FLAWLESS CONSULTING
Chapter 3- Flawless Consulting
The two keys to flawless consulting
1. Be Authentic: you put into words what you are experiencing with the client as you
work. Line managers know when we are trying to manoeuvre them, and when it
happens, they trust us a little less.
Example:
Client says: “If you will just complete your report of findings, my management group and I will meet
later to decide what to do and evaluate the results.”
Consultant experiences: Exclusion from the real action. Postponement of dealing with the problems.
Nonauthentic consultant response: “There might be some information that I have not included in the
report that would be relevant to your decision-making process” [or acquiescence].
Authentic consultant response: “You are excluding me from the decision on what to do. I would like
to be included in that meeting, even if including me means some inconvenience for you and your
team.”
2. Complete the requirements of each phase: These requirements are the business of
each phase and must be completed before moving on:
Phase Requirements Definition
Negotiating wants Client and consultant
specify what the want from
each other
Cope with mixed motivation Address clients mixed
motivations (they are
usually in dual minds about
working with a consultant)
Contracting
Surface concerns about Client usually fear looking
exposure and loss of control as incompetent, lose power
over their work- get them to
talk about it
Understand triangular and Look for other people
rectangular contracts. influencing decisions, eg.
Client’s boss, your own boss
Discovery and Inquiry Layers of inquiry Find layers to the problem,
underlying issues
Political Climate Understand people, politics
of the situation and how it
would affect your
recommendations and their
implementation
Resistance to sharing Address client’s
information apprehensions and resistance
to sharing information
The interview as a joint When sticky issues come up
learning event during the discovery phase,
we need to pursue them and
not worry about
contaminating the data or
biasing the study- do not
simply be passive observers
Funnelling Data Reduce data into a
manageable number of
actionable items
Presenting personal and We also pick up data on our
organizational data client’s management style.
We learn about the politics
of the situation, and about
people’s attitudes toward
the organization. One
requirement of the feedback
phase is to include this kind
of information in our report
Managing the meeting for The main goal is to work
action. on the decision about what
to do. The more the
Feedback and Decision to
feedback meeting can
Act
address what to do, the
better the chance is of
implementation.
Focusing on the here and Usually the feedback
now process becomes victim to
the same management
problems that created the
need for your services in
the first place
Don’t take it personally The reaction of the client to
your work is more a
response to the process of
dependency and receiving
help than it is resistance to
your own personal style
Engagement and Bet on engagement over How you involve people
Implementation mandate and persuasion. will determine their
commitment at each stage
Design more participation Each meeting has to be
than presentation an example of the new way
of working and demonstrate
that employee attitude will
dictate success.
Encourage difficult public Trust is built by dealing with
exchanges the difficult issues early and
publicly. Create room for
doubt and cynicism from the
beginning.
Put real choice on the table Resist the temptation to
package the whole solution
early in the name of speed.
Commitment may be more
important than perfection.
Change the conversation to Structure the conversation
change the culture toward personal
responsibility, questions of
purpose and meaning, and
what will be unique and new
about the proposed changes.
Pay attention to place The room itself, how
everyone is seated, and the
way we run the meeting
carry strong messages about
our intentions
Other Points:
1. Results:
being a consultant—and not a manager—means you have direct control and responsibility
only for your own time and your own support resources. Whether your recommendations get
implemented or not aren’t in your own hands.
2. Accountability:
All you can do is to work with clients in a way that increases the probabilities that they will
follow the advice and make the effort to learn how to operate the furnace or make the effort
to deal with others in a different way. The key to increasing the chances for success is to keep
focusing on how you work with clients. (should be held accountable for one’s own actions
and expertise)
3. Right to fail:
Pressuring clients to feel we have immediately helped them can be a tremendous obstacle to
the learning we are trying to promote. A second reason consultants can’t judge their work just
by managers’ reactions is that client managers have a right to fail, whether we like it or not.
Chapter 4: Contracting Overview
The point of maximum leverage for consultants is probably during the contracting phase of
the project.
A contract is simply an explicit agreement of what the consultant and client expect from
each other and how they are going to work together. It is usually verbal and sometimes
written down.
For consulting contracts- not for legal purposes, but for clarity of direction and action- is a
“social contract”.
Legal contracts contain two basic elements that apply to consulting relationships:
1. Mutual Consent: Both sides enter the agreement freely and by their own choosing.
2. Valid Consideration: Valid consideration (consideration is the exchange of
something of value between the consultant and the client) must be given both parties
for a solid contract to exist.
Some more tangible items that consultants need that should be a part of the
original contract:
a. Operational partnership in the venture.
b. Access to people and information in the line organization
c. Time of people in the line organization.
d. Opportunity to be innovative
Here is a list of the consulting competencies required to complete the business of
contracting. You should be able to:
Ask direct questions about who the client is and who the less visible parties to the
contract are.
Elicit the client’s expectations of you.
Clearly and simply state what you want from the client.
Say no or postpone a project that in your judgment has less than a 50/50 chance of
success.
Probe directly for the client’s underlying concerns about losing control.
Probe directly for the client’s underlying concerns about exposure and vulnerability.
Give direct verbal support and affirmation to the client.
When the contracting meeting is not going well, discuss directly with the client why it
is not.
ELEMENTS OF THE CONTRACT: (what to include)
1. The Boundaries of Your Analysis
2. Objectives of the project
a. Solve a particular technical or business problem.
b. Create a new possibility for the organization.
c. Teach the client how to solve the problem for themselves the next time it
arises.
d. Improve how the organization manages its resources, uses its systems, and
works internally.
3. The Kind of Information You Seek
4. Your Role in the Project
5. The Product You Will Deliver (be specific with your offering, eg. Report, survey etc)
6. Support and Involvement from the Client
7. Time Schedule (start date, milestones, end date)
8. Confidentiality
9. Feedback to You Later
Ground Rules for Contracting:
1. The responsibility for every relationship is 50/50. There are two sides to every story. There
must be symmetry or the relationship will collapse. The contract has to be 50/50.
2. The contract should be freely entered.
3. You can’t get something for nothing. There must be consideration from both sides. Even in
a boss-subordinate relationship.
4. All wants are legitimate. To want is a birthright. You can’t say, “You shouldn’t want that.”
5. You can say no to what others want from you. Even clients.
6. You don’t always get what you want. And you’ll still keep breathing. You will still
survive; you will still have more clients in the future.
7. You can contract for behavior. You can’t contract for the other person to change their
feelings.
8. You can’t ask for something the other person doesn’t have.
9. You can’t promise something you don’t have to deliver.
10. You can’t contract with someone who’s not in the room, such as clients’ bosses and
subordinates. You have to meet with them directly to know you have an agreement with
them.
11. Write down contracts when you can. Most are broken out of neglect, not intent.
12. Social contracts are always renegotiable. If clients want to renegotiate a contract in
midstream, be grateful that they are telling you and not just doing it without a word.
13. Contracts require specific time deadlines or duration.
14. Good contracts require good faith and often accidental good fortune.
Chapter 5: The Contracting Meeting
When the client makes the request to meet with you, I recommend these questions, at a
minimum, over the phone.
What do you want to discuss?
Who is the client for this project?
Who else will be at the meeting? What are their roles?
How much time will we have?
Do you know that you want to begin some project, or are we going to discuss whether
we do anything at all?
In general, the clients on a project are the people who
Attend the initial planning meeting
Set the objectives for the project
Approve any action to be taken
Receive the report on the results of your work
Are significantly impacted by the effort
Outlined in Figure 2 is a series of steps that lead to either an agreement to work together or an
agreement not to work together.
NOTE: check the highlighted chapter for definitions of each of these terms (they’re pretty
straightforward though)
There are three major sections to the meeting:
(1) understanding the problem and exchanging wants,
(2) closing the meeting by checking on client concerns and commitment, and
(3) getting unstuck when agreement is difficult.
Chapter 10: From Diagnosis to Discovery
WHEN THE CONTRACT is clear and you are ready to deal with resistance, attention turns
to the discovery phase. There are two primary purposes for this phase: to develop an
independent and fresh way of looking at what is going on and to create a process that leads to
client commitment, ownership, and action. This means that the goal of discovery is not to be
right but to be effective and powerful.
In recent years, a way of thinking different from diagnosis has emerged—one that focuses
more on possibilities than problems. Instead of looking at what is wrong, at deficiencies, we
look at what is working, what the strengths and gifts are, and seek to deepen and take
advantage of those assets. This is variously called an asset-based approach or a strength-
based approach.
1. Positive Deviance: this discovery strategy looks for examples in the system where
something is working well. Rather than showing up as experts or even researchers,
they simply listen to examples of where something is working.
2. Appreciative Inquiry: the whole discovery process focuses on what is working well
for an organization, what traditions and rituals are worth sustaining, what dream or
vision for the future is in people’s minds
To summarize, remember to do these things in the discovery phase:
Ask questions about the client’s personal role in causing or maintaining the presenting
or target problem.
Ask questions about what others in the organization are doing to cause or maintain the
presenting or target problem.
Involve your client in interpreting the data collected.
Recognize the similarity between how the client manages you and how they manage
their own organization.
Condense the data into a limited number of issues.
Use language that people outside your area of expertise will understand.
Distinguish between the presenting problem and the underlying problem.
Elicit and describe both the technical problem and how it is being managed.
