tfpl blog

Relational Consulting

Have just received a copy of a new research report from Ashridge Consulting.  The research follows the working lives of 11 graduates and faculty of the Ashridge Masters in Organisation Consulting (AMOC) - I was a graduate of AMOC5 in 2003 - and relates the stories of their work as they happen, warts and all. The research avoids the dramatic, the certain and the perfect to reveal a way of consulting which has more modest and honest ambitions. It looks at what it takes to consult with a rigorous understanding of a philosophy and theory of consulting and the benefits and challenges this brings compared to the more traditional consulting toolboxes. 

Reading the report, I was struck by how many of the situations and the interventions involved issues of knowledge and information in the workplace.  It's a refreshing piece of work and a good read which I'll be recommending to colleagues in the coming weeks.

Important decisions

This post from Bob Sutton, co-author of

Knowing-doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action has written a post about Lovaglia’s Law.

To quote:
"Lovaglia’s Law: The more important the outcome of a decision, the more people will resist using evidence to make it."

I was intrigued by this idea:
“…the more is at stake, the more that people will be motivated to push for solutions that increase their power and decrease other’s power – and not motivated to take steps that help other people or other groups, let alone that help the system as a whole.”

This observation certainly comes into play in projects where there is significant or even minor change happening in an organisation. Often projects have been stalled or seriously disrupted for apparently illogical reasons. Perhaps Lovaglia’s Law helps to explain what is really going on.

A suggested solution:
“A partial, and paradoxical, solution is implied by Karl Weick’s work on small wins... : If important decisions provoke so much greed, distress, and irrationality, it might be best to try to reframe big decisions as small ones –- to fool yourself and others into believing that what seems big is really small!”