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Consulting Methods Summary
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Week 1Book Chapter 1: A consultant by any other name
Consultant’s dilemma: Wan3ng to have influence and get people to take your advice but lacking
authority to control
Consultant = person in a posi3on to have some influence over an individual, a group or an
organiza3on but has no direct power to make changes or implement programs (manager is the
one who has direct responsibility over the ac3on)
⇒ “Every 3me you give advice to someone who is in the posi3on to make a choice” =
consul3ng
⇒ Consultants some3mes act as surrogate manager by taking over the managers role (ex:
comple3ng reports, hiring people, etc.)
Client = Person or persons whom the consultant wants to influence with their advice. The client
can be a single individual, work group, department, or a whole organiza3on
Line managers: Clients for the services provided by support people
Goal of consul3ng: CHANGE
2 levels of change:
a) Organiza3onal change (ex: a new compensa3on program)
b) One or more people in the organiza3on learn something new
3 main skills for consul3ng
1) Technical skills (knowledge about the field in which you are consul3ng, ex: accoun3ng)
2) Interpersonal skills (communica3on skills, ex: listening, maintaining rela3onships, etc.)
3) Consul3ng skills (successful comple3on of the 5 phases of consul3ng)
5 Phases of Consul3ng (on exam)
Phase 1: Entry and contrac3ng
• Ini3al mee3ng/ contact
• Exploring problem
• Consultant & client expecta3ons
Phase 2: Discovery and Dialogue
• Problem defini3on (who is involved? What methods will be used? What type of data is
needed? How long will it take? What role does the consultant/ client play?)
Phase 3: Analysis and the Decision to Act
• Analysis of data into concrete ac3ons to manage issues
, • Can some3mes be resistance to the data
• Se[ng goals for the project and best ac3on steps or changes
Phase 4: Engagement and Implementa3on
• Actually carrying out the planning of phase 3
• Consultant may or not be involved
• Ex: mee3ngs or training sessions to address a problem
Phase 5: Extension, Recycle or Termina3on
• Learning from the engagement
• Will the rela3onship with the consultant be extended or terminated?
,Book Chapter 2: Techniques are not enough
2 levels of opera3ng as a consultant
a) Content level: cogni3ve part of the discussion between you and the client (analy3cal/
ra3onal part of the discussion)
b) Rela3onship to the client (feelings about each other, ex: acceptance or tension)
⇒ Very important to also focus on the affec3ve (interpersonal) side of the rela3onship with
the client not just the content (problem at hand)
4 elements to the affec3ve side of consultant-client interac3on
1) Responsibility (should be 50/50%)
2) Feelings (paying close aeen3on to feelings about the client and their feelings about you
as a consultant)
3) Trust (can build trust by asking the client if they trust your confiden3ality, etc.)
4) Your own needs must also be considered and met (ex: acceptance and inclusion by the
client)
The consul3ng approach of the book: Key assump3ons about organiza3ons
- Problem solving requires valid data (understanding of what’s happening in the world?)
a) Objec3ve data about ideas, events, or situa3ons
b) Personal data (how individuals feel about what is happening to them/ around them)
- Effec3ve decision making requires free and open choice (essen3ally allowing people in the
organiza3on have some influence on decisions that impact them)
- Effec3ve implementa3on requires internal commitment (people will generally only follow
orders if they are personally commieed to the effort)
The consultant’s goals
1. Establish a collabora3ve rela3onship = maximum use of people’s resources & ensures
that their behavior (of the consultant) matches their message (how to solve a problem
using collabora3on)
2. Solve problems so they stay solved: Get to the root of the problem and ensure that
managers have the knowledge and skills for solving the problem themselves in the
future
3. Ensure aeen3on is given to both the technical/ business problem and the rela3onships
⇒ Also important: Building client commitment is the key to consultant leverage and
impact!
Roles consultants choose (Ed Schein, 1960s)
a) Expert role
• Manager plays inac3ve role, consultant responsible for results
• Decisions are made by the expert consultant (collabora3on not required)
• Technical control rests with consultant
• Disagreement unlikely
, Problems with expert role
- There is onen a human element to a problem (ex: organiza3onal fear & mistrust) and if
there is not collabora3on between the consultant and the manager it is difficult to discover
this aspect to the problem
- Advice from outsiders generally leads to less commitment by the organiza3on (manager &
employees) to follow the advice
b) Pair-of-hands role
• The consultant takes a passive role
• The manager makes decisions on how to proceed
• The manager selects the method for discovery and analysis
• Collabora3on is not necessary
• Two-way communica3on limited
• The manager specifies change procedures for the consultant to implement
• The managers role is to judge and evaluate from a close distance
• The consultant’s goal is to make the system more effec3ve by the applica3on of
specialized knowledge
Problems with the pair-of-hand role
⇒ Main problem in the discovery phase: It can be the case that the manager did not
develop an effec3ve ac3on plan or does not truly understand the problem
(implementa3on by consultant is used as a scapegoat)
c) Collabora3ve role
• Consultant and manager work to become interdependent (shared responsibility)
• Decision making is bilateral
• Data collec3on & analysis are joint efforts
• Control issues become maeers for discussion and nego3a3on (disagreement
expected)
• Two-way communica3on
• Implementa3on responsibili3es are determined by discussion and disagreement
• The goal is to solve problems so they stay solved
Problems with the collabora3ve role:
⇒ Managers who prefer to work with expert consultants may interpret a collabora3ve
approach as indifference or foot dragging
⇒ Managers who prefer to work with pair-of-hands consultants may interpret a
collabora3ve approach as insubordina3on
⇒ Collabora3on takes 3me
⇒ The fear people have with this role is that if the consultant gets too intertwined with the
client, the exper3se will be diluted and blurred (implies that the consultant and the
client have equal exper3se)
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