Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used

This is an amazing book! Peter Block's Flawless Consulting, is a textbook appropriate not only for consultants but for anyone that wants to share their expertise with others. Block explains, "You are consulting any time you are trying to change or improve a situation but have no direct control over the implementation." About his audacious title, he asserts that it is possible for us to operate without error. To consult flawlessly "requires intense concentration on two process. (1)Being as authentic as you can be at all times with the client; (2)Attending directly, in words and actions, to the business of each stage of the consulting process." Having set the bar extremely high, Block doesn't leave the reader trying to figure out what "being authentic" and "attending to the business of each stage" means. Flawless Consulting is an extremely practical book. Flawless Consulting is replete with checklists, case scenarios, suggested wording (sometimes entire scripts), business recommendations, and practical insights. The book is saturated with Block's wonderful sense of humor and humanity. Unlike some second editions that are content to simply add a new preface and some cosmetic changes to the dust jacket, Block has updated information throughout the book and added entirely new chapters on: Whole-System Discovery, Implementation, Strategies for Engagement, Ethics and the Shadow Side of Consulting, The Heart of the Matter. Though not a consultant in the formal sense, I found his insights delightfully applicable to my day-to-day work. So much so that I nearly underlined every line in the book and made notes in the margins! Despite all the great information I gleaned, I think people more formally involved in consulting will get even more from Flawless Consulting. I highly recommend this book for anyone who interested in Getting Your Expertise Used.In addition to the two prefaces, the chapters are:Chapter 1 A Consultant by Any Other NameChapter 2 Techniques Are Not EnoughChapter 3 Flawless ConsultingChapter 4 Contracting OverviewChapter 5 The Contracting MeetingChapter 6 The Agonies of ContractingChapter 7 The Internal ConsultantChapter 8 Understanding ResistanceChapter 9 Dealing with ResistanceChapter 10 From Diagnosis to DiscoveryChapter 11 Getting the DataChapter 12 Whole-System DiscoveryChapter 13 Preparing for FeedbackChapter 14 Managing the Feedback MeetingChapter 15 ImplementationChapter 16 Strategies for EngagementChapter 17 Some Tools for EngagementChapter 18 Ethics and the Shadow Side of ConsultingChapter 19 The Heart of the MatterAppendix Another Checklist You Can Use (7 checklists actually)

About a year ago, I decided to leave a full-time internal consulting position (health care) to start my own consulting firm. Several months after having done so, I've just discovered Peter Block's "Flawless Consulting." There is no doubt in my mind that had I read this (or the 1st edition) sooner, the years I spent as an internal consultant would have been much easier and much more fruitful. (Shame on me!)Anyone in the consulting biz owes it to himself/herself to purchase and read this book. If you work in a business and don't consider yourself a consultant, get the book anyway - you might be surprised to learn just how much consulting you actually do. There are some VERY powerful lessons about negotiation between the covers. The checklists alone in this book are worth the price, but it is a fantastic piece of work.

Peter Block covers the intangibles of consulting: the politics, communications and the obstacles that derail the consultant/client relationship. This book is a MUST read, not only for consultants, but for anyone that works in or around companies that have politics, or bureaucracy, or people. That should cover just about all of us. This book helped me because it covered so much more then the business techniques of consulting, hey I'm a business consultant after all. Flawless Consulting helps you master communication and contracting gaffs, to understand why after much good advice the customer still does the wrong thing, and most importantly how your success can be assured despite those kind of issues.

I think everyone should read this book. Even if you don't think you're a consultant - you are one. You probably try to get your services used inside a company.Block has a real insight into how the dynamics of consultancy work. I read it before I dealt with my first external client and it saved me from what would have otherwise been less than flawless consulting! As it was, it turned into a great success.I'll be rereading it regularly.