we need to talk about the fly // pt1

I appear to have a bit of a reputation. I first starting using the tagline “the right kind of fly in the ointment” nearly eight years ago. It was not my idea, rather it was how a colleague at Roffey Park described me to a client. He was suggesting I would be a good person for them to work with, because, yes, I was said fly: ‘you need Steve, he will challenge you in the right way’ was the gist. As it turned out, they chose not to work with me (maybe the description put them off, who knows; although what I learned over time was that they were not up for much challenge so probably a wise move on their part).

Fast forward, and I have been in an inquiry for the past couple of years about my fly-ness.  Up until now it has worked well as a tagline:

1. It is pithy

2. People understand it

3. It is a conversation starter

4. It does seem to reflect something of how I work

5. It sits alongside my business brand of Edge+Stretch nicely, which talks to the stance I take in my client work.

And…

It is a fly…in the ointment…ick. The likely source of the phrase is biblical, specifically Ecclesiastes 10:1 in the King James Version, which reads: "Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour." Yikes. At face value, not a positive image. So, what was my colleague driving at, and what, if any, is the utility for my clients? I am going to come back to this, because a question arises as I chew on this.

What is too far, and how do you know?

Exploring my fly-ness has meant testing out how I challenge, playing with what it means to call out contradictions and absurdities, and sometimes finding myself the lone voice in exchanges where the dominant discourse is one that eschews nuance in favour of over-simplification. That means playing not just with when I chime in, but how. With the help of the odd client and colleague who has offered me the gift of raising my awareness of how I impacted them through my posts on LinkedIn, I have data. Some shared how they occasionally found the way I engaged in public debate a bit…sharp; and they are right: on occasions I have been. Writing my book, No Silver Bullet, helped. It is a critical book, but I did not want it to be unkind, so I asked Mark Cole to do a final edit and read it for snark. Any he found I addressed: se I wanted the argument to be heard, not my irritation.

There is an important point about practice here, because if I am always worried about going ‘too far’, of ‘going over the line’, I run the risk of not going far enough. Let me explain this via a few questions:

• What is 'too far'?

• What is 'too much'?

• What is not enough?

• Where do I draw the line? And who is drawing it? And how do I create a shared understanding of that?

• Is it even a line, or is it a zone? 

• What might it take to get comfortable with and be able to bear ‘not knowing’ in relation to where that line is, for all parties?

• How do I know?

• How do I assess that?

• Based on what assumptions and data?

• Where do the ethics of ‘do no harm’ sit in relation to all of this?

• And how does this help both me and a client?

My worry is also worth expanding on, because it may by turns be about doing damage to others, of opening myself up to attack if I do indeed go ‘too far’. In considering that I need to understand what I in turn might experience as ‘attack’, even when that is not the intent of the other person.

Even with robust contracting, I only know if I have gone too far when I go over the line, whether that be imagined or negotiated, and/or the client – or other party - tells me. Sometimes I may cross it without knowing, or I will in my head but not the other persons experience; or I need to go further and neither of us has voiced that. So I spend a lot of time negotiating boundaries, exploring them, testing, finding the edge(s), and attempting to help the client stretch (into) where they need to go . In doing so, there must be a negotiation, client led, around the latter, because my default assumption is that is for them to decide, and us to contract how we get there.

Back to the ointment

In the context of my work, the ointment is essentially the client’s current reality. The metaphor is being inverted: in the original, the ointment is a ‘good thing’, to be preserved and protected, and the fly is spoiling that. In the reframe, ointment becomes the status quo, a current messy reality within which something is not serving you. The fly comes with positive intent to disrupt that, if only with small footprints that have the potential for big impact. Exploring the metaphor can be an important part of the contracting process, so we know what the ‘ointment’ is.

I believe now that my original tagline – ‘the right kind of fly in the ointment’ – is not quite right. What is missing is the word ‘your ’, and the intentionality underpinning my work is key here. I asked myself whether I do this for the sake of it, and initially I said yes; now I am not so sure. For I may test out what is happening if I sense or judge there is a homeostasis that is, say, not in line with the contract or with the stated purpose of the team or organisation, or both. That is not disruption for the sake of it, yet I am mindful without clarity of intent that it might be experienced as such.

Over time, what was an aspect of my practice and reputation has become (more) foregrounded. There was and is a twofold risk here. Firstly, that the fly metaphor is an oversimplification of the more nuanced and varied practice I believe I have, and secondly that it risks amplifying and perpetuating an unhelpful narrative, namely that I am someone who disrupts too much or lobs grenades. Which brings me to the question of what, exactly, my reputation is, how I have come to understand this, what that tells me about my practice, and where I go from there.

My stance

I am clear and consistent in saying to clients my is aim to create useful discomfort in service of learning, that I am not interested in better sameness, and that my intention is to build capability in order to make myself redundant. I do this by making explicit my approach, namely helping them find where their learning/developmental edge is and the accompanying stretch they need to make if they are to experience change they want. I am at ease with that, and, over time, this somewhat Marmite stance has served me well. For the most part, I work with clients with whom I am a good fit. It also did not happen over night, for it is in the past three years, culminating in the publication of my first book, that my underpinning values and philosophy have gelled. That is not setting into rigidity, as my practice will (I hope) continue to evolve, yet it has a shape that is congruent with who I am, how I show up and the impact I hope to have.

A key shift is that now the fly is invited in, and I am more skilled at calibrating the fly-ness, knowing when to lead with it and when to be more subtle. How do I know? My data is several years of testing out what it means to probe in the way I do, of soliciting feedback, of hearing both direct and indirect stories of impact. My own supervision is key to that, working on my practice edges there, and in more therapeutic spaces exploring my shit.

What I find myself increasingly looking for is clients who are – consciously or unconsciously – after that stretch, who have realized that only asking polite questions is pointless. Frankly there are plenty of consultants and consultancies who will happily take your money and engage in a performative dance; I am not one of those, or rather do my damnedest to ensure I am not, because I am not arrogant enough to believe that I may not end up in that dance. I catch the occasional invitation to collude and work hard not to. But do not succeed every time, I suspect. If you read this and have a different experience of me, please let me know...

In Part 2, I will explore my reputation through the lens of what other have told me about how they experience me. It explores the notion of the sacred clown, what it means to be Marmite and what that might mean for my clients.