Secrets of Consulting

About the book

Secrets of Consulting is Gerald M. Weinberg's book about the craft of advising organizations and the people inside them. Its subtitle states the scope plainly: giving and getting advice successfully. Weinberg, a longtime consultant and software-process thinker, treats consulting as a set of interpersonal situations that recur across industries, and he addresses both sides of the exchange, the adviser and the client.

The book proceeds largely through short anecdotes and rules of thumb drawn from consulting practice, with headings that compress a lesson into a phrase. Weinberg's interest is in the human friction of the job: resistance, misdiagnosis, the consultant's own blind spots, and the politics of being an outsider who is paid to say uncomfortable things. Expect principles illustrated by story, without a step-by-step methodology or a formal diagnostic model.

That structure reflects Weinberg's background in systems thinking and his habit of treating organizations as collections of people with their own reasons for behaving as they do. The advice is practical and aphoristic, meant to be recalled mid-engagement rather than studied as theory.

How to read it

Approach the book as a collection of lessons rather than a linear argument. The short sections invite browsing and re-reading, and a reader looking for a sustained thesis or a validated framework will find the format loose. Track the recurring themes, such as the consultant's responsibility for the relationship and the cost of solving the wrong problem, and the anecdotes begin to reinforce one another.

The prose is plain and conversational, with a dry humor that keeps the material moving. Difficulty lies less in the writing than in the judgment required to apply the lessons; many depend on context Weinberg describes only briefly. Readers new to consulting may want a more systematic introduction alongside it, while experienced practitioners will recognize the situations and can test the rules against their own cases.

Who it suits

Independent consultants, internal advisers, and technical specialists who are asked to influence without authority will find the book useful because it addresses the relational side of the work that training rarely covers. Managers who hire consultants can read it to understand what good and bad advice look like from the inside. Anyone who must deliver unwelcome findings to people with more power will recognize the dilemmas Weinberg describes.

Reading considerations

The book dates from 1985, and its examples and business idioms reflect that period; the interpersonal lessons travel better than the settings. It offers judgment and anecdote, not evidence from controlled studies, so treat its rules as prompts for thinking rather than settled findings. Readers wanting a structured method should look elsewhere first.