What Running in Bled Is Teaching Me About Consulting

An idea that seemed obvious

This year, I started offering runs to visitors in Bled, Slovenia, where I have been living for several years. I called it See Bled Differently.

Bled is known around the world for its lake, the little island with its church, and the castle overlooking it all. Living here, I have become increasingly fascinated by what lies behind that familiar picture. How did Bled become the place it is today? How have geography, history and tourism shaped the town and the lives of the people who live here? How can a place that welcomes millions of visitors from around the world retain so much of its village character, with all the opportunities, tensions and contradictions that come with it?

I wanted to share some of that with visitors, and running seemed a natural way to do it. I enjoy running, I know the area, and moving through Bled on foot offers a way to connect its different sides: old and new, nature and town, familiar tourist sights and places that reveal a different perspective.

So I prepared. I dug into the history, traced connections, collected stories and chose routes that would bring some of this to life.

When I started creating the website and promotional materials to invite people to join, I tried to explain how Bled’s history, landscape, tourism and everyday life connect, and how discovering these connections could give visitors a richer understanding of the place.

But communicating this turned out to be surprisingly difficult. Every time I tried to capture the different aspects of the experience, the description either grew too long or left out something I thought was important.

Then people started booking, and I discovered something I had not expected.

Why people actually joined

I asked my guests what had made them decide to join. The answers were remarkably simple. They liked running, and going for a run with someone who lives here sounded like a nice thing to do. One group had joined without even looking at my website. They had seen a picture and my phone number, and that was enough.

Once we were out running together, the conversations often turned to life in Slovenia. I had prepared for questions about Bled’s history and worried a little about whether I would know enough to answer them. But people were far more interested in what it is like to live here, how difficult the language is, what brought me to Slovenia and how everyday life compares with the places they came from. The historical details I had prepared so carefully have hardly come up.

Yet my preparation was not wasted. I know where to stop, what to point out and how to connect what we see to the larger story of the place. A building, a view or a feature of the landscape can become the starting point for a story. Guests do not need to know why I chose a route before they run it. What I have learned simply makes the run richer, with stories and connections appearing when they become relevant.

Looking back, I can see why I had struggled so much with the promotional material. I had put a lot of thought and preparation into the runs, and I wanted to communicate all of it. But my guests did not need all those explanations to become interested.

Trying to explain what I offer

Meanwhile, I have been facing a rather different challenge in my professional life. Since becoming an independent engineering consultant, I have been trying to find ways to communicate what I can offer and why someone might want to work with me.

Over the years, my work has taken me through many different aspects of complex engineering programmes: systems engineering, product development, integration and interoperability. Much of it involved bringing together technologies, teams and organisations to make an overall system work. On one project, for example, I helped four organisations align their technical contributions and responsibilities so that their separately developed systems could work together in a cancer treatment centre.

Experiences like this have shaped how I think about engineering programmes. Working independently has given me more time to explore these ideas, sharpen my thinking and develop a clearer picture of what matters. My interests and capabilities span many areas, from improving how engineering work is organised to exploring complex topics and sharing ideas through presentations, workshops and discussions.

And I have been approaching the challenge of communicating all this much as I did with the runs in Bled. I have spent a lot of time refining my positioning, rewriting my website, and developing articles and tools to explain my perspective. But the more I explore and develop my thinking, the more there seems to be worth explaining.

Who is interested in these explanations?

My articles and reflections tend to resonate with people who are already interested in similar questions, such as systems engineers or those exploring organisational structures and systems thinking. Sharing my thoughts publicly has helped me connect with people who share these interests. The conversations that grow out of these connections are both enjoyable and valuable. They bring new perspectives, challenge my assumptions and help me develop my own thinking further.

But I wonder how well this approach reaches the people I would actually like to work with: engineering leaders responsible for delivering complex products, or programme managers dealing with dependencies across teams and suppliers. I suspect they are rarely looking for someone to explain how engineering programmes work. They have real challenges to deal with and want to make progress.

Perhaps I am approaching this much as I approached promoting the runs in Bled. I am trying to communicate everything that sits behind what I can offer. But is that really what will make someone interested in working with me?

What is the consulting equivalent of a run?

With the runs in Bled, the invitation turned out to be remarkably simple. Someone sees a picture of me running near the lake, learns that I live here and offer runs to visitors, and thinks it sounds like a nice thing to do.

They can immediately imagine what they are signing up for. And the fact that I offer it at all already suggests that I care about the experience and have put some thought into it. They do not need to understand everything I have prepared or all the different aspects that make the runs special. Much of that becomes valuable once we are out running together.

I suspect something similar applies to my consulting work. My knowledge and experience shape how I approach difficult situations and what I can contribute. But much of their value may only become apparent once we start working together. The question is what makes someone interested enough to begin.

What would make an engineering leader or programme manager come across something I offer and think, “That sounds useful. I’d like to explore that”?

Engaging a consultant is, of course, a very different decision from joining a recreational run. There are budgets, responsibilities and expectations about results. Experience, credibility and trust all matter. And while I have learned directly from my running guests what attracted them, I have much less evidence of what would prompt someone to engage me professionally.

The runs have made me question how much I really need to explain before someone becomes interested in working with me.

I am still looking for it.