Consultants Avoid Risk Collusion

Consultants Avoid Risk Collusion from Blumer CPAs on Vimeo.

Transcript:

Julie and I just got through doing some consulting with a client. We’re going to do more consulting soon here, and any consulting is inherently embedded in the risks we’re willing to take. Basically what that means is consulting typically ends up being change. Change has got to happen and that’s why people come to us because change has got to happen. When change has to happen, typically how much risk we’re willing to bear is embedded in the decisions of change. It gets pretty uncomfortable. Sometimes you get to a stopping point when you’re going, all right, we realize how big this change is. It gets overwhelming. Sometimes you stop and you start staring out the window and you get stuck. That happens in consulting sessions.

What everybody’s facing is, oh my gosh, I see the change. This risk is going to be huge. You realize what that risk is. You know what happens after that? A lot of times people start to minimize risk. Basically that’s collusion between the client and the consultant, which is basically everybody trying to minimize risk. The client wants to minimize risk and we try to help them minimize that risk, too. That’s actually risk collusion because change takes risk and you have to embrace it.

What we want clients to do is see us as the help to provide the solution to that risk. It’s not to solve it or to take it away, but basically our goal is not to collude and minimize it because that’s actually not what’s going to produce the change. What we’re trying to do is actually help people through the risk of change. It is a real risk and the change is necessary. That’s going to get people what they want.

What we want as consultants to help the client have face is their freedom to choose walking into the risk, eyes wide open. That’s what we want to help people do, not reduce the risk. When a client and a consultant start to reduce the risk together, that’s basically collusion in trying to avoid the real change. That doesn’t get to solutions. That’s what we do as consultants. We help face the risk that change inherently brings. We face it head on and we deal with it. What we get is true change. We get people that do change, organizations that change.

Now it takes about a year to go through that kind of process and then a few years after that to have that change embedded in an organization. But that’s what we do as consultants and it’s pretty eyeopening, but it’s heavy stuff, and this is the stuff we love to do.

I just wanted to throw my thoughts about change has always inherently got risk embedded in it. Our goal is not to minimize it. In that change is to face it head on and deal with it. I hope that helps. As you think about changing your organization. We’ll see you.