Humble Consulting Quotes

“The collective learning for us in the teaching seminar was that the higher-status person has to create the environment in which personalization becomes safe, and, in a sense, give permission for more open, trusting communication by first revealing something about himself.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Personalization is especially dangerous when it occurs across formal hierarchical or status boundaries, because even in small steps like eating and drinking together, we are temporarily putting ourselves on an equal footing and can ask one another questions or say things to one another that in the Level One context might be considered offensive and disrespectful.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“if someone does not want help, there is little you can do to get them to accept it.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“smart people don’t do stupid things for no reason, so one must locate why they are doing something that looks stupid from our point of view but may make sense from their point of view.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“diagnosing a system just for the sake of diagnosis is not very helpful because in any complex system one can diagnose it from multiple points of view, just as a personality can be diagnosed from many points of view.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“can leaders and managers learn to be humble consultants to their subordinates?”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“I have found it shocking how often communication across hierarchical and functional boundaries is faulty.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“As we will see in several cases, it was my unwillingness to do what the client wanted that led to real help.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Empathy One is to listen for and be curious about the actual situation or problem that the client is describing.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Because of the difficulty and complexity of the problems, and because the client’s own view of what is going on is so important in the relationship, this also requires a great deal of humility in the consultant.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Empathy One is to listen for and be curious about the actual situation or problem that the client is describing. Empathy Two is to listen for and be curious about what is really bothering the speaker as she is explaining the problem or the situation.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Building a relationship begins with attitudinal preparation, a conscious process of building the right kind of mind-set.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“When we get to know someone personally and can work with him or her on a more personal level, this is Level Two, which is essential for real help to occur. Level Two trust implies that we are willing to make promises and will keep them. Level Two openness implies that with respect to our joint task we will share all relevant information and will not lie to one another.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“Relationship is an interactive concept and must therefore be analyzed from a sociological point of view of interactions. It is not enough for one party to say “I feel I have a connection (relationship) with you” if the other party does not feel that connection. Unrequited love is not a relationship, but a casual friendship can be a relationship. If I trust my boss but he does not trust me, there is no relationship. If I am quite open with my boss but he is not open with me, there is no relationship.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster

“We use the words relationship, trust, and openness glibly and frequently, as if we think that everyone will, of course, understand what we mean. Yet when we ask someone to define any one of these three words, we get either a blank stare, a disdainful look implying that we must be stupid, or definitions that don’t really explain anything and that don’t even agree with one another.”
― Edgar H Schein, Humble Consulting: How to Provide Real Help Faster