Scarcity and Abundance in Consulting

IN THIS POST, I LOOK AT SHIFTING FROM A PARADIGM OF SCARCITY TO A PARADIGM OF ABUNDANCE IN CONSULTING IN ORDER TO BETTER SERVE CLIENTS AND ULTIMATELY MY DESIRED FUTURE IN CONSULTING.

Scarcity and Abundance in Consulting

In working with a colleague over the last few weeks I found myself challenged with sharing thoughts, ideas and materials. Was I giving away my ‘intellectual property’? What would happen if others were more successful than me with what I perceived as my ideas, or material? After a serious internal conversation I decided to write about scarcity and abundance, a topic that has always been a chosen state for how I engage with others.

Theories of scarcity and abundance exist in several academic fields, including game theory, (evolutionary) psychology, cultural anthropology, (political) philosophy, economics, and organization theory.  Scarcity is all about fear; you are afraid that there won’t be enough for you…enough money, enough time, enough clients…whatever it is that you feel you need in life. Scarcity focuses on what little you have and assumes the worst; maybe that’s all you’ll get and if you aren’t careful you will even lose that. Scarcity means that we evaluate our life, or work in terms of what it lacks.  Scarcity is about protecting and guarding what we have, or what we know from others. In contrast, abundance is just the opposite of scarcity. Abundance is about hope and opportunities. In a state of abundance there is more than enough. When we operate with an abundance mentality there are enough resources for everyone. In his document “The Shared Abundance Philosophy A World of Giving is A World of Receiving” Bob Johnson highlights the principles of the Shared Abundance Philosophy as:

• The More You Share, the More You Will Receive
• Competition Only Exists in the Scarcity Mindset
• Aligning with Your Greatest Competition Will Bring You the Greatest Success
• Both Scarcity and Abundance are Self-perpetuating
• Give Back Before You Are Successful

Applying Shared Abundance Philosophy to Consulting – Consulting organizations now are ripe for profound transformation. Traditional consulting business models operate mostly within the scarcity mentality and are fiercely competitive. In this traditional model, return on investment is focused primarily on providing value to the shareholders. We talk about providing value added service to our clients, but often our focus is inward. In the shared abundance model, the return on investment is focused primarily on delivering results to the client. Shareholders ultimately gain greater value when consultants put the emphasis on the client and the client’s success. If the client feels that we as consultants are committed to providing them the services they require they are more apt to seek us out for future work. In turn, the company earns more revenue benefiting the shareholder.

Scarcity among consultants – Consultants both independent and within consulting organizations often let their knowledge die (and their business along with it) by holding tightly onto their intellectual property instead of a developing a sharing mentality around their work. They hold on to certain aspects of their business that might be better managed/handled by someone else or they say ‘yes’ to certain clients when both would be better served if they referred those clients out. In some cases they may hang on to clients when it’s really time for the client to move on alone or with another consultant.

Shared abundance among consultants – If we look at consulting through the lens of shared abundance the exact opposite is true. The more you share, the more you will receive abundance by sharing. As consultants, none of us works independently; we share ideas, thoughts, resources, and materials often building together a better product or service than we could have alone. When working with clients, we might serve them better by referring them to someone else who is more suited or qualified for the specific clients’ needs, or partnering to create the greatest good for the client. In doing this we eliminate the scarcity mentality, which ultimately hurts the client, the consultant, the business, and consulting’s reputation overall. As consultants, in order to help our clients and their organizations design effective organizations in a world of ever increasing complexity, we need to discover and adopt work practices focused on abundance.

Associated Literature:

Feyerabend, P., & Terpstra, B. (1999). Conquest of abundance: a tale of abstraction versus the richness of being. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Johnson, Bob (2005). The shared abundance philosophy, a world of giving is a world of receiving. Retrieved online from: http://www.leadersearch.com/PDF/SharedAbundancePhil.pdf