consulting toolbox - filling competency gaps

When you begin to look at designing relationships with your clients as a primary focus in your business, it changes what is important and encourages you to learn and develop new strategies to fill in your personal competency gaps. This is particularly important for those of us who are single-person consultancies, freelancers and/or working in large companies where our on-going development is not a primary concern.

In my psychology studies over the years I've often run across the competence learning model. It says that the stages we go through as we learn are: unconsciously incompetent, consciously incompetent, consciously competent and unconsciously competent.

Although it may seem a bit counterintuitive, we can spot our unconscious incompetence by looking at the places in our client relationships where things are not running smoothly or the circumstances that produce fear and worry. Once we recognize these gaps and struggles we can either learn more about that particular area or we can find someone to help us.

Be aware though, if you want to find someone competent to help you, you must be a competent client; learning what questions you need answered and enough about the landscape so that you can at least engage the person in a conversation. This usually means at least making a start on filling the gap yourself first.

Legal not-easy
Early in my career I struggled with all the legal documents that came with being a full-time programming and design freelancer. I'm someone who actually reads every contract I'm asked to sign. It became apparent that most companies, including the very largest ones, were using boilerplate template contracts that are often completely indefensible, poorly written and draconian in what rights they want the contractor to sign over.

Slowly, over the years, and continuing to this day, I educated myself. I learned the differences between an employee and a contractor in legal terms. I discovered that "work for hire" contractors and freelancers who "own their content" and then provide unlimited licensing to their work product are completely different. That programming, visual design and now business strategy contracts need to cover wildly differing legal territories - when typically all you are handed is a boilerplate contract.

And I discovered that no company wants to change their contract for little old you...and that if they are really going to require you to sign something that you believe is wrong for you, you have to be brave enough to walk away. From the designing the relationship perspective, what does that say about your potential client if they won't even talk to you about your concerns?

Conscious competency - when the rubber meets the road
A turning point for me was an interaction I had with a lawyer from a very large and famous design firm. He was calling me from the golf course (really) and was extremely irritated to have to talk to a freelancer for a little project. I told him my concern: that this was a work for hire contract where I would be provided all content and the company would own all output and yet I was expected to warrant all copyright infringements. He actually paused. And then grumbled that this company didn't need me paying for its legal efforts and so he would just add that I would warrant up to the amount they paid me. Done.

That interaction showed me that if I did my homework and presented my case clearly that I have a chance to design my relationship even with big companies. Since then I've come up with other creative solutions such as clearing non-relevant clauses or changes to boilerplate contracts in a statement of work (SOW) for each project, implementing change orders and termination clauses, and...on and on.

Begin again - conscious incompetency as opportunity
The fun part (to me) is that it's always changing and so I always have the opportunity to grow and evolve the relationships that I have with clients.

Right now, I'm in the process of recreating my entire library of contracts to evolve them so that they deal with the issues of being a strategic consultant. I'm beginning to answer questions such as, how I interact with my clients if I don't have physical work product to deliver. I'm discovering the entire landscape has changed and so, I'm back to being consciously incompetent.

I will say, one nice part of having visited this place so often, it doesn't require as much effort to retain my sense of humor when I return once again.

And I'll add a little pitch for life-long learning. My colleague Kate Rutter from Adaptive Path gave me a great reference book for organizing your learning called, "The Independent Scholar's Handbook." You can only get it used but it's a deeply inspiring way to move yourself through learning tasks and to connect with communities to support that learning.

Your turn
How do you discover gaps in your knowledge? Do you have strategies for on-going learning? How important is it for you to take time to keep expanding your knowledge base?

consulting toolbox - designing the relationship

A few years ago I had a chance to interact with Jeremy Stover, an amazing life and business coach, and to train in Co-active coaching. One of the concepts that Jeremy modeled with me from the Co-active toolbox was "designing the relationship." In our interactions this was everything from when we met, how we proceeded in each session, what I wanted to accomplish and even dealing with relationship collisions such as lateness, not doing tasks or being mad at the other person.

As a designer myself, I find the idea of taking design thinking and expanding it to all my relationships to be deeply appealing. I love taking the ideas and learning from one context and seeing how it fits in others. In Aikido we call that "taking it off the mat." For me, designing the relationship with my clients means an investment of time and attention that are well worth the effort.

So, what goes into designing a relationship? In my practice, I include paying attention to how you begin the relationship, how and what you negotiate in the contractual stage and how we communicate and manage throughout the project. From the UX perspective, I consider this to be the way that I develop and tweak the communication strategy for my business.

Getting started
It's really quite simple to begin designing your client relationships - old or new. Start by slowing down. Quietly begin observing your interactions - not as right or wrong - but as to whether they grow the relationship or slow it down.

Over time move into more active research:

• Ask a lot of questions and take a lot of notes
• Look at your current and past clients. What worked and what didn't?
• Start conversations that ask for other people's ideas on how to deal with specific high-stress situations
• Collect other people's successful communication strategies - tweets, business practices, writing styles, etc.
• Develop a library of templates for anything relating to your communication with clients including: contracts, non-disclosure agreements, change orders, project management docs, briefs, proposals, follow-ups, cold and warm contacts, effective newsletters, blog posts, tweets, etc.
• Ask clients to do a post-project review with you. Have them tell you what worked and what didn't and then design the relationship with them. What would they like changed, what you could offer to solve an issue that came up.

Use design thinking - be strategic
How do they respond to your questions? Do they have a preferred style of communication? Is that different for different tasks? Do you know what a successful relationship with you would look like - to them?

Do you notice any patterns emerging? Are they always late? Do they consistently go off topic? Are they resistant to your efforts to define the relationship?

What happens if something goes wrong? If you haven't talked about that at the beginning of the relationship and come up with ways to communicate - even in traffic - you're in for some bumpy projects. Educational, but bumpy.

Designing a relationship has a lot to do with bringing up unspoken assumptions/behaviors and finding ways to deal with them so that you can have a low drama landscape to work in. If patterns emerge in your initial or on-going contact with a client then it is your responsibility to creatively come up with ways to not only deal with those issues - consciously and in multiple communication styles (email, spoken, contractual) - but to make them into strengths moving forward.

We'll expand on this notion in future posts but for now, how do you design your business relationships with clients? What are you working on paying attention to as you develop or work with your clients?

consulting toolbox - quietAction blog series

When I first began teaching computers and UI design in the early 90's, I always included a little conversation in one of the last classes about how to navigate the freelance and creative world from the business side. As was so often the case, I learned enormous amounts from those conversations, including a lot of creative ideas to try in my own business. Now that I'm not in the classroom or teaching online any more, I miss having people like myself to talk through the intricacies of day-to-day working in creative, innovative, and fast-moving fields.

So, I'm starting a little series here on the blog called "consulting toolbox." My hope is that I can start collecting some good support materials from my own knowledge base and add in what I'm collecting via my Twitter feed and other connections.

And of course I'd love to hear from my community of super smart human beings. As I like to say, "together we have a full neuron." Please feel free to add topics that you'd like to discuss in the comments or @quietaction me on Twitter. Looking forward to the conversation.

twitteripation - socializing a ux hermit

We all have to determine what works for us. We have to find ways of communicating and connecting that fit our style. We're all user experience designers. And the user we neglect most often is the typically the only one we ever get to directly influence - ourselves.

As any company grows one of its primary tasks is to determine what channels of communication make sense. We need to stay alert to new alternatives and try them out to see if they help us accomplish our business objectives. I'm no different. And what works has changed enormously over the years, not only because of the ever-morphing technology landscape but also because my goals have grown up right along with me.

It's quite simple really. You can use all the fancy terminology about broadcasting, push technologies, etc. but basically it comes down to this: I love using Twitter because it lets me wander around and discover new people to listen and interact with in and out of my field. It allows me, a much quieter person than I was when I started my career, to dip into the informational stream and come away with relevant information and connections. And it's fun.

Twitter has an interface that gets out of my way. Its simplicity is appealing. Once you learn a few easy rules, you're on your way. And it being in its "awkward teenage years" as an interface is deeply appealing. There's nothing quite as fun as the cowboy quality of learning the new cultures and technologies that you discover. And much to this introvert's surprise, it's a great way to begin conversations with all flavors of people on a deeply satisfying variety of topics.

I made the leap earlier this summer to creating and beginning to tweet regularly through a Twitter account (@quietaction) because I was looking for good ways to promote my new blog. While I was researching a post I discovered a great interview with Zoe Keating (@zoecello) about the connection between her successful music career and her Twittering activities. That was all the proof I needed that this was indeed a warm and connective technology and I was off in the great unknown.

At first I only followed a few people so I wouldn't get overwhelmed. I followed @zoecello, my friend and Internet Marketing specialist Susan Barnes (@susby), a DIY diva friend (@willotoons), my crazy prolific clients from Techdirt/Floor64 (@techdirt), and David Armano (@armano) whose blog Logic + Emotion helped me form my quietAction blogging strategy. Amazing how much you can learn about how to go about wrangling Twitter by simply listening to a few frequent tweeters.

Now, as I grow more proficient with Twitter, I'm moving out in ever expanding circles. I added folks that I met at the UX Intensives in June (@nerdstalker, @danpoyner, @adaptivepath, @andrewcrow, @katerutter, @paulawellings). I discovered @whitneyhess and now regularly get to interact and learn about living a high follower Twitter lifestyle from her example. And from those amazing people to other new colleagues in and out of the UX world (@twliterary, @emilychang, @ctomlin, @teresaBrazen, @halverson, @janepyle, @leenjones, @zoetica).

You can link to any of the people I follow by going to my Twitter page and clicking the Following link on the right hand side. I've also adopted a habit of favoriting any tweets that I want to come back to later. You can find those under the Favorite link.

And it's not all work. I have fun sharing my daily walks via pictures. Since they don't have to sign-up for anything my non-Twittering family and friends check in at my Twitter page to see what's going on. A neighbor here in Emeryville popped up late one night. Someone you would never imagine using Twitter. My non-techy cousin Maureen Nolan has become a Twitter star (@nwwineandre). The only member of my "rent-a-family" on Twitter regularly catches my not so subtle hints to invite me over. And often within minutes I have an official invite. Excellent social latency!

The change is noticeable. Tonight one of my oldest friend's said to me, "It seems like you're networking more all of the sudden." But it isn't really that I'm "getting out there" more, it's that I'm able to use Twitter to discover the events I'd like to attend and the people that I'd like to meet. And as one of my new friends (@Keidson) recently tweeted about meeting all these new folks in person:

And why is this important to my clients? At least now when we have this conversation about business and communication strategy, you'll know that I'm right in there with you, learning and making it up - better.

You can view my Twitter page (no need to join) at http://www.twitter.com/quietaction/. Or if you have a Twitter account then be sure to @ me and say, "Hi." Some days it's the only way in to this UX hermit's cave.

How are you being thoughtful about your personal or company communication strategy? What connectivity channels are your favorites?