What makes a good consultant? Part 1a, Rules of engagement
“I think that I had better go, Holmes.”
“Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my Boswell.”
Whenever I could, I looked in on Holmes
In looking over my modest chronicles of the various housing-finance exploits of my friend Sherlock Holmes, the world’s foremost consulting housing finance detective, I am struck that, although he has been endlessly willing to discuss his secrets for creating successful affordable housing ecosystems, and for deducing what has gone wrong in the real-world situations he confronts, he has never troubled to provide the world with the monograph on the business of consultancy that it would normally be his prerogative to claim.
“You know my methods, Watson – apply them!” has he often counseled me, even as he has chided me for romanticizing the business of affordable housing finance, and thus in this monograph I shall endeavor to articulate, based on my observation and deductions, how his manner of dealing, skills and attributes that have made my friend Sherlock Holmes so valued by his clients that high and low come from all across Europe and the world to seek his advice on their most baffling problems. To that end, and having explored via the vast set of information tubes on such masterly and profound disquisitions those of the ultimate consulting firm, I here offer for consideration the Adventures of the Compleat Consultant.
Throughout our long association, Holmes demonstrated an interest in cities.
Neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to every little rumour or suspicion of unsolved crime
Holmes thrived on London’s airs of mystery and intrigue
He is also an urbanist:
“Do you know, Watson,” said he, “that it is one of the curses of a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed there.” “Good heavens!” I cried. “Who would associate crime with these dear old homesteads?”
“They always fill me with a certain horror.”
“They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” “You horrify me!” “But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of country which makes the danger. ”
The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
A. Rules of engagement
Though Holmes lived for his work, as he often reminded in our adventures, he relied upon the humanity of London and Londoners to supply him with material. He was a consultant, initially humble in means if never humble in self-regard, and hence how he related to his clients was of paramount importance. And I, as a doctor, likewise had clients – patients – to whom I showed many of the same qualities and loyalties that Holmes did to his clients. Indeed, I have found Holmes’s rules of engagement regarding clients to be invaluable in many professional service disciplines, from affordable housing finance to the simplest of practical consultancies.
A1. Knows who his customer is and gives his loyalty only to the customer
So long as the client dealt honestly with Holmes, Homes had no doubts where lay his duties. High or low, rich or poor, no matter the circumstance, once Holmes had taken the case, he had assumed his client’s goals and objectives. He gave his loyalty to the customer:
There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing, and by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes’s finger-tips upon the edge of the table.
I found it remarkable how Holmes could look with dispassion on all who consulted him.
They must play fair with us, Watson, I remember him saying to me in the context of a case I have not recorded, and if they do, then we must play fair with them.
Then my friend rose and threw open the door.
“Get out!” said he.
“What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!”
“No more words. Get out!”
And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running footfalls from the street.
“After all, Watson,” said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his clay pipe, “I am not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies.”
The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle
A2. Prioritizes his customer
In this world, every person is unique, every case different. A good consulting detective, Holmes counseled me, must serve every client as if she were his only client. That, he said, was the definition of service. When facing a client, he gave that client his whole attention:
Once Holmes was intellectually engaged, he could be suavity itself
Holmes rubbed his hands, and his eyes glistened. He leaned forward in his chair with an expression of extraordinary concentration upon his clear-cut, hawklike features.
“State your case,” said he in brisk business tones.
Chapter 2, the Sign of the Four
This does not mean the detective is limited to only one client at a time; rather, that each time the client needs the consultant, the consultant is there to provide assistance.
“I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner,” said Sherlock Holmes. “You may rely upon my doing all that I can.”
“You may rely upon my doing all that I can.”
A3. Owns his client’s objectives
Clients engage consultants not for their effort but for their results. The job is not merely eight to six, as it is in our modern London, nor even the more leisurely nine to five that I understand the Americans will come to favor, still less the thirty-five hour week that the French may choose to impose. Rather, a consulting assignment has a definitive objective or end in mind, and in its pursuit the consultant must be relentless and never-sleeping.
He seldom bestirred himself save where there was some professional object to be served. Then he was absolutely untiring and indefatigable.
Holmes never tired when there were mysteries to unravel
A consultant, Watson, must always be on call, and I knew that at any time, Holmes would honor me with his friendship and trust as he sallied forth to solve yet another riddle”
It was on a bitterly cold night and frosty morning, towards the end of the winter of ’97, that I was awakened by a tugging at my shoulder. It was Holmes. The candle in his hand shone upon his eager, stooping face, and told me at a glance that something was amiss.
“Come, Watson, come!” he cried. “The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!”
The Adventure of the Abbey Grange
A4. Never tells his customer what to want
As the range of human frailty is limitless, so too are our sacred and profane desires. Many thus are the clients who came to Holmes’ door, often desperate not just for their mystery to be solved but instead for their loved one to be returned, their honor restored, their secret protected. If Holmes accepted their cases, which he invariably did if the client was forthcoming, the puzzle difficult, and the time available, from that moment on he might flummox the police or deal duplicitously with malefactors, but never would he presume to instruct the client in his or her desires. If he took the case, it was to serve the client’s ends.
Thus Holmes was always clear about his objectives. When brother Mycroft sought the recovery of the Bruce-Partington plans, there was no doubt in Holmes’ mind about what could be sacrificed or overlooked in pursuit of the ultimate objective. Similarly, when called upon to recover a valuable diamond, he was unswerving in his commitment:
When inaction was required, Holmes could be perfectly inactive
“Yes, the great yellow Mazarin stone. I’ve cast my net and I have my fish. But I have not got the stone. What is the use of taking them? We can make the world a better place by laying them by the heels. But that is not what I am out for. It’s the stone I want.”
The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone
In the end, as readers know, Holmes both recovered the jewel and captured the malefactors. But there was never any doubt as to which he was prepared to let go by, and which was essential.
A5. Never makes the client’s choice for the client
Although Holmes never truckled at setting himself up as judge and jury where John law was concerned, he had no delusions of grandeur concerning his clients.
“Well, it is not for me to judge you,” said Holmes as the old man signed the statement which had been drawn out. “I pray that we may never be exposed to such a temptation.”
The Boscombe Valley Mystery
He once said to me, in the course of the case of the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant, of whose particulars we were sworn to secrecy, that “a client, Watson, is owed our energy, our insights, and our wholehearted commitment to her problem – but neither our reproof nor our foreclosing her options. No client thanks us for superseding her right to choose for herself.”
The first thing I knew about it was when I saw you two gentlemen driving back in her dog-cart.”
“And I had my doubts about you gentlemen, I should add.”
Holmes rose and tossed the end of his cigarette into the grate. “I think, Watson, that in your medical capacity, you might wait upon Miss Smith and tell her that if she is sufficiently recovered, we shall be happy to escort her to her mother’s home. If she is not quite convalescent, you will find that a hint that we were about to telegraph to a young electrician in the Midlands would probably complete the cure.”
The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist
More truths will be revealed in due course
[Continued tomorrow in Part 1b.]
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