W. Edwards Deming said “Help must come from outside because a system is not capable of understanding itself.”
In other words, it can be hard to see the wood for the trees. This is true whether we’re talking about a single person or an organisation i.e. whether in coaching or consultancy.
What Deming didn’t say, but perhaps we might add, is that help must come from outside because people, and, therefore, organisations do what they do unconsciously. They’re not aware of the gap between what they’re doing and what they could be doing. If they were, they would be doing it already.
Unconscious competences aren’t always useful. Just because we’re good at something, doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.
So…
From the outside, it can be very obvious what the system isn’t understanding about itself because (1) it doesn’t have perspective, and (2) what it needs is outside conscious awareness.
Benefit then in involving someone to bring perspective and stimulate realisation.