The internet is a great place to vent; let’s have an honest conversation.
I’ve had my consulting business for a couple of years now, and things change when you start consulting. The way you think about work changes. You start to pay attention to things you didn’t notice before, in the industry, at conferences, and online. Your perspective always changes when you get a new job or start working in a new organization. But there’s a fundamental identity change that comes with entrepreneurship, business ownership, and consulting.
Consultants have a bad rap
As an employee, people used to approach me to sell me their services and platforms. When I worked in a school, program providers were always hounding me for my school’s business. As a risk management director, people were hounding me to buy things like security cameras, software and apps, and consulting.
You wouldn’t believe the kind of garbage that comes in my DMs and inbox now as a solopreneur. I should start saving the “best-ofs” for a good laugh on a rainy day.
One time, I got a call at 6 AM on the emergency line. I was on-call so of course I leapt out of bed to answer the phone. The person was trying to find their way into my organization and to the right person, I think they were looking for the Ops Director to sell them some technology platform that would solve all their problems. They knew who I was and they knew my title, “…as the Risk Management Director, could you help connect me to…”
I was livid.
I said to them on the phone, standing in the hallway in my underwear, “Do you really think that’s a successful strategy for you to call the risk management director on the emergency line at 6 am?”
Other sales strategies I loathe:
As a program director inside a school, providers would target teachers and prep them to come and sell me. Gross. Other times, a provider would visit the school and, only at the end of their presentation, ask about my program. Only then would they learn that we were developing our own program and we weren’t in the market for 98% of everything they described.
When I chaired the Wilderness Risk Management Conference, consultants would ask all the time what they should present on. How could I answer that? Beyond your topic area, I don’t really know what you do, or how you even do it. My response was always to come to the conference first. Show up, talk to participants and see the other presenters. Understand the audience and the landscape and the issues, then propose a session where you have a unique perspective or solution.
Invest in the industry before you ask it to invest in you.
I recommend other consultants to people all the time. I have a list in my head of colleagues whose work I value and trust, and whose work I’d trust with my own program. The ones in that group aren’t in it to get rich. Yes, we want to make a living, but if we wanted to get rich, we wouldn’t work in this field at all.
I get the pressure to sell. We live in a capitalist society, and sales is how we survive. Wolves, sheep, kill or be killed, always be closing, Wolf of Wall Street… and all that.
I’m continually learning more about this side of the business and, ultimately, I just want to connect with people and organizations who are aligned with my thinking and approach to risk management, and who might benefit from working together.
That’s it. It shouldn’t be more complicated than that.
Five things that drive me up the wall
These are my observations about our industry. I hate these things, and if I point them out, perhaps you will see them and hate them too:
1. Overwhelm as a strategy
This is the consultant who stands at the front of the room and tries to overwhelm you into needing their services. Some do it by presenting so much information. Others build the whole presentation from lists of questions meant to point out the things you haven’t thought of or addressed yet.
Gross.
“Do you have [thing]?” “Have you thought about [topic]?” “What if [event happens]?” I’ve sat through sessions on multiple continents where the presenter’s workshop rattled off question after question, with barely enough room to breathe between each one, much less let the audience think about it and how it may or may not apply to their work.
These are all tactical details, not strategy. Yes, plenty of consultants, including myself, are very good at tactical thinking and implementing, which is one part of the value we bring. But that’s not the entire value or purpose of risk management consulting.
At the other end of the overwhelm spectrum is the session that presents so much theoretical information that the practicality is completely lost. The audience tries to keep up, can’t digest it point by point or as a whole, and can’t see how it might change how they think about a topic or issue.
As a rule of thumb, if you can’t translate theory into practice, you’re probably not ready to present on it or use it as part of your advisory.
I wish more conference attendees would see these as design and strategy issues, not pacing or workshop delivery issues.
2. Presenting a problem without a solution
Closely related to the above rant, this one is the hollow presentation where a problem is presented through storytelling, data, or a theoretical framework, but a real, tangible solution is completely absent.
I leave these ones confused.
Is the presenter gatekeeping, and do you have to hire them to close the gap? Or, do they lack the skills/abilities/knowledge/experience to actually resolve it?
I don’t think all presentations should end with action items. Sometimes, the takeaway is a conceptual reframe of an issue or a topic. Whatever the takeaways are, they should be clear to attendees, even if they need more thinking or consultation about how it applies to them.
If the presenter is offering a conceptual reframe, it should be clear how to actually make that reframe yourself as an attendee, and/or how to help your colleagues see a topic or issue differently.
3. The one-way street
This one is for the consultant who doesn’t ask any questions. They don’t take the time, the energy, or the mental space to get to know who they’re talking to. Their message, in either big or small ways, isn’t tailored to the programmatic, geographic, activity, participant, staff, or institutional contexts of the people in the room.
I see shades of this in presentations and at conferences, but I also see it in sales and other interactions. They’re just assuming they know everything about everybody, and that drives me up the wall.
At the end of the day, the consultant’s job is to translate knowledge and information into something actionable so people can act on it and drive change. How on earth can you do that if you don’t ask who you’re working with?
I do think this one goes both ways. As a participant, you have a role in taking knowledge and concepts and applying them to your own program. That’s part of being a professional.
But good consulting involves a more equal ratio of asking and telling.
4. Claiming the impossible
The claim that any training, advisory, or software service can solve risk. That their product or advice can make it safe and leave the client with nothing to worry about.
I just don’t think it’s true.
There’s inherent risk in what we do, and in nearly all strategic, administrative, and operational aspects of programming and leadership. You can’t remove all risk, so it’s a ridiculous claim to make, and it’s irresponsible to sell knowledge or services that way.
This one shows up in the small details. It shows up in the fine print, and in the overall attitude or vibe of a session, a pitch, or a flyer. I’m not sure if the people pushing it are true believers in their almighty powers, or if it’s just lazy writing promoted by persistent AI slop (see rant #5).
As consultants and entrepreneurs, we’re constantly being told that our services should be outcome-driven and solve real-world problems. That’s true to a degree, but all that marketing stuff isn’t necessarily built for the nuanced, intricate world of risk management and safety education.
It’s okay to buy or sell process and process-oriented outcomes. After all, that’s what schools and programs are selling, too.
5. Over-reliance on AI
I was at a conference recently and noticed that, in 4 separate sessions, the presenters’ slide decks were AI-generated. All four presenters were either educational, business/culture, or risk management consultants.
That’s fine if the slide deck presents your own ideas and Claude just helps you assemble it. Visually, I find it pretty boring, and I’m not sure how that helps to distinguish your company from the next guy’s. But in this case, all four had the same slide, presented in the same part of the deck, and used for the same purpose in the larger presentation.
Again: gross.
It was a table referencing academic literature. In all cases, it wasn’t citing specific papers or authors with specific concepts or methods. Instead, it was referencing bodies of work or schools of thought, about 5 or 6 of them each, including foundational authors or landmark books and papers. I think it was Claude’s way of helping the presenter show that their work is broadly supported by the academic literature. Yet, nothing else was cited when they actually got into their materials.
Again: lazy.
It’s another version of “look how smart I am,” without being able to back it up. When you don’t give credit, even in small ways, to the information you are presenting, you let the audience assume the credit belongs to you. Even AI-generated or -assisted frameworks should be cited.
LinkedIn is the same. After the conference, I saw so many posts that said the exact same thing, in the same format and voice, with literally the same sentences. LinkedIn is a cesspool of AI, which is why I started writing on Substack instead.
I’m not in the anti-AI crowd, other than that I despise its overconsumption of natural resources and negative effects on mental health and safety. I genuinely believe those things are solvable with actual governmental regulation and cooperation (this is a conversation for another post). I’m actually proud to say that my work is AI-assisted. I work hard to keep up with how quickly AI is changing, and how it can be responsibly used to improve program and risk management. Note: I did an unofficial test of AI during a program review, and my colleagues and I agreed with it about 30% of the time. So no, it’s not going to take my job just yet, and no, you shouldn’t outsource your consulting/advisory needs to AI, either.
AI writing will continue to creep into our slide decks and documents, and even into our social and spoken language, which I’m noticing, too. But your work has to be authentic enough to be credible, so that I trust it’s yours. I hope you’ll hold me to the same standard.
AI has taken over the internet. Let’s do our best to keep it from taking over our in-person events, too.
Imperfection is fine, as long as it is honest
I don’t think this is black and white.
All of us– practitioners, consultants, academics– are always working out our ideas, and that’s the point of a conference. When we present in front of other people, we’re practicing. We’re trying out how to share and translate, and we’re taking in cues about how our words land with others.
That’s probably the biggest lesson I’ve learned as a business owner. As an employee, you’re hired to do something, and you try to do it as well as you can because that’s how you get seen and rewarded at work. Consulting isn’t that way. You’re always trying new things and seeing what sticks and what resonates with the people you’re trying to serve.
Consulting isn’t a one-way street. It’s a partnership with the industry and with the people and organizations you serve. So, it’s okay to try new ideas and new ways of talking about things. Perfection is hardly ever the goal.
Our industry has been an extraordinarily authentic place. That’s part of being honest, and it goes back to the mission and pedagogical process of so many outdoor and youth-serving programs: developing the individual by creating an environment where they must contribute to the group and its norms.
Consultants and presenters are no different. We’re individuals contributing to a group and the group’s process of figuring out and articulating all aspects of programming, including risk management.
When the thinking isn’t ours, or it’s shared in a way meant to solely serve our own business goals, our contributions aren’t honest, and our industry’s authenticity diminishes.
Let’s raise the bar
Rant over. Now let’s actually talk about what to do with these observations. Let’s be productive together.
I’m curious if and how you see these things. No need to name names or put anyone down. Let’s start an open conversation aimed at maintaining our authentic nature and practice. For most consultants, it’s why we got into consulting. We believe in our thoughtful programming, and consulting is our way of pushing the collective field forward. We’re all in this bigger mission, together.
As practitioners and receivers of information, we have to question more of what’s showing up in our space. Engage with the information and materials presented to you; don’t be a passive receiver. If it’s not clear, ask where it comes from and what they’d have you do with it.
All of us, as practitioners, providers, clients, thinkers, and doers in our industry, can point these bad habits out to others and raise the bar for all of us.