Excerpts from an interview with Michael A. Goodman
... continued

Interviewer: OK. I have to ask: Why Rasputin? Wasn’t he something of a charlatan? Is he an appropriate role model for contemporary management consultants?

Goodman: I knew that was coming. I gave a lot of thought to whether Rasputin was the right “poster child” for consulting or not. I concluded that he is, and here’s why:

First, he’s probably the best known consultant in history. He actually did a lot of things right when it comes to consulting. Of course, eventually he was killed by some of the nobles in the Russian palace, so he must have done some things wrong too.

I actually use the story of Rasputin to identify 26 lessons every consultant needs to learn. It turns out that most of them are things Rasputin did right and that would serve as an excellent tutorial for consultants today. And understanding the things he did wrong is just as valuable – lest a new consultant find that he or she is about to meet the same fate as Rasputin.

You know, the Russian Empire collapsed just weeks after Rasputin was killed. And Rasputin was a kind of folk hero among the Russian commoners in the early 20th century – a monk, or holy man, who came from humble, peasant roots and ended up advising the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. Not bad for someone who came to consulting as a second career, eh?

Continue with the interview

Return to Rasputin For Hire homepage