One of my strengths is seeing a solution or way to steer progress to get the best outcome. One of the most frustrating things for me used to be have the client then blithely assure me “Oh no, we won’t make that mistake. We’re smarter than that.” Or “Oh no, we won’t take that path…” and then watch them indeed take that path, right off the cliff. The outcome that I could see in front of them, getting closer, had seen other clients fall into, had done my best to advise them against, in the most positive way possible highlighting the benefits of a different path and still – march, march, march, aaaaiiiiggghhhhh….boom. Poof. (Little puff of dust. Like when Wile E. Coyote hits bottom.)

Travelling for the holidays, I struck up a conversation with the guy in line behind me. As we were waiting to board, I found out that he was also a contractor, a forensic accountant, working to ensure that non-profits were meeting the required accounting standards. Our conversation turned to the difficulties of advising clients and getting them to actually take the advice. He told of a client installing a big ERP system well before they were ready to use such a system, against his advice. What followed was the predictable (to us) outcome of big money spent, lots of employees near-terminally disrupted and the complete system re-do within a couple years. I’ve also seen similar things in reverse – knowing that client needed to be using their systems in a different way and not being able to get them to make the organizational changes needed for months and months while costly mistakes (that the system would prevent) just kept piling up.

It seemed to both of us, as we discussed this, that most people simply cannot learn something before they’re ready to. Even when they’re presented with cost justifications, pie charts, reasons why to do or not to do X, they often stick with what they know. Over the years I’ve become quite ready to resign my membership in the ‘I told you so club’ and have recently done just that. I’ve learned how to offer my deepest knowledge, voice my thoughts from a place of experience, coach for successful outcomes and then … let it go. I’m happy to be in this calm place where I’ve offered my best to the client and been perfectly OK with whatever path they’ve chosen. Even if they go ‘poof!’.