Asking for help

Jethro was Moses father in law, and debatably the first management consultant. According to the Bible, (Exodus chapter 18), on visiting Moses, Jethro observes that Moses is overburdened with the work of sorting out disputes among the Israelites. Jethro comments, “What you are doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone….select capable men from all the people—men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain—and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter, because they will share it with you. If you do this and God so commands, you will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.”

Moses needed help, so Jethro proposes a simple organisation structure to deal with the work. It took an outside observer to see what was going on and to recommend what needed to be done; typically the work of a management consultant.

It is often difficult to know when you need help, and perhaps still more difficult to ask for it.

Cynics may disagree, but consultancy is a helping profession; consultants are engaged to make things better than they otherwise might be. This they do for clients, but equally can do for each other. Consultants themselves need help from time to time.

One management consultancy had a director deliver a homily to recruits at the start of their training. ‘We know you will make mistakes as a consultant’, he told them. ‘This is inevitable and forgivable; what is much less forgivable is not asking for help when you need it.’

Consultants have a high sense of self-efficacy, but confidence in being able to accomplish a task doesn’t automatically lead to success, and help is needed. As the poet put it:

They said that the job couldn’t be done
But I with a will set to it
And I tackled that job that couldn’t be done
And found that I couldn’t do it!