Why I’ll challenge what you tell me

Most clients arrive with a clear idea of what they need.

That clarity is sometimes the problem.

Not because they’re wrong to have thought about it. They know their business far better than I do, and they’ve usually been sitting with this long enough to form a view. But the view they’ve formed is filtered through their own lens, their own assumptions, and, more often than you’d think, their own avoidance.

Before I answer any brief, I try to understand the question beneath it.

The brief as a starting point

A brief usually tells me one of three things.

It describes a symptom the client has noticed but hasn’t traced back to its source. It proposes a solution that the client has already decided on and wants help executing. Or it frames a problem in a way that keeps something uncomfortable just out of view.

None of those is dishonest. Clients aren’t being evasive. They’ve done their own diagnosis, reached their own conclusions, and they’re hiring someone to act on them. That’s entirely reasonable. It’s also where things can quietly go wrong.

The brief that sounds most complete is often the one that needs the most scrutiny.

What I’m actually listening for

Early in any engagement, I ask a lot of questions that don’t look like consulting questions.

I want to know how long the problem has existed. What’s already been tried. Who inside the business has an opinion on it, and whether those opinions are welcome. What a successful outcome actually looks like in practice, not just on paper.

I’m not running a methodology. I’m listening for a gap. And that gap is between what’s being said and what’s sitting just behind it. Sometimes there’s no gap, and the brief is exactly right. But when there is one, it usually shows up in those early conversations, particularly in the things that get glossed over, the answers that come a little too quickly, the questions that seem to make someone slightly uncomfortable.

That’s the conversation most engagements skip because it feels slow. It isn’t. It’s the fastest way to make sure the work that follows matters.

Why most consultants don’t do this

There’s a commercial reality worth flagging.

Challenging a brief takes time and creates friction. It can feel, from the client’s side, like the consultant is stalling or overcomplicating something that seemed straightforward. And from the consultant’s side, there’s a real risk: push too hard on the question, and you might lose the engagement before it starts.

So, the path of least resistance is to accept the brief, do good work against it, and deliver something technically sound. The client gets what they asked for. The consultant gets paid. Everyone moves on.

The problem is that “what they asked for” and “what they actually needed” are sometimes different. And when they are, technically sound work against the wrong question is still the wrong answer.

Three briefs, three different outcomes

A construction company owner came to me wanting better visibility on project profitability. Reasonable ask. We spent time on the numbers, and what emerged wasn’t a reporting problem; the underlying cost-tracking was so inconsistent that no reporting system would have given him what he needed. The brief was right about the destination but wrong about the starting point.

A manufacturing founder told me he had a sales problem. Revenue was flat, the pipeline felt weak, and he wanted help fixing the commercial side of the business. It took a few conversations to surface what was actually going on: the person running his sales function wasn’t qualified for the role, and that person was a family member. The founder knew it. He just hadn’t been able to say it out loud yet. The sales problem was real. But solving it required a conversation he’d been avoiding, not a new sales process.

A multi-site retailer came to me with a specific request: introduce a workforce management system to improve customer service. I challenged it, as I do with every brief. And the brief held up. The client had already thought wisely, because they’d traced the customer service problem back to employee experience and concluded that better workforce management was the lever. The brief was right. My job was to help them execute it well, not to second-guess work they’d already done properly.

Three briefs. Different outcomes from the same starting question. The skill isn’t challenging everything in principle. It’s knowing which briefs need to be pulled apart and which don’t.

What this means for you

If you’re thinking about bringing in outside help, it’s worth asking yourself one question before the first conversation: Is the brief you’re about to hand over a description of the problem, or a description of the solution you’ve already decided on?

Both are fine starting points. But they lead to very different conversations, and knowing which one you’re bringing changes what you should be looking for in whoever you hire.

The most valuable thing I do often happens before any formal work begins. It’s that first conversation where the brief gets examined rather than accepted. Sometimes it holds up. Sometimes it shifts. Either way, what follows is grounded in the right question.

That’s worth more than a fast start against the wrong one.

Have a brilliant week!

Dave Rogers, The Business Explorer

If this struck a chord, my Substack goes further on the same questions. Want help applying any of it to your business? Book a call.

Need a speaker who’ll bring a fresh perspective? Reach me at info@fuelledfitandfiredup.com.

If you’re after silver-bullet promises, I’m not your guy. If you’d rather have grounded advice and better questions, you’re in the right place.