Other professionals do not suffer nearly as much as us in being dragged into engagements where the client or patient has been allowed to dictate the diagnostic process. Interestingly, many of us have discovered that these other professionals make the worst clients. The reason they avoid the problem we do not, and then create problems for us when they become our clients is the same: they take control. Other professionals are taught to drive the diagnostic process or risk their professional credentials. When they become the client in the practitioner-client relationship they do what they always do: they attempt to take control. And we let them. The result is usually an engagement gone awry.

The Root of Bad Engagements

When we think back now on our worst client experiences we can see that most of them were rooted in this mistake of letting a dominant client direct the engagement, beginning with a self-diagnosis that we took at face value. Thinking we are in the same business as retail clerks, somehow convinced that there is truth, or even nobility, in the line, “The customer is always right,” we took the money and did as we were asked.

When these engagements go wrong we cannot understand how the client can possibly blame us. “We only did as we were told,” we rationalize. We see him as demanding and difficult. He sees us as irresponsible order-takers not worth the money he is paying. He responds with more angry demands and again we comply, giving him what he wants. The spiral continues until finally we part, each blaming the other.

If design truly is a process, then we will define and guard that process and we will walk away from those clients and situations, like the pitch, where the process is dictated to us, or where we are otherwise asked to propose solutions without a proper diagnosis.