The Good Consultant · Part I: The Invitation · Early draft
Fire Seeking
Story
One of the healthiest programmes I ever joined was also one of the most dangerous.
The roadmap was green. Features were shipping. Leadership was pleased. The engineering teams were busy. Every meeting reinforced the same story: things were going well.
It took less than two months after I left for a critical capability to fail. Recovery took months.
Nobody had ignored the problem.
Nobody had hidden it.
Nobody had made a reckless decision.
The problem simply sat in the growing pile of things everyone assumed someone else was thinking about.
That experience changed the way I consult.
It also changed the way I think about leadership.
Observation
Most organisations don't fail because they don't work hard.
They fail because they become comfortable with the story they're telling themselves.
Success has a habit of narrowing curiosity.
The longer something appears healthy, the fewer people feel permission to ask awkward questions.
Every organisation has invisible fires.
Technical debt that nobody owns.
Decisions nobody remembers making.
Capabilities everyone assumes somebody understands.
Customers adapting to broken experiences without ever reporting them.
The interesting question isn't whether these fires exist.
It's who is looking for them.
Principle
Good consultants don't wait for fires. They seek them.
Not because they're pessimistic.
Not because they enjoy criticism.
Because curiosity is an act of care.
Fire seeking means deliberately looking for:
- assumptions that nobody has challenged
- risks that nobody owns
- behaviours that have quietly become normal
- conversations everyone avoids
- success measures that no longer measure success
It's the discipline of refusing to mistake activity for progress or confidence for understanding.
Approach
Fire seeking is less about tools than habits.
Whenever I join an organisation, I find myself asking questions that rarely appear on status reports.
What are we no longer talking about?
What assumptions would surprise us if they turned out to be false?
Which decision still shapes today's work even though nobody remembers making it?
Where does everyone believe somebody else has ownership?
What uncomfortable conversation would create the most value if we had it this week?
These questions aren't complicated.
They're simply uncomfortable.
That's why they matter.
Reflection
I've come to believe that the role of a consultant isn't to solve the most visible problem.
It's to help an organisation notice the problems it has stopped seeing.
The same is true for founders.
For CTOs.
For investors.
For boards.
And, perhaps most importantly, for ourselves.
Curiosity isn't something we grow out of as we become experienced.
It's something we have to protect.
Because the day we stop seeking fires is usually the day we begin walking past them.
A question to leave with
What uncomfortable truth has become so familiar that nobody in your organisation thinks to question it anymore?