Subtraction and consulting skills

Less is more.

Flour. Water. Salt. Those are the only ingredients you need to make tasty Sourdough bread. Supermarket bread has five times the number of ingredients, yet tastes like cardboard.

I've previously suggested three capabilities are key to great consulting - questioning, listening, influencing. Perhaps they're also the recipe for tasty client relationships, not transactional cardboard ones.

Now, a question.

Can subtraction improve consulting?

Lots of things creep into our practice ... that lessen our impact.

Just notice what you're doing instead of questioning, listening, influencing.

Subtraction is the removal of those things ... the 'stuff' that results in irrelevant noise and unhelpful thinking.

A mini-misson for you.

Subtract some of the 'stuff' that's not added value from questioning, listening, influencing.

Replace that 'stuff' with great questions.

That sounds easy. It isn't.

Each question must have clients stop and think. The needs, insights and value it uncovers should surprise you ... and them.

Here are three real-life examples from my practice:

• What will you do if things don’t get better?
• Who are you ignoring when talking about this change?
• What happens if you get the outcome in half the time?

Challenge yourself to ask similar things. You're curious about your impact. Otherwise ... why are you reading this? Let me know how you get on.