When is a guru not a guru..?
When their involvement makes your organisation weaker instead of stronger
“The syllable Gu indicates darkness, the syllable Ru means its dispeller. Because of the quality of dispelling darkness, the Guru is thus termed.” — Advayataraka Upanishad 1
In the English-speaking organisational domain, the label “guru” is liberally applied to three types of individual:
A genuine, widely recognised authority in a specific domain of expertise, seen as a “go to” person for their deep knowledge, experience, and advice which they share through teaching, consulting, and publications such as books, talks, interviews, articles, websites, and platforms such as Substack and LinkedIn.
A self-appointed, self-promoting “authority”, majoring in spin over substance, trendy catchphrases and buzzwords over deep insight, and marketing prowess over genuine mastery. Prominent on Instagram and, increasingly, LinkedIn.
An academic or executive who attracts a following based on their occupation of a high-profile role — past or present — in an impressive-sounding institution.
All of these “gurus” are a far cry from the actual meaning of the term — as unpacked in the Advayataraka Upanishad at the top of this article.
A genuine guru is someone who helps you make the shift from darkness to light — specifically the shift from your darkness (confusion, false certainty, mistaken belief) to your light (clarity, wisdom, awareness of the limits of your own knowledge, etc).
In more organisationally familiar language, a genuine guru would help you get better at sense making. They wouldn’t undermine your sense making capacity by convincing you to replace your sense making with their sense making instead.
When someone doesn't help you do better sense making but instead seeks to replace your sense making with theirs, they induce a shift from your darkness to their darkness — replacing your limited perspective with their limited perspective.
So, taking a bit of poetic licence with Sanskrit, they're not a “guru” but a “gugu” — someone who takes you from one domain of darkness (yours) into another domain of darkness (theirs).
But it gets even worse…
Instead of taking you away from your darkness, they can inflict far greater damage by taking you away from the emergent light of your own sense making — drawing you into the darkness of their methodology, approach, or framework — so they can monetise you.
So, with apologies to any Sanskrit scholars, instead of a “guru” this is a “rugu”.
Why is a “rugu” so much more damaging to your organisation than a “gugu”?
In an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world, organisational success and even survival depends on the ability to continuously sense and respond in appropriate ways to the ongoing emergence of novel, unforeseen, opportunities and threats.
It’s this context that makes it increasingly imperative for organisations to create future-fit cultures of innovation, agility, and adaptiveness — in which sense making, decision making, and action taking are tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded, and widely distributed throughout the organisation.
A future-fit culture like this can never emerge if the organisation outsources its sense making to outsiders — because doing so actively weakens the sense making muscles of the organisation.
This weakened sense making in turn atrophies the vital organisational capacity to continuously iterate sense making, decision making, and action taking — essential if it is to shape a vibrant future by creating continuous new value in the world.
By way of analogy, imagine learning to drive but remaining so dependent on your driving instructor that every time you reach a junction you have to bring the instructor back to tell you which road to take.
Why would a putative “guru” allow themselves to become a “rugu” — undermining the future fitness of clients organisations in this way?
Mostly because by cultivating dependency on their pay-to-play sense making services, client organisations become a nice juicy source of future revenues...
I recently saw an article in which the CEO of a consultancy trumpeted that their portfolio includes client organisations they’ve been working with for 15 years.
This begs the question as to how effective their services can be if their clients are unable to stand on their own feet after 15 years…
Nowhere is this deliberate cultivation of dependency more prevalent than in the operating models of mainstream “Big Con” consulting firms — where it’s been right at the very heart of their marketing strategy for more than 60 years. 2
The long-tern effect of this multi-decade dependency is crisply captured in Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington’s book “The Big Con”:
“The scale of contracts with the consulting industry — via roles as advisors, legitimators of controversial decisions and outsourcers — weakens our businesses, infantilizes our governments and warps our economies. The cumulative use of big consultancies that operate with extractive business models stunts innovation and capacity development, undermines democratic accountability and obfuscates the consequences of political and corporate actions. In the end, we all pay the price through the lack of in-house investment and learning: public funds and other resources are wasted, decisions in government and business are made with impunity and little transparency, and our democratic societies are deprived of their dynamism. The Big Con imperils us all.” 3
I’m not suggesting organisations should never bring in external advisors. There are bound to be times when outsiders can genuinely help an organisation.
But it’s vitally important that any external sense making helps improve, not impede, the client organisation’s own capacity for sense making, decision making, and action taking as well joined-up, dynamically iterated, and constantly renewing capabilities.
Even for advisors who try to avoid the deeply mercenary tactics of Big Con firms, the undermining of client organisation capacities can be a subtle, seductive, and slippery slope.
It can be very alluring to have clients and their organisations depend on you.
It makes you feel important.
It makes you feel needed.
And it can do wonders for your cash flow… 4
But the fundamental question is does your “help” actually help client organisations need less outside help in future?
If not, does it really justify being called “help”?
Ready to take action?
My website provides a range of free resources to help you build your organisations capacity for sense making, decision making, and action taking — as well joined-up, dynamically iterated, and constantly renewing capabilities.
Discover how to make the shift for yourselves, by yourselves, from “organisation as machine designed and operated to maximise shareholder returns” to “organisation as human community for shaping a vibrant future by creating continuous new value in the world”.
Contact me to keynote at your next leadership conference or executive retreat, book one of my popular 90-minute "pick Geoff’s brains" sessions for senior executives, or enquire about my supervision support for future-fit culture catalysts.
The Advayataraka Upanishad dates from 100-300 BCE. The the term ‘guru’ is explained in verse 16.
See this 11-minute video on How management consulting went rogue
The Big Con: How the Consulting Industry Weakens our Businesses, Infantilizes our Governments and Warps our Economies, Mariana Mazzucato and Rosie Collington ISBN-13 978-0593492673 (Quote from p9 of 344. Kindle locator 496 of 7360.)
For more on this topic see the previous post “Expertise — a double-edged sword”.