Ok, so you’re high on ‘consumption.’ But do you understand what it means?
Suppose you’re a web-designer and the client asks you to make a change on the website, and you say: “Nope, won’t do that. You’ve got to learn how to do it all yourself, Ms.Client. You’ve got to consume.”
Ok, just for the record, that’s not consumption.
Consumption is when the customer asks for ‘the meal’ and you help them to ‘eat that meal.’ So if the client asks to help her to make the change on her website, then it’s all very fine to suggest the steps to make that change.
But it the client is simply saying: Can you make that change? then what you have to do is ‘make that change.’
Being high on consumption is fine.
But you can’t make the client eat ’something they haven’t asked for.’
Have you ever mixed up the concept of consumption? Have you tried to get the client to do something when she didn’t want to do it? And how did you get out of the mess?
1 response so far ↓
1 Molly Gordon // May 19, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Oh yes.
My worst offense has been against individual coaching clients who suffered through whatever religion I got at my most recent training.
I’d come back from training, in Ann Lamott’s words, “stoned on myself,” eager to demonstrate my new found skill. Woe unto the client who comes to a session with an issue that doesn’t match my advanced notions of good coaching.
To extend the meal analogy, it was like delivering salmon to a diner who had ordered ribs, explaining from my superior vantage point that salmon is better for them. And then, in the interest of consumption, force feeding the salmon.
Live and learn.
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