Clarifying Learning to Speak...and Not Writing Reports

People have asked what I meant in my last post when I said I stopped doing client reports after leaving my first consulting job. Did I stop consulting?

The answer is no. I've done 20 more years of consulting after that. But I changed my approach a lot.

From my first consulting job, it was clear to me that 'traditional consulting'  - big study, nice binder, fancy presentation - didn't work very well. I recall thinking that of over fifty (!) projects that I participated in in that first consulting job, only one - a project with a large cereal and pet food manufacturer ever lead to what I would have called significant change.

So, I went seeking another approach and found a smaller consulting firm with a few, high profile clients. For them, writing 'reports' was unheard of. Instead they did case studies, went undercover, facilitated work sessions, produced training videos, coached and mentored managers and front-line employees - and basically invented whatever approach they felt would have the greatest impact for their client. Writing a formal report was never an option.

For me it was heaven. And change happened every day.  It was a better way.

So since then I've incorporated that learning along with the experience from running several organizations - into a consulting approach that is more hands on, facilitator-manager-coach-mentor than consultant. Because it works.

And I never write reports.

Photography Mentor Wanted

That's the title of the posting I put up 2 weeks ago on Craigslist.

Saturday I'm hooking up with my new-found mentor. We're heading down to Toronto's Distillery District to do some learning/teaching. As he said "Jim there's a reason it's shot so much". Cool.

Connecting through Craigslist was easy. I only got two responses but they were from the right people. Both were pros. One said she's too busy but just wanted to say she liked my stuff (I included my Flickr link). Hey. Thanks. I really appreciated the encouragement/feedback.

My ultimate mentor saw potential but pointed out the areas where he could help. Bang on. Composition. Lighting. Setttings. Editing. Photography 101. If I weren't so lazy I might have tried learning that stuff from books - but I hate learning that way. Let's go do it.

When I've mentioned this story to people, the first take is that without something like Craigslist it would have been impossible to connect like this. Basically I agree - although it does remind of those bulletin boards you see in grocery and drug stores with the telephone numbers written on little tear off tags at the bottom of the page. Still very cool.

Surfing around Craigslist is also very interesting. If you're a temporary job agency, you have serious competition. Or a dating service. There's a best of Craiglist postings here. Don't go here if you're easily offended but if you're not, you'll laugh. There are some good ones.

My flickr page is here. Let's hope for an uptick in quality over the next few weeks.