Book Review: Secrets of Consulting

I'm of the opinion that pretty much everyone in the "knowledge economy" is a consultant.

What Secrets of Consulting does -pretty well-is boil down a lot of the truths about working with people (his first rule is, "no matter what, it's ALWAYS a people problem") into simple little proverbs (hey, like the one I just cited!)

Some others

• Clients always know how to solve their problems, and always tell the solution in the first five minutes
• Study for understanding, not for criticism
• Once you eliminate your number one problem, number 2 gets a promotion
• You'll never accomplish anything if you care who gets the credit

My feelings on this book were roller-coaster like. I started off very excited, then got fatigued with it in the middle, and pressed on, found some reward at the end.

If I had one criticism, it would be length and flow (ok, that's two). I felt like the points could have come across a bit more succintly and I just wish that the "story" had gripped me a bit more.

However, if listening skills and communication are areas of development for you (I know they are for me), this may be worth picking up.

Comments

• Anonymous
  November 14, 2007
  I'm of the opinion that pretty much everyone in the "knowledge economy" is a consultant

• Anonymous
  November 14, 2007
  Interesting...I haven't read this one.  I would agree with everything but "Clients always know how to solve their problems, and always tell the solution in the first five minutes."   I find that clients always have a VISION (or what they view as a solution), but that often they don't even know what the problem is.  They do generally elude to their vision within the first 5 minutes but stumble on how to articulate it.  It's important to work backwards and get to the root of the problem before setting out to build the solution.