Consulting Journal: Style - Keeping it to yourself

Style: Keeping it to yourself

by David Blakey

There are dangers in becoming too friendly with your clients.

[Monday 17 December 2001]

It is reasonable for you to want to form a rapport with your clients. If there is some established ‘common ground’ for you and your clients then it will be easier for you to establish good communications. If you have to report bad news, a good relationship with your clients will make this a less difficult situation.

It is also reasonable for you to want your clients to accept you as a ‘normal’ person. You may feel that your clients think of you as aloof or arrogant. It is then reasonable for you to want to change this image.

This desire to be accepted, to ‘fit in’, to be ‘one of the team’, needs to be properly managed.

There could be problems with your attempts to fit in.

Appearing trivial

The first problem can be that you can appear to be trivial. If you decide to get closer to your clients by telling jokes and treating them as friends rather than as clients, you can be thought of as lightweight and foolish. It would probably have been better for your relationship with your clients to have continued to be thought of as aloof if your clients also though that you were highly competent.

Earning contempt

The second problem is that you can earn the contempt of your clients. Clients may detect your attempts to be friendly and to change your image as shallow. Rather than becoming more friendly towards you, they may become contemptuous.

Making enemies

Third, and worst, is that you may actually turn your clients into enemies. Trying to win people over by making silly remarks about groups or kinds of people may result in these people having a permanent dislike towards you.

You already know that it is unacceptable to many people and to most corporations to make remarks about gay men or women, about Jews, about black people and about people who have a mental or physical disability. But you should continually check that you are not in danger of making enemies when you want to make friends. There are lots of checks. Here are some.

Sexual preference

This involves your own sexual preferences as well as those of other people. Do not discuss your own sexual preferences with your clients. If you are a married woman, you are expressing your sexual preferences if you mention your husband. If you are a father, you are expressing your sexual preferences if you mention your children. It is no longer a statement of your preferences that you wear a wedding ring, as these are sometimes worn by gay couples.

It may surprise heterosexuals to discover that gay clients often do not welcome gay consultants stating their sexual preferences. Some gay clients avoid engaging gay consultants.
Beliefs

It is odd to me that some people who would never make anti-Jewish comments are comfortable making anti-Muslim ones. There is no line of acceptability that cuts through belief, so that Buddhism is ‘acceptable’ and Scientology is not.

Modern manners no longer accept a statement of your own beliefs. A few years ago, I might have told my clients that I am Anglican, but it is not acceptable today.
Race

To some people, it seems to be acceptable to make remarks or to tell jokes about a race other than one's own, provided that the race is the ‘majority’ race. While it would be unacceptable for a white American comedian to make jokes about black people, it is apparently acceptable for a black American comedian to make jokes about white people. This applies on a global basis, so that white people are the international ‘majority’ race. As a result, it is unacceptable for a white comedian to tell jokes about black people in Nigeria, even though the majority of people in Nigeria are black.

As well as race, you should avoid discussion of nationality, especially when it involves slang. Again, to many people, there is an ‘under-dog’ situation that allows New Zealanders to use insulting terms against the British but not vice versa. You should avoid this.

You should also avoid references to past wars or disputes. As well as the War of 1914-1918 and the War of 1939-1945, there are some wars in which both sides claim victory. This is true of the War of 1812-1813 between the United States of America and Britain. While some Americans claim that the US actually won the war, some Britons claim that the US was forced to settle because it had no more money. How serious a war it actually was may be judged by the fact that each side maintained diplomatic relations with the other during it. The war can still spark debate.
Disability

Some people see a dividing line between respect and ridicule so that blind people are respected while bald people are ridiculed. This line is largely determined by the severity of the disability or condition, so that a paraplegic is more respected than someone who has had several toes amputated. Total blindness is more respected than myopia, which may actually be ridiculed. People who have Alzheimer's disease are respected; people who have always had poor memories are ridiculed.

Simple good manners should operate best here. You should not disparage any disability or condition or illness or mannerism or appearance, whether or not they are natural or self-inflicted. This includes tattoos and piercings.

In short, consultants should avoid trying to ‘fit in’ by simply ‘following the herd’. If clients value the power and independence of your thought, then you should demonstrate these qualities in your remarks about other people and about yourself.

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