Consultants & Coaches: Don\’t Let Your Clients Deskill You!

Do you remember that brave guy who jumped into the icy Potomac River to save some of the passengers from a plane that slid off the runway into the drink?

Without doubt, he was a hero, hurling himself into harms way as he did.

But the greatest threat he faced wasnt the frigid water or the potential of the damaged jet to explode. It came from the very people he was endeavoring to save.

As is the unfortunate case so often, drowning people inadvertently drown their would-be saviors, because theyre panicking. So, we end up with a tragedy on top of a tragedy.

A similar, though less dramatic phenomenon occurs in consulting and coaching.

I teach the Building Your Consulting & Coaching Business class at UCLA Extension, and this is one of the odd but frequently occurring scenarios we discuss.

People hire advisors because theyre seeking dramatic change, and often they need a significant lift simply to survive in business or in their personal lives. Desperate, they reach out for help with one hand while trying to submerge their rescuers with the other.

One of the ways they do it is by DESKILLING consultants with their fears and doubts.

I was in the middle of an extensive program with a large financial company in the Midwest, and given the sorry state of its customer service unit my results were nothing less than phenomenal.

Specifically, my seminar ratings were incredibly high, especially in light of the fact that I was training overtly hostile people. They entered sessions with fears and concerns and deep misgivings, and left at least being open to, if not embracing the changes I was ushering in.

Their Director of Training couldnt believe I was doing so well with folks she couldnt handle, so at a meeting she said point blank:

We dont understand how your seminar scores can be so high.

Effectively, she was implying that I was cheating somehow or that something was askew.

Her idea was to station observers in the sessions, which of course, would be very chilling to the learning process.

What could one say, Im a pro, and I know exactly how to get results from hostile trainees and you dont, and thats why my scores are high and yours are low?

Her comments were aimed at deskilling me. There was no winning in this situation.

If I continued to score well, she looked bad; and if I scored poorly, I did.

It was a perfect bind.

Sometimes consultants are brought in precisely to fail, so managers can say after the program sinks: See, even a pro couldnt fix things, so dont blame us!

What they dont say is how they undermined the program from the outset, whispering to associates, Get what you can from him and blow-off the rest.

In other words, dont take him seriously.

But what happens when they do?

Youre succeeding with your content and methods, but youre failing to win the hearts and minds of management, the ones who will pay or stiff you, and either recommend you to the next client or be mysteriously silent when you ask them for a testimonial.

When you sense your clients are deliberately or unintentionally deskilling you, tell them in clear terms.

If they wont reform on the spot, withdrawing from the assignment may be the best way to save your integrity.

Best-selling author of 12 books and more than 1,000 articles, Dr. Gary S. Goodman is considered \"The Gold Standard\" in negotiation, sales development, customer service, and telephone effectiveness. Top-rated as a speaker, seminar leader, and consultant, his clients extend across the globe and the organizational spectrum, from the Fortune 1000 to small businesses. He can be reached at: gary@customersatisfaction.com.

Corporate Coach Hire - A Guide To Choosing A Company For Executive Travel
Among business it is becoming more necessary to transport staff and clients between points of business for meetings and exhibitions. Today we are loo...

Business Contacts - Find the User/Influencers
Business contacts are the people you have in your network. These people are all important to your growing business. You need to build and develop re...

More Members Now Are You Making These 5 Fatal Mistakes?
Business owners slowly kill their own business by making small fatal flaws. They don't mean to do it. In fact, it was all in the process of trying to ...

Use It or Lose It
After we leave school and complete our degrees most people do little to no additional formal learning. However, for many of us, our jobs require us t...

Should Consultants Cross The Line from Giving Advice To Taking Direct Action
Many times over the last two decades I have grumbled under my breath in the presence of clients:Move over! Let me do it for you!But Ive stopped myself...

Networking Etiquette: 3 Ways to Ditch a Boring Person At a Networking Event Without Being Rude
Youve encountered this individual at every networking event Boring Bob the most belligerently boring person in the world. His dull demeanour is enou...

The Elevator Speech That You Whisper
There are people who believe that a great elevator speech needs to be delivered with enthusiasm. They would like everybody on the elevator to hear it ...

To BNI or Not to BNI?
You probably know by now that the more people who know about you and your coaching practice the greater chance you have of attracting clients. However...

Selling Business Change Services - Selling And Delivery Are The Same
Organisations providing IT or business-change services often see the sales process as very separate from the consulting process. Such a hard distincti...

Simple Steps to Effective Coaching
PotentialHow do you view the potential of people at work? If we think about McGregor's X and Y theory you might consider yourself to be a Theory X per...

How Change Mismanagement Created An Industry
Organizations do not change naturally as their business changes. The business changes while the organization remains static, building pressure for org...

Consultants And Getting The Most Value Added - When and How to Use Consultants Cost Effectively
As a CEO I struggled long and hard over any decision to use a consultant. There are many issues that need to be managed by the client to keep a consul...

Mary Kay Ash Did It Best… (The Networking Factor)
"The Networking Factor, Everyone is important!" This slogan reminds me of another personal credo by one of the country's greatest motivators... Zig Zi...

4 Keys To Advance In Search Engine Traffic
Finding the best search engine traffic has become a science to some people, and as a result much more sophisticated means of reaching clients is possi...

Entertaining Clients And Customers To Perform Market Research
You do not need to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to hire an advertising or marketing firm to do your market research for a new product launch...