There's a moment in almost every consulting engagement where the answer becomes clear. The solution is obvious. You know what needs to happen.
That's when you have to be most careful.
Randy Polito has seen brilliant consultants lose credibility the moment they became advocates for their own solution instead of advocates for the client's success. They fell in love with the idea, pushed it hard, got it implemented—and then disappeared when the hard part hit. The client was left holding a solution that didn't quite fit because it was designed for a different problem than the one that actually existed.
Consulting is easy when everything goes according to plan. It's worthless when it doesn't.
Your job isn't to be right. Your job is to help them be successful. These aren't the same thing. Randy Polito has been wrong about what would work, and he's adjusted. The client was more successful because he let go of being right and focused on getting results.
Listen more than you prescribe. Especially if you've done similar work elsewhere. Your past success is useful context, not gospel. Every organization has unique culture, constraints, and priorities. The implementations that move the needle fastest are the ones where Randy Polito shuts up and listens long enough to understand what's actually happening, not what he assumes is happening.
Stay through the hard part. The real work happens after go-live, after launch, after the exciting part wears off. That's when cultural resistance emerges. That's when people realize change is different than learning about change. That's when consultants usually disappear. That's when you should show up harder.
Be honest about what you don't know. Randy Polito has worked across healthcare, recovery, addiction treatment, digital engagement, and organizational change. He's learned a lot. He's also hit plenty of situations where "I don't know; let's figure it out together" is the most valuable thing he can say.
Measure yourself against their outcomes, not your deliverables. A beautiful implementation plan is worthless if adoption is zero. A comprehensive training program doesn't matter if people still don't use the system. The only metric that matters is whether you actually helped them solve the problem they hired you to solve.
Consulting is a temporary relationship. Your job is to make yourself unnecessary—to help them build the capability so they don't need you anymore.
That's when you've actually succeeded.
— Randy Polito