Propuse
AT THE BEGINNING of every workshop I conduct on consulting skills, I ask people what they want to learn about consulting. The first wave of answers is very reasonable and task oriented.
How do you set up a project?
How do you measure consulting effectiveness?
Can you act as an umpire and helper at the same time?
What do you do to elicit client expectations?
How do you get in the door when you are not welcome?
How do you establish trust?
What are consulting skills anyhow?
When do we break for lunch?
… and on and on.
As we get into the workshop, it is easy to see the real desires that underlie these wishes. What do consultants want to learn about consulting? We want to learn how to have power over our clients! How do we influence them, get them to do what we want, manage in our own image? And while we are doing all of this to them, how do we keep their respect and appreciation?
The phrase “power over our clients” is a distortion of the more promising expectation to have power with our clients. If we want to control our clients, it puts us on a pedestal and them on the ground floor. This is a very unstable arrangement because clients soon realize we want to control them and are able to topple us with ease. Why shouldn't they be able to topple us: Managers get rewarded for keeping control and have to have political smarts or they wouldn't be managers. So the desire to have power over the client is a no-win position for the consultant. The realistic alternative is to have power with the client. To have direct and constructive impact while standing on the same level.
The point of maximum leverage for the consultant is probably during the contracting phase of the project. There are possibilities for impact that may be lost for the life of the project if they are not pursued in contracting. The contract sets the tone for the project, and it is much easier to negotiate a new, initial contract than to renegotiate an old one. Anyone who has been married more
How do you set up a project?
How do you measure consulting effectiveness?
Can you act as an umpire and helper at the same time?
What do you do to elicit client expectations?
How do you get in the door when you are not welcome?
How do you establish trust?
What are consulting skills anyhow?
When do we break for lunch?
… and on and on.
As we get into the workshop, it is easy to see the real desires that underlie these wishes. What do consultants want to learn about consulting? We want to learn how to have power over our clients! How do we influence them, get them to do what we want, manage in our own image? And while we are doing all of this to them, how do we keep their respect and appreciation?
The phrase “power over our clients” is a distortion of the more promising expectation to have power with our clients. If we want to control our clients, it puts us on a pedestal and them on the ground floor. This is a very unstable arrangement because clients soon realize we want to control them and are able to topple us with ease. Why shouldn't they be able to topple us: Managers get rewarded for keeping control and have to have political smarts or they wouldn't be managers. So the desire to have power over the client is a no-win position for the consultant. The realistic alternative is to have power with the client. To have direct and constructive impact while standing on the same level.
The point of maximum leverage for the consultant is probably during the contracting phase of the project. There are possibilities for impact that may be lost for the life of the project if they are not pursued in contracting. The contract sets the tone for the project, and it is much easier to negotiate a new, initial contract than to renegotiate an old one. Anyone who has been married more