(2025-06-14) Cutler Tbm362 How And Why We Help

John Cutler: TBM 362: How (And Why) We Help. What if, in your attempt to help, you're hurting yourself and maybe even others? Can the outcome still be wrong if it meets the needs of the majority?

The inspiration for the post started with a conversation with a frustrated change agent, lamenting over the actions of a big consulting firm at their company

The dominant approach in the consulting industry follows this pattern:
Paint a compelling picture of what "great" looks like. Name it. Point to exemplar companies that already do it.
Diagnose the gap

While it's easy to dismiss the standard consulting approach as formulaic or unlikely to spark deep systemic change, I believe it is also what makes it politically viable, repeatable, and relatively low-risk. It's the selling point. The dominant consulting model "works" because it aligns with how many senior executives think and their political environments.

there's also something innately "human" in our hopes/desires to believe that
The answers are already out there
That success can be reverse-engineered, and that
If we follow the right blueprint, we, too, can achieve greatness.

And that if we play our cards right, we can do so without having to sit too long in the uncertainty, contradiction, and messiness of our current state

Emergent and Relational

However, this is not the only view of consulting.
For example, Peter Block advocates for a model focused on building the client's capacity for reflection, ownership, and self-directed change rather than imposing external solutions.

A more powerful way is to focus on what is working well and what we are good at. (cf StrengthsFinder)

The task is to honor the presenting need while creating room for deeper transformation

Comparing The Two

If you squint, the dominant consulting model echoes traditions like Platonism or Western Christianity

Block's approach, by contrast, blends existentialism, communitarianism, personal responsibility, and courage…

It's less about applying a blueprint and more about creating the space for people to rediscover their agency together.

In the dominant consulting model, context is a variable that needs to be understood so the right playbook can be customized and applied effectively

In Block's view, the consultant's role is not to bend the model to fit the context but to help people within the system see that they ARE the context and that change emerges through their engagement with it. ("you're not in traffic, you are traffic")

Is it more respectful to work within the system or to question it?

What do we owe our clients (or colleagues)? Is it expertise and direction or the time, space, and trust to help them find their own way?

An operations leader described the tension perfectly (extracted from my interview notes):
The leaders here at [Company] are completely obsessed with the product operating model. We did the assessment offered by [Consulting Firm] and scored low in many areas. In the rooms I'm in, there's a lot of talk about whether we have the right people on board.

On one hand, I feel like we're sugarcoating many of the really hard questions. We're ignoring the current reality, and maybe even what has brought us to where we are now. I feel the people here are totally capable of learning those things. ((2019-12-31) Can You Know Too Much About Your Organization)

But I'm stuck on a question. Maybe I should play along with it? Perhaps this is what will work at [Company]? Maybe I'm imposing my beliefs too much on my approach?

The clash of narratives is so stark. The belief in others and their capabilities sits alongside the pressure to follow a script and prove that transformation is underway.

The choice of what hat we wear is ultimately up to us. Despite the environment, we have some agency over how we show up and move the atoms around us

Pragmatist's hat,

Purist's hat,

Integrator's hat,....

None of these hats resolves the tension, but naming them can help us see it more clearly. And maybe that's the more important move: becoming aware that we carry a view at all and asking whether it's guiding us toward what we care about. (framing)

Personal Reflection

In my career, I have often found myself caught up in the emotion of the moment. I responded passionately, sometimes defensively.

Internally, I wrestled with questions of meaning, responsibility, and what I believed. Externally, it often looked like contradiction or even self-sabotage.

The last two years have made the tension even clearer. The workplace is often a collision of beliefs, incentives, and power.

There is a constant pull between simplifying the world to make it manageable and staying with the mess long enough to understand it, and yourself, more fully.

I do not have the answers, and I am not a philosopher. But it seems that now more than ever, a little more self-awareness and awareness of others might help.