14. COMMENTARY John Lennon once wrote a song that impacted the thinking of an entire generation. It went: Imagine no greed or hunger, It's easy if you try, No hell below us, Above us only sky, Imagine all the people living for today, I hope someday you'll join us, And the world will be as one. If we stop for a moment and imagine what Lennon was advocating, we may be able to comprehend what the future may hold in store for the consultant in the years to come. Given the nature of the global economy, the ever-shrinking geographical community of mankind, the depletion of the natural resources of the earth, the convoluted socioeconomic infrastructure of nations of the first, second, and third worlds, the individual consultant who uses his or her energy and talents to solve family, community, state, national, or world problems, will certainly become even more important in the next few decades. Each individual that assumes the role of consultant to any of the aforementioned clients, must imagine how he or she can contribute to improving the world as a whole. In the section on ethics, I reviewed many principles upon which the professional consultant needs to base his or her work. What is critical for the consultant to consider in any human interaction is: Am I doing the best for this person who has chosen me to assist him or her in solving the problems placed before me? When everything is added together, the mission of the consultant is to guide and support those who come to him or her for information, feedback, and knowledge. In this process, the client and consultant mutually share the responsibility for improving the lot of mankind. One is no more important than the other. Consultants cannot practice their trade without the permission of the client; the client needs the expertise of the consultant to assist in changing the system. Symbiotically, the process works and the outcome, if done for the proper reasons, can improve the quality of life. Somerset Maughm (1948) wrote in The Razor's Edge, "the path to wisdom is as difficult to pass over as the razor's edge." This aptly describes the path the consultant must take in his or her pursuit of such a career. To become a successful consultant the individual must prepare for the work by undergoing many transformations. It is not a profession one enters into just by going off to college, studying for a period of time, and then entering the field and accepting whatever assignments come his or her way. Education is just one facet of the process. The individual considering a consultant's role, may need to apprentice him or herself to a successful consultant to learn how to apply the theory learned in formal education (Tuller, 1992). Even this apprenticeship may not be enough. Somewhere in these formative years, the aspiring consultant needs to make a decision regarding what the true intent is for the work that she or he is considering undertaking on behalf of any client. This may cause the consultant to do some serious soulsearching. Fame and fortune are not enough of a motivator to make the individual successful as a consultant. Initially, many consultants do attain these material benefits from their work, but beyond these economic rewards, there is more. What is it that motivates the individual to forego these benefits and search for something more? I believe it is the mission stated by John Lennon. It is to imagine that "in my work, in my consulting, in my professional delivery of services to a client, I, and my client, will make the world a better place in which to live." This is no idealistic rhetoric. There is no reason to undertake any task, any assignment, any contract if there is no sense of the greater design - improving the condition of mankind. The process goes something like this: I imagine my work can and will produce such results. Then, I labor with all the skills at my disposal to make this happen. It is not a magical process. Hard work and more hard work only will produce results. Once some results are achieved, I shall review what I have done, determine if these are the results that were planned for, and then, if they were not, plan again to produce new results. The review process is continuous. The professional consultant never rests when present successes are achieved. There is always "one question more" he or she will ask. "What if...well, what if..." he or she asks and continues to improve his or her output. From the previous discussion, it is evident that the consultant's learning curve will never end. Learning will be a lifelong process. Even more evident is the fact that no one can lightly enter into this profession without having undergone some significant soul-searching. To entertain the notion that a few years experience are all that is necessary to perform the consultant's responsibilities effectively is to deceive oneself. An infinite amount of professional experience as well as being solidly grounded in theory are essential to provide services to any client. Perhaps this is one of the reasons so few consultants are in their twenties. It seems the developmental process requires many decades to "season" the individual. This is not to diminish the work of some relatively young people in providing services to some clients (most characteristically in the computer software field), but in general, most consultants are well into their forties and fifties when they "hit their stride." It is difficult to amass human experience without living through enough of it to be able to say, "I've seen this one before." If seeing is believing, then the consultant must not only see, but hear and feel a lot of action. In this experiential smelting process he or she will slowly evolve into a competent professional. Experience is not enough though. As a wise sage once said, "Experience can mean one of two things: that you have been doing the right thing or the wrong thing for 40 years" (Eye, 1973). Given all these considerations, the reader may ask whether or not all this effort is worth the struggle? It is not if the goal is just to have a job, do some work, make some money, or achieve some notoriety. Some consultants pursue this strategy, make money, and do well for a time. The work eventually wears them out. Their mission is not improvement of the world condition. A hollowness envelops the individual and the joy once present in the work disappears. No significant amount of work will produce the long-lasting effect the professional consultant needs to be pursuing if he or she makes the client dependent upon him or her. When everything related to a project is completed and the consultant walks away from it, the client should be able to stand alone, implement the change necessary to effect the organization, and not need the consultant's services any more. This is the irony of the entire consulting profession. If done well enough, eventually the consultant will not have any work to do. Clients will be doing their own work. The consultant can move on to other challenges - or perhaps just relax for a moment. I do not believe this goal to be idealistic or even romantic because when a person truly aspires to become the penultimate problem solver, this outcome is not beyond reason. In my profession, delinquent, adolescent chemical-dependency treatment, there is a macabre attitude that there will always be someone to treat. Few want to say, "let's do this job so well that there are no more kids that will need our services." This would make us obsolete. The treatment facilities would have to close and the economy would suffer. We would be out of a job. I cannot speak for other professions. My experience is currently limited to this specific field. Yet, if I could effect such a change, make the necessary economic, political, and social moves which would ensure that such a shift would occur in this society, I certainly would. My belief is that such changes can be made by both internal and external consultants who can and will struggle with the status quo and eventually produce outcomes necessary to make treatment systems truly effective. The dynamic quality of human nature prohibits simplistic solutions. Still, it is my diurnal hope that this will occur. What will these changes be and how will the consultant effect them? It is not in the scope of this paper to answer these questions. They are complex and at the same time, extremely important ones. What holds us back from confronting these issues is the willingness to wage an "all out war on juvenile crime." I believe it is the unwillingness of political and economic leaders to acknowledge the seriousness of the problem. Never in our history have we seen so many youths involved in criminal behavior and at the same time, spent so much money on enforcing the law and not on treating the child. Perhaps in the next decade, this dramatic shift will take place. How many more children must we bury before we wake up and realize we are destroying the potential leaders of the next generation? In the search for solutions, I am sure that it will be both internal and external consultants who will rise up like the phoenix from the ashes of the status quo, and one day, imagine that "there is a heaven" and then set out to get to a place and time where there is no more drug dependency; no more delinquency, no more juvenile institutions; no more juvenile justice system. And then there will truly be, "Peace on Earth." Imagine!