Developing Organisational Consultancy

Andraea Dawson-Shepherd, Kamil Kellner, Jean E. Neumann

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781317798613
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Developing Organisational Consultancy provides consultants with theoretical and practical advice on how to handle typical consultancy challenges. Well-established organisational consultants from the UK and the USA offer descriptions of problems they have encountered in their work, theoretical and practical approaches that they have found helpful, cases from their actual practice, and advice about how to apply their suggested approach generally.
Chapters are grouped together to address three key areas of interest to consultants:
* evolving a professional stance
* considering psychodynamic approaches
* applying organisational theory.
For both experienced and newly-practising organiszational and management consultants, this book is a valuable source of reference and the key to developing a more aware and successful practice.

Part I

Evolving a professional stance

Evolving a professional stance: Introduction

The editors have brought together five chapters for this first section of Developing Organisational Consultancy. Each chapter concerns an essential part of the consultant evolving a professional stance towards his or her practice. What we are advocating as editors, through the vehicle of our authors, is a standpoint that engages us all in an intentional application of applied social science and advanced self-directed learning. We believe that such a stance leads gradually by a natural process to greater professionalism in the practice of consultancy.

The authors are experienced consultants who have taken the time and energy to make explicit an aspect of their tacit knowledge. Through this process of articulating accumulated competence, it becomes possible for the organisational consulting profession to build a body of knowledge, skills, attitudes and values that can be passed on to the next generation of practitioners. More importantly, once written down, the craft of our profession can be subjected to debate and, thus, further development.

Although they are writing on different features of consultancy development, the authors of this section share a certain attitude of mind. They are asserting their opinions about what a professional practice of organisational consulting actually means. These assertions combine an element of craft, rules of engagement and reflection on experience in order to learn. In some regard, they focus on considerations to be made before, and in some cases after, a consultant embarks on an intervention with a client.

This section opens with ‘Negotiating entry and contracting’, which for many consultants is the toughest part of the consulting process. Author Jean Neumann provides a comprehensive discussion of the difficulties experienced during this crucial phase. It is during this phase that the consultant-client boundaries are set and mores established which then dictate the ongoing nature of the consulting relationship and the quality and value of the consulting intervention. The chapter covers: getting to the right level of authority to agree the remit of the intervention; how and when to discuss the fee and how to decide when the ‘meter’ starts running; how to ensure that the proposal which gets accepted allows the consultant to carry out a thorough job; fully paid for, without having to cut corners, particularly on the diagnosis and follow-up; and how to set up the relationship such that the objectivity and integrity of the consultant is not compromised. Powerful, yet commonplace case examples are used to illustrate these points. A set of guidelines provides practical advice on optimising the outcome of this step for both consultant and client.

With entry satisfactorily negotiated and the contract agreed, the next step in many situations is to consider how the intervention will commence, and in particular how any required interventions with groups will be structured. Tom Gilmore’s chapter, ‘The social architecture of group interventions’, looks at the issues of optimising the participation by individuals in large and small groups in order to maximise the outcome of any event. Focusing on the requirement of the group as created by the intervention’s objectives, Gilmore provides an overall design process as well as a range of specific tools to deliver successful group events. Detailed case examples show specifically how the process and tools can be used. Particular emphasis is given to the design of the highly popular ‘retreat’ for senior managers. The author is clear, however, that the guidelines he offers apply equally well to other types of group interventions.

The issue of consultant learning is addressed through the third chapter by David Wasdell. ‘The consulting organisation as an advanced learning system’ uses an evocative case study to guide the reader through the development of a learning process for a consulting organisation. The chapter explains the concepts of single, double and triple loop learning, and uses the chapter itself to demonstrate learning. Guidelines are provided on how consultants and their consulting organisation can learn to learn through their work and to continue to refresh their ways of learning over time and changed circumstance.

The fourth chapter by Raphe Berenbaum focuses on the particularities of being an ‘Internal consultant’, a topic of interest to internal change agents as well as to external consultants eager to collaborate across organisational boundaries. A suggestion on the merits for the client of using internal consultants as compared to external consultants is offered before discussing the special considerations internal consultants have to factor into their work. These additional considerations both aid and hinder the work of the internal consultant. In the latter category, the author covers three major issues: structure, perception and politics. The use of an explicit case study enables the reader to understand the issues faced and what factors will be key in making the choices on how to position and structure the intervention for a successful outcome.

Last in this section is a chapter entitled, ‘Ethics in management consultancy’. This is a subject which is not widely written about, but here author Paul Lynch discusses the major ethical issues facing consultants operating in a fast growing, increasingly competitive and yet unregulated market. Everyday examples are used to illustrate the potential dilemmas consultants face. Lynch puts forward the UK Institute of Management Consultants’ Code of Professional Conduct as a good set of guiding principles to ensure that consultants offer an ethical as well as professional stance to all their consulting work.

This opening section does not claim to be a comprehensive review of all aspects of developing a professional stance. The five chapters have been selected because they appear to the editors to be of interest to a wide range of consultants. Each chapter provides a list of references and further reading, enabling the reader to enrich their knowledge and explore issues raised in greater depth.

Chapter 1

Negotiating entry and contracting

Jean E. Neumann

The Problem

In order to be able to consult with an organisational client, practising consultants must successfully enter the organisation and come to an agreement. This agreement is with those people with whom they will be consulting, and is often called a ‘contract’. Negotiating entry and contracting requires consultants to undertake two tasks at about the same time. Consultants need to cross those geographical and social boundaries relevant to the immediate purpose of the consulting agreement; and they need to develop a mutual understanding with an authorised representative of the organisation. This understanding includes, at minimum, agreements about: the purpose of the consultancy; the general activities that will comprise the consulting work during a specified phase; the individuals or groups of people who will be involved and the relevant financial arrangements.

These seemingly straightforward tasks of entry and contracting often prove challenging to practising organisational consultants. Problems emerge almost at the first contact with a potential client; problems that fall on a point between two extremes. On the one hand, consultants become aware that they cannot enter in order to clarify the unique nature of the organisation until a detailed agreement is reached through telephone and written correspondence with a client representative. On the other hand, consultants find themselves spending vast amounts of time inside the organisation clearly having entered and often having started diagnosis. But, despite repeated efforts, they cannot manage to make a contract with an appropriately authorised individual.

An illustration of the contract-before-entry challenge is a situation in which the client system requires a tender. Here, the client requests a written proposal from the consultants for how they would work on a particular issue. The client representative expects the consultants to accept proffered information as valid fact and to propose an intervention based solely on a telephone call or a brief letter. The opportunity to enter properly is withheld until after the written proposal has been vetted. Consultants are faced with the challenge of presenting their consulting practice as if the unique qualities of the organisational client were irrelevant.

An illustration of the entry-without-contract challenge is a situation in which a middle manager, without authorisation, decides to initiate exploratory conversations with consultants. Here, consultants are invited into the organisation for an initial conversation with the manager. The generally positive chat ends with the manager encouraging the consultants to write a letter summarising the ideas explored. After more delays, the manager invites the consultants to come back into the organisation to meet the senior managers. After this meeting, time passes and the consultants or client suggests that the consultants meet others in the organisation to help clarify the way forward. This process can drag on for months. The consultants do not have a contract, but spend more and more (usually unpaid) time trying to get one. In fact, the consultants are doing the work of organisational consulting without the authorisation represented by a contract negotiated with a sufficiently senior manager.

These two challenges to successful entry and contracting grow out of a broader problem. It is not unusual for both consultant and client to be uninformed about the basic underlying cycles of activity that constitute professional organisational development. They naively imagine that entry and contracting is a short, straightforward business deal and not the more complex social-political interaction that it is.

Disregard for the importance of a proper diagnosis tends to be the most common casualty of this mutual ignorance. In the contract-before-entry version, the client assumes that standard interventions used by any and all organisational consultants will suit their needs. Consultants who refuse to offer tenders are assumed to be insufficiently skilled at selling and providing suitable products. More insidiously, the client hopes to decide which approach to purchase by comparing tenders from different consulting firms. It is not unusual for a client system to take the ideas of consultants in order to implement them without hiring any firm. It can be very difficult to convince such a client that interventions should be planned based on a competent, customised diagnosis of the unique, organisational problem.

In the entry-without-contract version, consultants assume that they need to diagnose the problem before an initial phase of work can be proposed. However, consultants also feel that the need for organisational diagnosis is their personal problem and therefore they should not be paid by the client. Or, perhaps, the consultants feel that they cannot convince the client to pay for diagnosis and, in the interests of not losing the entire contract, agree to undertake diagnosis for free.

This sense that diagnosis is illegitimate can be traced to both ‘super-consultant’ and ‘super-client’ fantasies. A ‘super-consultant’ can assess an organisation in a matter of minutes over the telephone and determine the appropriate intervention immediately. Therefore, consultants should be able to propose detailed organisational development interventions without even entering the site, as in the contract-before-entry example. A consultant who lacks this ‘super-consultant’ power should feel humble and not expect the client to pay for the consultant to learn about their organisation.

When it comes to diagnosis of their organisation’s needs for consulting, a ‘super-client’ has all the expertise of a professional organisational consultant. They already know everything there is to know about their organisation and have used this wisdom to come up with a request for proposals. They are able to avoid the bias or blind-spots to which lesser clients fall prey in their assessment of the organisation. They do not need to pay for an outsiders’ view of the situation; all they need is a pair-of-hands to implement the intervention they have already planned.

Unfortunately, this caricature captures an all too common attitude towards entry and contracting enacted between consultants and clients. The results are that clients often pay for improperly conceptualised interventions, and actions taken to resolve a particular organisational problem simply do not do so. Furthermore, consultants often feel exploited by their clients. Instead of insisting on their need to engage in a professional practice of the craft of organisational consulting, they accept whatever they can get from the client.

Negotiating with the Whole in Mind

Negotiating entry and agreeing a contract are the first two steps in a larger set of activities that comprise organisational development. Consultants need to undertake entry and contracting with this in mind. For short-term working agreements, the larger set of activities includes those necessary for effectively completing one entire cycle of organisational development.

For medium to long-term working agreements, the picture is slightly more complicated. Consultants need to consider activities necessary for completing one complete cycle of organisational development which constitutes a first contract or initial phase of work with the client. They also need to conceptualise the possible directions that the organisational development might take. That is, consultants need to be aware of how multiple cycles of organisational development might unfold.

The organisational development cycle

The practical literature on organisational development offers widely accepted definitions of the consulting cycle, in general, and the early stages in that cycle, in particular. For nearly 25 years, few authors have improved on Kolb and Frohman’s (1970) formulation of six basic stages. These are: scouting, entry and contracting, diagnosis, negotiating and planning intervention, taking action, and evaluating that action. The result of the evaluation is either to start another round of organisational development or to terminate the consultant-client relationship. Successful entry and contracting requires keeping the whole cycle in mind while completing the tasks unique to entry and contracting. Each stage is described in more detail below, with reference to how the work of the latter stages can be kept in mind during the early stages. Figure 1.1 illustrates Kolb and Frohman’s six basic stages, with the addition of either ending the contrac...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halr Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Part I Evolving a professional stance
• Part II Considering psychodynamic approaches
• Part III Applying organisational theory
• Index