The frustrations of consulting… and the need to laugh

Thoughts on the frustrations of consulting to dysfunctional organisations and the need for humility and laughter
Johnnie Moore

Johnnie Moore

I’m Johnnie Moore, and I help people work better together

Robert Paterson’s Weblog: The Consultant’s Trial – Do your clients drive you mad? Does the world depress you? Roger Harrison’s View

Thanks Robert for picking up John Husband’s posting. Much of this resonated with me. For example

In the early nineties I was burned out and discouraged with the results of my long career as a consultant. I turned to my autobiography as some people turn to their journals in an attempt to work out the meanings in my life. The work was fueled by th paradox in which I found myself. I was at the peak of my powers as a consultant, but my passions and values were less and less shared by actual and potential clients, It was increasingly difficult to find work that felt worth doing, in the sense of promoting the three values mentioned on the first page of this paper.

I’m not sure what the height of my own powers is (or was) but I have become disillusioned with much of the work I used to do. I form the impression that a great many of my contemporaries share this disillusion and we each try different ways to resolve it. The author of this piece refers to the Monk’s choice and I know that I’m not really up for that degree of solitude; likewise, he emerges from this period of reflection to re-engage with the corporate world on new terms.

In all this, a decent degree of humility is called for. And I was delighted – on another tip from Robert’s blog – to discover Doug Manning’s blog – this bit in particular:

How is it that we get so serious about life? The answer is simple

Share Post

More Posts

February 2025 update

People have been facilitated before: boredom, stillness, recovering attention and the undercurrents of life

No comment

The value of not always saying something helpful

Beyond writing

Writing stuff down can easily remove us from practical reality and suppress our intuition

Inauthentic marketing: case study

An example of inauthentic direct mail, from Lincoln Financial Group. The elements that eat away at the credibility of the sender and the effect on this reader.

Values – ideal or real

I am blogging from my friend Thomas’s office in Essex. All around are those inspirational posters… eg “PERSISTENCE Now that we’ve exhausted all possibilities… let’s

The volatile chemistry of trust

Interesting research from Stanford suggests that exciting brands get more trusted after making mistakes and putting them right whilst more “sincere” brands start with more trust but lose it more easily. Perhaps the sensible interpretation is that second-guessing customers can be a waste of time!

Authenticity: you can’t fake it

Thanks (again) to John Porcaro for linking me to the Customer Evangelists’ blog where I found this: OLD SCHOOL: Ad agency pays teen bloggers to

In praise of um… er….. deeper meaning

Once again, it turns out that what we do naturally has more value than we realise; whereas clever contrivances intended to “improve” our effectiveness often just destroy significance… and make us less well understood! A good lesson for all those presentation trainers and “image consultants” out there!

More Updates

Emotional debt

Releasing the hidden costs of pent up frustrations

Aliveness

Finding the aliveness below the surface of stuck

Johnnie Moore

Moonlighting with Chris Corrigan

I’ve just finished a chat over Skype with Chris Corrigan. I wanted to pick his brains on a facilitation project I’m running. Chris was on his deck on Bowen Island

Johnnie Moore

Who’s in charge here?

I’m looking forward to Monday’s gig at NESTA Innovation and Networks of Influence. It seems to have sold out, which is pretty cool for something we organised at less than

Johnnie Moore

Action Storming

Action storming from Viv McWaters Viv and I have put up this little slideshare about Action Storming (or Problem Theatre as David Simoes-Brown christened it.) I wrote a post describing