“Practicing your craft in expert fashion is noble, honorable, and satisfying. And I'll generally take a stand-up mercenary who takes pride in his professionalism over an artist any day.” ―Anthony Bourdain

<aside> 💡

A craftsperson is someone who practices a trade or discipline with the ultimate goal of mastery. At NOBL, we approach our work as craftspeople. Our craft is delivering meaningful change through a consulting relationship.

</aside>

This is a 4-part resource on what our craft means, how we practice it, the prerequisites, and how we build up and inspire others. Read this upon starting work with us, and make plans to return to it periodically as a means to stay centered on your work and personal development.

Part One: The Basics

At NOBL, we aim to elevate consulting to a true craft.

However, we can’t inspire, train, or prove a different philosophy and approach if we mishandle the most basic aspects of client service. Clients will laugh us out of the room if we can’t tie our own shoelaces but demand they follow us down an unfamiliar and scary path. Therefore, we must be unimpeachable with the basics of client delivery.

What are “the basics”?

  1. Knowing our own process and being able to clearly explain the steps we’re asking clients to take and why they matter
    1. This means explaining where we are in our process, but also what comes next as a result, and always connecting how this ladders up to the client’s goals
  2. Managing our own process in terms of project planning and regular communication so that even a messy challenge has a sense of order and accomplishment to it
    1. Our internal AND client-focused planning and shipping meetings need to feel tight and we should be making our clients and our own team feel focused and confident in the work ahead so they can give attention to the emergent aspects of the work
  3. Delivering what we promise and not promising something we can’t deliver
    1. For parts of the work that are emergent, we should clearly state that we can’t promise exactly what will happen. But when we put down a deliverable or outcome we expect to deliver, or even a session we plan to run, we deliver it and keep each other accountable for it.
  4. Delivering when we promise it; and communicating early and often about risks related to hitting those goals
    1. We all need to be excellent early communicators when we sense that we might need to deviate from our plan based on client conditions
  5. Owning when we slip up, with directness and humility (not getting defensive)
    1. Our honesty and commitment to improvement should feel like a revelation compared to their existing cultures
  6. Maintaining a positive attitude and belief in change, and a belief that our clients can grow and learn
    1. Feeling cynical might happen, being cynical cannot
  7. Acting ethically and in the best interest of our clients and partners
    1. We are asking for a lot of trust; that trust can be lost easily
  8. Promptly responding to client asks and communication (we must feel like partners and partners don’t go silent)
    1. Emails need to be acknowledged within the same day, even if this acknowledgement is a request for more time to properly respond. Calls should be returned in a matter of minutes or hours (within your work/life boundaries, of course). We should also pick up the phone and get immediate feedback from the client when we feel lost and need urgent direction.
  9. Being willing to problem solve with the client and customize aspects of our approach to fit their context and needs
    1. … As long as it doesn’t violate our desired impacts and what we believe is best overall for the work–no client can make us cause them harm, for example