace dysfunction.
As most of you know, I worked in HR for about a decade before I started consulting. I both loved and hated it. One day I reached a point when I realized that I wasn't able to do the kinds of work I wanted to do as an HR person because many/most organizations like to keep HR people in tidy little boxes like "recruiting" and "employee relations" and they don't allow them much creativity or free reign. So I started consulting. And in consulting, I found my true calling.
What is one of the first things you learn as a consultant? Stay away from HR. "HR is powerless" the experts say. "HR is not the decision maker" others echo. "Deal only with the CEO" the advice continues, and stay far away from HR - because HR will be your undoing.
This advice - by the way - is why I tended to despise working with consultants when I was an HR manager. They'd smile patronizingly at me and then insist that unless they could immediately talk to the CEO (who usually didn't want anything to do with them) that they were wasting their time. When I did make an introduction, they cut me neatly out of the loop - trying to solve HR problems without any HR involvement. Oh how I despised them and their short-term consulting "solutions"!
So after over a year of marketing my consulting practice to directors, executives, and CEOs, I've come to a few realizations. Firstly, when a director comes to me and wants help, I often discover that they have ignored the strength that they already have in their HR department. Secondly, I've found that even when I am asked to - I find myself loathe to actually go in and jump over HR's head. It may make good business sense for a consultant - if you think about it in a short term way - but it doesn't feel sustainable to me. Why not partner with HR instead of acting like HR is either a competitor or too ignorant to know how to tie their own shoes? Both are wrong.
To my delight and surprise, I've found that my most rewarding consulting projects have been those when I've worked hand in hand with HR and management - as a true partner - not a "holier than thou" management guru. So it seems that the "conventional wisdom" espoused by the hordes of expert management consultants is not as universal as it seems. The point isn't that I don't want to work with upper leadership - I do. The point is that obeying convention over your own principles and interests is rarely a winning strategy. I've been spending most of my efforts in growing my practice by barking up the wrong tree.
So after a year of ignoring my gut (and my heart) I've come full circle again. I'm going to go against the "traditional consulting" advice and begin to market myself as what I am - a true complement to HR, not a competitor or a superior. Not only is HR the world I come from, it represents a group of professionals whom I highly respect and want to support. These are "my people" in the truest sense of the world. They represent a group that I want to work with, not work around.
So, as I'm reworking my marketing plan and services to appeal to an audience of HR professionals, I can't help but feel the comforting sense that I am coming home again. That I should have listened to myself in the beginning instead of listening to the conventional wisdom.
Am I on the right path? Time will tell. I'll keep you posted.
Good luck. For what it is worth, my best client in my practice came to me the same way. Someone tried to go over his head but I brought him into the loop.
The moral of the story is that we do far better as an organization when we take everyone's perspectives into account.
Looking forward to the next installment.
Posted by: Jo | January 21, 2008 at 05:46 AM