Management Consultants

Part 1 - The profession

The consultant and client relationship

Geoffrey Kitt
Geoffrey Kitt FIMC CMC was 1994/95 President of the Institute of Management Consultants. He has 18 years' experience of management consultancy. He is a director of Minerva Management Consulting where he specialises in building competitiveness and effectiveness through lean, agile organisations and the use of technology.

Over the past three or four years a great deal has been written about the relationship between consultants and their clients. When assignments go wrong inevitably each party to the contract has a rather different perception of the situation.

The client will, usually, believe that the consultant just regurgitated what he or she had been told, didn't come up with any original ideas and produced recommendations which were either impractical or otherwise unacceptable. So all the client got was a report which couldn't be used and a fee note.

From the consultant's perspective it may look a little different. The client didn't provide an adequate briefing. They could never make time available for meetings but still wanted everything done in a hurry. They lacked the management skills or courage to implement the recommendations contained in the report. The report was, of course, a model of clarity and persuasiveness.

The truth, of course, lies somewhere between these two extremes of opinion. There will rarely have been a single failure which rendered the whole project valueless. There will have been a number of minor failures - probably by both consultant and client.

It may be instructive to identify the major pitfalls so that both parties can edge around them - or at least recognise when they have fallen into them. Like most relationships, that between a consultant and a client will be most fruitful (and long-lasting) if it is based on a degree of trust and mutual respect.

Putting your cards on the table
Some projects go wrong right at the start. As a client, it is one thing not to lead the consultants by concealing your own views but it is quite another not to give them enough information to carry out the project. Before engaging consultants, you may also need to consider what you will do if they come up with a conclusion which you will not welcome. And as a consultant you need to know where the line is between being 'unprejudiced' by earlier experience and not having the technical knowledge to meet the client's requirements. All of this amounts to a degree of honesty between consultant and client at the start of the project which, although not unusual, if absent will make it pretty difficult to achieve a satisfactory outcome from the project.

Keeping channels of communication open
As I have already hinted, once the project is under way it is important to have a lot of contact between consultant and client. I am firmly of the view that it is the responsibility of the client to manage the consultant, not the other way round. Some of the client management that I have observed being carried out by consultants might be more aptly entitled manipulation!

Most consulting assignments provide for periodic reviews of progress. Sometimes, particularly in large public-sector projects, these look more like set piece battles and do not, therefore, fulfil the important need for lots of informal contact. The consultant, in particular, should wish to test his or her views and conclusions as the work progresses. It's amazing just how far and how quickly a project can go off track if this doesn't take place. Blind alleys can be fascinating places in which to carry out lengthy research at your client's expense.

From the perspective of the client it will be reassuring to see that the project is running to schedule and that any problems are dealt with before they achieve threatening proportions. It is inevitable that the presence of consultants within an organisation will give rise to reactions ranging from mild interest to outright hostility if there is no preparation before the work starts and if relationships are not managed throughout the project. One good way of pushing morale through the floor is to not bother telling your staff that consultants have been engaged until they turn up trying to arrange meetings with people. The consultants can also burn up more of your money if they are required to explain the purpose of their project to everybody they meet.

Acceptable recommendations
Just suppose that we've navigated most of these pitfalls before and during the work. Success is certain, right?

Wrong.

Consultants are often, and quite rightly, accused of producing expensive but useless 'shelfware' - elaborate reports that do not prompt action. Many organisations have large collections of such material. I have very strong views on this issue. A meticulously researched, carefully framed and objectively correct recommendation which a client will not accept is of no value. Equally, as consultants we do our clients no service by merely telling them what they want to hear. Some of them actually object to this - calling it 'watch borrowing'.

A recommendation is only useful if a client will do something with it which improves his or her position. Clients may be unwilling to accept the 'right' answer for very good reasons. Therefore, it is important that the consultant approaches the project with a knowledge of his or her client's comfort zone. It may be possible to persuade a client to accept and act upon a recommendation outside this area but it will be very much harder. I recall once being briefed by a client in the public sector at the start of a project. One unusual feature of this briefing was that I was left in no doubt about what I was expected to recommend. This attempt at influencing me was so blatant that my client's assistant was moved to warn her boss that 'consultants are only so good at taking dictation'. When I eventually recommended something else I was at least prepared to have to justify my views with some vigour. The opportunity for test-selling recommendations before committing them irrevocably to a final report can make the difference between a satisfied client and a notable reluctance to pay a fee note.

In conclusion, there is really no magic formula which makes the relationship between consultant and client work. It's all an ACT - based on Anticipation, Communication and Trust.