Credit for success belongs to my clients. Blame the failures on me

Doesn’t it feel great to take credit for a job well done? Consulting is a job where that never happens. An effective consultant:

• Helps a client identify problems in their business.
• Helps a client remove or route around those problems.
• And—the important part—helps a client take credit for any/all success.

Producing conditions for success

Use this perspective to inspire bravery, saying to a client: “Let’s try this together. If it works, you get the credit. If it doesn’t work, I’ll take the blame.”

Or you might keep it to yourself, and be the one unworried person. A common cause of project failure is that everyone is fixated on whether or not it will succeed.

Often in a consulting arrangement, I have budget to try one or two approaches with a client—and those will fail. Great! If I’ve done my job, the client will have the next couple approaches lined up, along with the skills to give them a try without me around. They’ll succeed after the I’m gone.

Remaining unmoved

This is not new a new perspective. It’s not specific to consulting.

Instead, it comes from being the kind of person who is attentive to the situation and the people in it, rather than being the kind of person who’s worried about the past (with stories of how things got broken in the first place) or the future (and terrors or failures it may entail). By being—and here’s the cliche, but this is what cliches are for—being in the moment.

I give you Upaya Zen Center’s samu gatha. It is a brief chant shared before starting work practice. You’ll find me reciting it before joining your meeting, and, when I have the presence of mind, before washing the dishes:

“May this work be done in a spirit of generosity,
Not driven by ego, greed, or delusion.
May kindness sustain us and prevail in conflict.
And compassion guide us and lead us to understanding.
May we rejoice in the successes of others.
And remain unmoved by praise or blame.”

TL;DR:

• Always take the blame, share the credit.
• This spares you from worry about outcomes or future activities…
• …Which helps you pay attention to what's happening today.
• “Remain unmoved by praise or blame.”