Sunday, 8.30pm
Sheffield, U.K.
Wherever I was in the world, at the beginning of every consulting project, one thing was certain: I would know less about the business at hand than the people I was supposed to be advising. – Matthew Stewart
Next month I’m presenting at a conference and this current series of posts is me working out my talk.
I’ve spent three days thinking about the question, “So what is it you do exactly?”
This is the heart of it – what is my practice?
Let’s start at the beginning. I’m a consultant.
Some people get into consultancy because they join a big firm that trains them to be a consultant.
I became a consultant because I couldn’t get a job. I ended up creating a job for myself, finding out what tasks needed doing and then doing those tasks in exchange for money.
This tiny distinction between figuring out what to do and being told what to do is the difference between being a consultant and having a job.
But let’s focus on a specific aspect of my consulting practice. I invite people to a web conference, we talk, I share my screen and take handwritten notes with a lot of words and some pictures and it seems to help the group with figuring out what to do.
For the last few years my collaborators and I have been trying to figure out what exactly is going on. Is there some magic here? Is it different? And I think I have an answer, helped by the magic of television.
I recently saw a program on Disney Plus called “Reboot” which features a writer’s room. This is a room where all the writers go when they need to work on the story together and come up with a script. This activity seemed similar to the thing I do. I have a virtual room. I use the equivalent of a big whiteboard. We have a chat. I run the room. We don’t have a “workshop”, I don’t “facilitate”, but something happens in there – a collaborative exploration of a problem situation to get something done, like a shooting script or project.
Could this metaphor of a writing room explain what’s going on? I think we should find out. There are four things I think are relevant.
1. The room is where structuring work gets done
Writers come into the room to talk about the story, to pitch and build on ideas and agree what to work on. The idea is that the group mind is more powerful than the individual one, and when ideas are exposed to group discussion weaknesses will be seen and the group will build a consensus around strong ones.
The showrunner’s job is to run the room. That may be the role I take. The things that make a good room are:
- The sense that it’s a safe space to talk
- That it’s about valuing and getting excited about people’s ideas
- That the culture is good, contributions are about making things better and negativity is discouraged
- Criticism comes with a suggestion on how to fix the problem
The room (or virtual room) is the place where we work together to find ways to improve the situation.
2. There is a situation of concern
In a writer’s room everyone is working on a fictional situation. In a project room, everyone is working on a real situation. The trick is seeing the situation from the outside, seeing the participants as players rather than being stuck in the situation yourself.
The ability to step back and see the big picture what the room helps you do so that you can work out how to fix the fictional or real situation.
3. There is a whiteboard
It’s not enough to just sit around a table and talk. The ideas have to be captured and a whiteboard acts as external memory. Getting points on the board means that the group can concentrate on coming up with new ideas without worrying about losing the old ones.
My way of using a digital drawing tool like a whiteboard allows me to capture a lot of detail and the rhizomatic nature of the recording seems useful in remembering and connecting related ideas.
I am less convinced of the value of multiple inputs where everyone can add data at the same time because that seems like a way of working alone, together, rather than working together.
4. There is a product at the end of the process
The purpose of spending time in a writer’s room is to agree what to work on next and then get on with writing the script.
That’s the same thing that happens with my consulting room. Some consultants are all about producing a report or a recommendation but I’m interested in figuring out what to do next – discovering an opportunity or agreeing a project. It’s a practical, pragmatic approach – it’s about the work. It’s about the metaphorical pick and coal face. That’s where the real work is.
The specific aspect of my practice then is this virtual consulting room, where the purpose is to get people together and get them literally on the same page so that by the end we are ready to get on and do some work.
Cheers,
Karthik Suresh
Handcrafted insight 