The Four Laws of Consulting

Some readers might remember an earlier book review I wrote on "The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving & Getting Advice Successfully", which was originally written by Gerald M. Weinberg back in the mid-1980s. In that review, I called it "incredibly informative and entertaining", and I still consider it such. However, in revisiting The Four Laws of Consulting, I found the Third Law problematic, and mentioned so in my recent book review for "Million Dollar Consulting: The Professional's Guide to Growing a Practice" in my discussion of Weiss' answer to the following question: "Am I justified in turning down business from a firm whose practices are reprehensible to me?":

The answer that Weiss provides for this last question is especially
interesting. Of the guidelines that he provides, the author's first
guideline is to ask whether the activity improves the client's
condition or merely one's own. While this reviewer admires Gerald M.
Weinberg (see my reviews by this author), his Third Law of Consulting
sits in stark contrast with this philosophy, which states: "Never
forget they're paying you by the hour, not by the solution." No author
has all of the answers, but in the opinion of this reviewer, adding
this book to one's reading list along with works by Maister and
Weinberg can be an unbeatable combination.

Interestingly enough, I was rewarded by a reply from Jerry on Christmas Eve:

Erik, it seems as if you and I are on very much the same set of
wavelengths. You make we want to kick myself yet again for not
explaining the Third Law Better. It's too clever by far, but too
ambiguous by far in the opposite direction. Still, that's the way
Sherbie Gangwere wrote it originally. Sadly, he passed away just a
couple of months ago, so I can't work it over with him–but I'll
definitely take it up with his son, who is also a dear friend of mine.

In any case, thank you for pointing out the problem. It tells me how good a consultant you are.

After revisiting my copy of "Secrets", I replied to Jerry with the following remark:

Jerry, thanks for your comments, including your compliment. I revisited
your original text on this subject this morning and provide it here for
the benefit of readers: "The Third Law of Consulting could be
interpreted to mean that the consultant should milk the client for as
much hourly money as possible, but that's not what it's about. Many
good consultants have tried to get paid by the solution, but none to my
knowledge has ever succeeded. To succeed, you would first have to get
the client to admit that there was a problem, then that the problem was
big enough to justify paying you well for solving it. The Third Law of
Consulting actually reminds the consultant that if the clients had
wanted a solution, they would have paid for a solution. Deep down,
people want to be able to say to their management, 'Look, we realize
that there is a problem, and we are working on it. We have retained a
consultant.' Later, when the consultant leaves, the statement is
changed to, 'How could we be expected to solve the problem? We had a
high-priced consultant here for three months, and she couldn't solve
it. It obviously just can't be solved.'" I personally find your
follow-up discussion on The Credit Rule very enlightening, but it might
be difficult for readers to understand unless they have consulting
experience. "In short, managers may not be buying solutions, but alibis
to give their management. A corollary of The Third Law of Consulting is
The Credit Rule: You'll never accomplish anything if you care who gets
the credit." While the body of your discussion here is debatable, the
bottom line that you leave the reader at the end of this discussion
hits the bull's-eye: "When an effective consultant is present, the
client solves problems." In my experience, effective consulting is
always a team effort that involves the client and the consultant.
However, I think a discussion on the obvious is missing here: there are
many types of clients, and there are many types of problems.

My reply to Jerry was already getting a bit lengthy, so I decided to cut it short, but I think it is worth elaborating on my final comment. There really are many types of clients and many types of problems. While The Four Laws of Consulting might be true, in my experience the Third Law of Consulting is circumstantial. In some respects, the Four are akin to Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: while universal on the surface, vulnerabilities to the Three can be found.