4 more Laws Consultants should know how to deal with
Consulting is messy. Another 4 timeless laws help you spot patterns early, manage the chaos, and steer complex work toward outcomes that actually stick.
The last one of these was a very popular post....so here are 4 more “laws”, how they show up in consulting, how to stop them in their tracks and how to break them. Take them with a small grain of salt, a smile, and what I see as the take-home for consultants.
Keep brewing the good stuff
If you’ve ever felt the pressure, doubted your value, or wondered if you’re an impostor in your own career, pull up a chair and stay awhile.
Occam’s Razor — William of Ockham
The simplest explanation is usually right.
Consulting translation
- The client wants more reporting. The simplest explanation is that they do not trust the current reporting.
- Stakeholders aren’t resistant. They’re confused.
- The process isn’t broken. Its just that no one owns one of the steps.
- The deliverable keeps getting rewritten. The simplest explanation is that success criteria were never agreed.
How to "break" this law
- Ask: “What’s the boring explanation?”
- Test the dumb/simplest hypothesis early
- Check incentives before assuming culture is to blame
- Ask what changed recently before building a grant hypothesis
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ConsultantCafe Take-home
Keep your hypotheses simple and test them fast.
Keep your hypotheses simple and test them fast.
Hanlon’s Razor — Robert J. Hanlon (attributed)
Don’t assume malice when confusion explains it.
