Considering the information presented in our text and the links provide this week, reply to each of the following questions and reply to peers.  1. Provide and example where using jargon and impact a client experience in a negative way?  2. After reviewing on the multiple links with examples of the language of consulting, provide three terms that you had never heard before.  3. After watching Zachary Wood’s video, do you think you will change how you listen to others who you disagree with? Explain?  4. After reading our text and ethical issues within consultanting, provided three (3) examples of how you can demonstrate ethical processes and procedures as a consultant. For each example provide a real-world example/connection of how this process or procedure will help develop, foster, or strengthen long-term client relationships 

The Management Consultant
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The Management
Consultant
Mastering the art of consultancy
Richard Newton

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PEARSON EDUCATION LIMITED
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Tel: +44 (0)1279 623623
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First published in Great Britain in 2010
© Richard Newton 2010
The right of Richard Newton to be identified as author
of this work has been asserted by him in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN: 978-0-273-73087-3
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Newton, Richard, 1964-
The management consultant : mastering the art of consultancy / Richard
Newton.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-273-73087-3 (pbk.)
1. Business consultants. I. Title.
HD69.C6N495 2010
001–dc22
2009050850
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Acknowledgements / vii
Preface / ix
Introduction / xi
part 1 Understanding consultants and consultancy
1 Consultants and consultancy / 3
2 Why does anyone buy consultancy? / 23
3 Your consulting service / 41
4 The three core processes of client-centric consulting / 58
part 2 Consulting engagements
5 Finding and winning work / 77
6 Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients / 108
7 The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation / 132
8 Closing engagements and sustaining results / 147
part 3 High-performance consulting
9 Developing long-term client relationships / 169
10 The ethical dimension / 181
11 The language of consulting / 199
12 Knowing when to say no / 220
13 Key consulting tips / 234
14 The client’s perspective – buying consultancy / 251
Conclusion / 269
Contents
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part 4 Additional resources for consultants
A The tools, processes and materials of a consultancy business / 275
B References / 279
C Sample proposal letter / 281
Index / 285
Contentsvi
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I would like to thank five consulting colleagues who I started working
with years ago in Coopers & Lybrand. Although our careers have moved
on in different ways, we still work together from time to time. More
often we meet up, share stories and enjoy laughing about the occasion-
ally pretentious side of the profession. They are: Graham Jump, Peter
Meredith, Perry Childs, Richard Ellis and Andy Macey.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my son Konrad for inspiring me to write the
book, when he admitted that he really did not have the faintest idea
what I did.
Acknowledgements
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This book is a personal guide to the art of management consulting. It sets
out to help new and experienced consultants to do one thing: to become
better consultants. In simple terms, better means providing help that is of
the most long-term value to your clients. The approach is also simple: to
identify what it is that the best consultants do that their less effective col-
leagues do not – and how you can do it, too. Underlying this is my belief
in client-centric consulting.
The contents are derived from three sources. The first source is my expe-
rience as a consultant (working for Coopers & Lybrand, A.T Kearney,
Ernst & Young and my own company Enixus). Secondly, my experiences
in industry as a client – negotiating, buying and managing consultants.
Finally and most importantly, I have a network of trusted consulting col-
leagues whose ideas have flavoured the book. Like a magpie I have picked
up ideas and concepts throughout my career. I have shifted through
them, throwing away most, keeping hold of the ones I like and think are
precious. Many ideas in this book are my own, but of course I have learnt
from others. I can’t remember the sources of all of these, so I am sure
more credit is deserved than I have given.
There were several reasons for writing this book, but two of them stand
out. Firstly, there are comparatively few books on consulting, unlike
many other management disciplines. Look at the business book selection
in a good bookshop or online, and you will find many on strategy, lead-
ership, marketing, delivering change and project management, to name a
few areas. But consulting books are relatively scarce, scarcer than an
industry of its size justifies. There are a few good books on consulting,
but they do not approach the audience in the way I want to.
Preface
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The second reason comes down to my frequent frustration when I work
with or engage other consultants. The simple truth is that the profession
often does not live up to its own hype. This is not to deny that there are
many brilliant consultants out there, and I have been lucky enough to
work with and learn from a few of them. But there are many consultants
who know they should be better to justify their fees. Worse, there are
some very mediocre consultants who mistake being paid a lot with being
good. As supposed experts in business, it is amazing how often consult-
ants provide inadequate value to their clients.
Management consulting is a large and very varied industry. The range of
skills and services that fall under this title are huge. The difference in the
type of work of the most expensive strategy houses compared to a project
management consultant is so great that they may not even recognise
each other as being in the same profession. There are some books that set
out to address components of this industry. They tend to describe various
tools and techniques of consulting. The best tools and techniques are
only applicable in some situations and even if you know them it does
not make you necessarily an effective consultant. I wanted to write a
book for all management consultants.
The book contains tools and techniques, but it is also intended to make
you think like a consultant: how do effective consultants think about their
work and their clients? Consulting experiences are varied, and each is
unique. By thinking like a consultant, irrespective of the situation you are
in, you will be able to deal with any situation in the most effective way.
Prefacex
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Introduction
Ask someone in business to define the title ‘management consultant’,
and you will get a wide variety of responses, not all of them complimen-
tary! The title covers an extensive range of roles providing a variety of
services. There are no universally recognised standards for being a man-
agement consultant and as a result there are very varying levels of
quality. In addition, many people want to be management consultants
but do not know what it entails.
There are many consulting success stories, and numerous people have
become comfortably well off as consultants. Given this success, it might
be thought that the world was full of praise for management consultants.
Yet, if you ask many customers in the private and public sector about
their feelings and experiences of consultants, you will often be met with
sceptical and even highly negative comments. There are numerous causes
for these responses, but they can be summarised into three major cate-
gories. Firstly, too many consultants simply do not provide sufficient
value to their customers and rely on churning out the same old work
time and time again. Secondly, even good consultants with valuable
knowledge often fail to understand true client needs. Thirdly, it is unfor-
tunate to say, but there seems to be a number of very poor management
consultants. This problem is compounded by the already mentioned
lack of widely recognised standards for consultancy which can be used to
judge or benchmark consultants against.
A key reason for the negative perception of consulting is the fact that too
many consultants are focused on what they have to offer and how they
make money, rather than what clients need. Too many consultants pro-
vide context-free and generic advice, whereas what clients need is advice
that is tailored to their specific culture and context. Overall, too many
consultants spend too much time trying to be clever, rather than asking
themselves what actually makes a good consultant?
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This book will describe those factors that make good consultants and
how consultants can go about providing client-centric consulting. It
describes consulting from the viewpoint of the client, and so will help
consultants understand what will make them successful. The book will
help in deciding on how to provide the most
appropriate services and advice to clients. Rather
than considering the tools and processes of con-
sulting, as most other consulting books do, it
focuses on the skills of successful consultants –
what they do that makes them successful, success in this context being
defined as client results, not only in terms of financial returns for the
consultant. Finally, the book contains many tips from the author’s and
his colleagues’ years of experience in consulting.
There is a huge number of management consultants and business advi-
sors of one form or another. Management consultancies have been one of
the great business success stories of the past 40 years, with some now
employing tens of thousands of people in worldwide businesses, deliver-
ing significant profits to shareholders and partners. At the other end of
the scale there are thousands of small consultancies and independent
consultants. As employment patterns change, more and more people are
choosing to work as consultants.
There are many attractions to a career in consulting. For some, consulting
may seem the only choice following redundancy from a senior position.
There are many examples of initially despondent redundant managers
finding not only a better income, but more enjoyable work in consultancy.
For others, it is a lifetime career choice that starts from university, even
though few students have any real concept of what being a consultant
entails. Many people enter the consulting profession for a more flexible
lifestyle, although this is harder to achieve in practice than it might seem.
Whatever the reasons for considering it, consultancy is a great opportu-
nity. Companies appear to have an increasing and insatiable demand for
advisors and interim managers. Providing services can be very profitable
and give consultants a high standard of living. But consulting also has
risks. It’s an increasingly competitive environment as more people are
drawn to the profession. Select the wrong services or sales approach, and
consulting will be a stressful profession. There is also the constant uncer-
tainty about what happens when the current engagement is complete.
Many people assume that simply because they have some specialist
expertise, they can be a good consultant. Certainly, expertise is an
Introductionxii
“the book focuseson the skills of success-
ful consultants”
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xiiiIntroduction
essential foundation. This book assumes you have an area of specialist
knowledge and can competently apply the techniques and tools of your
specialisation. But specialist knowledge is not enough. It is not intended
as a tautology when I say that the core competency of a successful con-
sultant is the skill of being a consultant. It is not a profession for everyone
– there is a specific art to being a consultant.
Although the consulting industry is successful, that success is in jeop-
ardy. Fee rates for many organisations, including some of the largest
firms, are lower in real terms than they were previously. Clients are
becoming more adept at controlling consultants and extracting the best
value from them. More and more people are entering the consulting
industry, meaning that to excel the standards are rising all the time.
Consultants need to raise their game.
This book sets out to provide you with guidance to what makes a great
consultant, irrespective of where you fit amongst the incredible variety of
management consultants. It avoids the constraints of focusing on specific
elements of consulting or approaches to consultancy, and instead takes a
client-centric view of what is needed to provide expert consulting.
Although this book contains approaches, the fundamental questions it
seeks to answer are what makes a great consultant and building on that,
how do you achieve this?
Contents and structure
There are 14 chapters and two short additional reference lists in the
book. The book is broken into three main parts. In the first part
(Chapters 1–4), I explore what it means to be a management consultant
and how to go about setting yourself up as one. In the second part
(Chapters 5–8), I discuss how to go about winning work and delivering
value to clients. In the third part (Chapters 9–14), I discuss a range of
broader issues which set the context for consulting and will give you
some additional tips and techniques to being a successful consultant.
The book has been designed to be read from cover to cover, but you can
dip into it as you require. If you want to reference parts individually, the
detailed contents of each chapter are described in the following table:
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Introductionxiv
Chapter title Chapter summary
1 Consultants and consultancy Introduces the key terminology and concepts used
in the book and provides an overview of what being a
consultant means.
2 Why does anyone buy Explores how successful consulting starts by
consultancy? understanding the reasons clients have for buying
consultancy. This is essential knowledge for anyone
wanting to provide client-centric consulting.
3 Your consulting service Looks at the range of services you can offer as a
consultant and how to position your skills and
experience as a saleable client service.
4 The three core processes of Discusses the core engagement process and then puts
client-centric consulting it in context with the client’s change process, and the
client’s operational process. Understanding this
relationship is at the heart of client-centric consulting.
5 Finding and winning work As a commercial business, consultants must find
opportunities and sell their services to clients. This
chapter discusses the processes and approach to
winning work.
6 Delivering consulting Investigates the central work of a consultant –
engagements and satisfying delivering consulting engagements which add value
clients to the clients.
7 The alternative approach – Describes an alternative approach to expert
process consulting and facilitation consulting – process consulting – which can be
used to deliver entire consulting engagements or as a
tool on an engagement.
8 Closing engagements and All consulting should result in some change in a client,
sustaining results otherwise it delivers no value. Often the change takes
place and must continue after the consultant has
finished their work. This chapter considers how to
achieve change, and how to sustain it after a
consulting engagement is complete.
9 Developing long-term client Describes the advantages of having long-term client
relationships relationships and how to develop them.
10 The ethical dimension Considers the ethics of consulting, and the potential
ethical dilemmas that regularly face consultants and
ways to deal with them.
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xvIntroduction
Chapter title Chapter summary
11 The language of consulting The central tool of the consultant is language. This
chapter describes some approaches to communications
and explores the topic of consulting jargon.
12 Knowing when to say no Not all consulting opportunities are worth pursuing.
This chapter describes the characteristics of
engagements which consultants should avoid if
possible.
13 Key consulting tips A summary of useful key tips from experience.
14 The client’s perspective – A short review from a client’s perspective of issues to
buying consultancy consider when purchasing consultancy.
Conclusion A brief summary of the role of the management
consultant and topics covered in this book.
A The tools and processes of a A summary of the key processes and tools any
consultancy business consulting business requires.
B References A short list of references that have influenced the
author’s thinking, and may be useful to readers.
C Sample proposal letter A sample proposal letter for readers to adapt.
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Understanding
consultants and
consultancy
part
one
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Consultants and consultancy
This chapter answers the questions: what is a management consult-ant and what is management consultancy?
You may be an experienced consultant who wants to pick up a few new
tricks. On the other hand, maybe you are new to consulting and want to
gain a better understanding of what it is all about. This chapter is aimed
primarily at the novice consultant, whether you are considering joining a
major consultancy, are starting out as an independent consultant, or
have been recruited as an internal consultant. It provides an overview of
some of the fundamental concepts in consulting. Most of the book is
about how to be a consultant. As an opening to the subject this chapter
answers what being a consultant means.
To gain the most from this book it is important to understand what a
management consultant is, to be familiar with some common consulting
terminology, and to appreciate the difference between being a consultant
and other roles. If you want to be a management consultant, it is helpful
to recognise why you want to be a consultant and to think through
whether or not it is a profession that can meet your desires. To achieve
this it is useful to have at least a basic grasp of the economics of a con-
sulting business. This chapter sets out to do all of this. There is nothing
complex here, but it is important as it provides the foundations for the
rest of the book. This chapter covers a disparate range of topics that com-
bined give a basic, but essential, picture of consulting.
chapter
1
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Understanding consultants and consultancy4
One small, but noteworthy point: rather than write the phrases ‘manage-
ment consultant’ and ‘management consultancy’ repeatedly, I shorten
these to ‘consultant’ and ‘consultancy’. There are other types of consult-
ants and consultancy, and many of them could find something useful in
this book, but the focus is on the management variety.
What is a management consultant?
There is a large and growing band of people who call themselves manage-
ment consultants. Some people are management consultants but do not
use this title, preferring labels such as business advisor, strategy consultant,
operational consultant or even leadership consultant. These and related job
titles encompass a divergent and eclectic group of individuals.
The work such people do varies enormously. The fee rates range from low
to very high, and the length a consulting project may vary from hours to
years. Clients who use consultants can be the owners of firms, managers
of one level of seniority or another, or the main board directors of major
corporations. Clients can also be staff in the public sector and not-for-
profit organisations. Some consultants are employees of the firms the
consulting takes place in, others are external but
regular faces within an organisation, while many
are individuals who appear in a client organisa-
tion for a short time and never reappear again.
Their areas of specialist expertise go from obscure
pieces of business to generalist management advice. Given this huge vari-
ety, what is it that is similar that enables them to be bundled together as
management consultants? It is not easy to come up with a concise defini-
tion that covers this assortment of roles.
The problem with describing the role of a management consultant is
compounded by the fact that some existing definitions have been writ-
ten by people who are not consultants, and who do not understand fully
what consultants do. But listening to professional consultants can
equally be misleading. Those who are consultants have a vested interest
in making the role sound majestic and magical, and to bias any descrip-
tion towards the type of work they specifically do. I have read definitions
of management consultancy in sales brochures, books, dictionaries and
various online encyclopaedias. A few definitions are the hopeless sum-
marisations of people without any real understanding, some are correct
but focus on irrelevant aspects of the role, many are good, but do not
quite manage to encapsulate the role and its variations.
“it is not easy tocome up with a concise
definition”
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Given the wide variety of consultants, rather than starting with a defini-
tion, I will list characteristics to provide an appreciation of the role of a
consultant. As little in this world is absolutely black and white there are
caveats with each one of these characteristics.
Consultants do the following seven things:
1 They provide advice and recommendations to managers, and may
provide assistance with the implementation of the recommendations.
Caveat: Consulting companies may provide a whole range of services,
from pure consulting to training and outsourcing. Not all of this is
consulting. Consulting is about providing useful advice, and helping
managers to implement the advice.
2 They base their advice and recommendation on a set of skills and
expertise, or intellectual property they have available to them.
Caveat: This is what should happen. However, ask any experienced
manager and they can probably tell you of the time they spoke to or
even engaged someone who purported to be a consultant but who
had very limited skills, experience or intellectual property.
3 They consult. This may sound obvious given the name, but it is often
forgotten. What I mean by this is that consultants engage in dialogue
with an organisation and its staff, and apply their expertise to develop
recommendations, taking account of the specific needs and context
of that organisation.
Caveat: Some firms called consultancies do not consult. Such firms
may be very successful in selling research, benchmarking data or other
types of information. Consultants do not sell products or give the same
advice to everyone. There is nothing wrong with selling a product, but
irrespective of how it is branded, it is not management consulting.
4 They are involved with a given client on a temporary basis.
Caveat: The length of a consulting project may be anything from
hours to months. Occasionally, it may be years, although it is difficult
to argue that someone who has worked continuously in one
organisation for years is still working as a consultant. (Internal
consultants work for one organisation, but they will be working on
different projects across a range of departments or divisions.) It is not
unusual for a consultant to work regularly for the same client, but
each piece of work is of a limited duration.
5 They are independent. A consultant should be providing advice or
recommendations irrespective of the internal politics and vested
interests of an organisation or the managers who are their client.
51 � Consultants and consultancy
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Understanding consultants and consultancy6
Caveat: Consultants are human, have their own business interest to
consider, and naturally have their own biases. But a consultant’s
biases should be independent of a client’s biases.
6 They are not paid for from an organisation’s normal staff budgets.
Caveat: A manager who wants to employ a consultant needs a budget
for it. This is often true even for internal consultants who charge back
their time, and if they do not, they remain an overhead to the rest of
the business.
7 They add value to a manager and the client organisation by helping
them to change. Value can take many forms, such as improved
decision making, faster change implementation, reduced business risk
and so on.
Caveat: At least they should do! Reality is not always so clear cut.
If we take these seven characteristics of a consultant and take the most
pertinent points it is possible to develop a definition of a consultant that
is true in most situations:
Essential consulting jargon
To get the most from this book it is important that we start with a
common understanding of the basic terminology surrounding manage-
ment consultancy. Some words, or pieces of consulting jargon, will be
used repeatedly through the book, and if you are new to the industry
then it’s important you become familiar with these concepts. I am not
generally a big advocate of jargon (see Chapter 11), but there are words
and phrases that are continuously used by consultants. Most of these
may be obvious and intuitively understandable, some are not specific to
the consulting industry, but they are essential to know.
Consultants tend to talk about clients, rather than customers. The con-
cept of a client is explored in the next chapter. In general terms, the word
is used both to refer to a specific manager who gives the consultant direc-
tion on a consulting project, and the organisation in which that manager
works. Hence a consultant may think of the client as Mr Peter Smith
of the XYZ Company, or may consider it to be the XYZ Company. To
A consultant is an independent advisor who adds value by helping managers to
identify and achieve beneficial change appropriate to their situation.
Definition
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differentiate, when I refer to a client I am talking about a person (or
group of people), when I am talking about the organisation the client
works for I use the term client organisation.
Once employed by a client, the specific consulting project being under-
taken is usually referred to as an engagement or sometimes a live
engagement. A client is one of a larger group of stakeholders a consultant
must deal with. Stakeholders form a set of individuals who consultants
must take into consideration when delivering an engagement.
To win some work consultants engage in business development. Business
development relates to time that is not (usually) chargeable to a client,
and includes activities that are associated with marketing a business and
pursing specific sales. The aim of business devel-
opment is to identify opportunities, and then
convert these opportunities into live engagements
and hence have some chargeable time. An oppor-
tunity is the situation in which a client has a need
for some consulting support. To convert an oppor-
tunity into an engagement and hence be able to
charge fees, consultants must normally write a description of the service
they will provide to the client. This description is called a proposal.
Chargeable time is the time when a consultant is billing fees to the
client. Once an engagement is complete, consultants often seek to sell
on, that is to sell a subsequent consulting engagement to the client so
the consultant can remain chargeable.
In order to sell regularly, and for proposals to be successful, consultants
may have service lines. A service line is a specific area of expertise that a
consultant or a consultancy company invests in (see Chapter 3). For
instance, one consultancy may have a service line in improving the man-
agement of IT departments, and another may have a service line to
increase innovation in business. Service lines may be the informal
labelling of expertise of individual consultants, but they can also be the
formal documentation of processes and approaches to consulting by
larger consulting companies. Service lines and any other knowledge or
approaches are often called intellectual property or intellectual capital
by consultants. Intellectual property has a specific legal meaning, but
many consultants use this phrase in a looser fashion than the legal defi-
nition requires (see Chapter 3).
One of the most important measures of a consulting business is utilisa-
tion or chargeable utilisation. Utilisation is a measure of the proportion
71 � Consultants and consultancy
“consultants mustnormally write a
description of the
service they will
provide”
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of time a consultant is working on fee-paying work on a client site.
Hence, a consultant who is billing three days a week is 60 per cent
utilised. It is normally not possible for a consultant to be 100 per cent
utilised because some time must be spent on business development, the
creation and maintenance of service lines, and holiday.
How does consulting differ from other roles?
Developing a full understanding of the role of the consultant is helped
by understanding the difference between a consultant and an employee,
a manager or a business leader. The boundaries between being a consult-
ant and, for example a manager, are grey, but there are important and
definite differences.
Let’s start by considering the role of a consultant versus an employee in
the organisation using consultants. The obvious point is that a consult-
ant is not an employee of the organisation they are helping, but an
employee of a consulting business. Why does this matter? Most consult-
ants want to do a good job that satisfies a client, but their performance
assessments, pay increases, promotions, ongoing praise and criticism are
not done by the client organisation. All these are influenced by their per-
formance with clients, but consultants have different motivations from
client staff. Consultants are never fully part of a client organisation’s
team. For example, a client may regard a consultant as having done a
brilliant job by providing fantastic advice. A consulting company may
judge the same consultant to have only done an average job because he
did not manage to make any additional consulting sales.
A consultant can be part of a client organisation’s project team, and in
doing this share some goals with other client staff, but consultants are
always to some extent independent from the client organisation. Their
incentives and performance drivers are different. This is true even for an
internal consultant. Obviously, an internal consultant is employed by the
same company as their clients, but is not employed by the same depart-
ment or part of the same management hierarchy. This is not necessarily a
bad thing – a consultant who is as much part of your team as any other
employee will struggle to give truly independent advice.
What about the difference between being a consultant and a line man-
ager? Like managers, consultants often are hard working and want to
produce a quality result, but this is relative to the scope of a consulting
engagement. They do not and arguably cannot deliver an end result in a
Understanding consultants and consultancy8
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91 � Consultants and consultancy
client organisation, and do not live with the outcomes of their recom-
mendations. If a consultant is providing advice, then, if the advice is
accepted, a line manager has to implement this advice somehow. Even if
consultants help with implementation planning or a change implemen-
tation project, they do not end up working with the results following the
implementation. Consultants are temporary visitors to an organisation –
it is line managers who must live with the results of any consulting
engagement.
There is another point about consultants compared to managers. Many
consultants are ex-senior managers with a good understanding of the
challenge of managing a department. On the other hand, whilst all con-
sultants advise, some have never managed anything of any significant
complexity. Even relatively senior career consultants, who became con-
sultants from university, may never have managed a team of more than
20 people. For someone in an operational role with several thousand staff
and a budget of hundreds of millions, a consultant’s understanding of
the reality of dealing with this number of people and scale of budget will
appear limited. The consultant’s response to this should not even
attempt to be an expert line manager, but to provide focused specialist
expertise beyond that of a normal manager.
Finally, what about a consultant compared to a business leader? Many
consultants fancy themselves to be great leaders, and some have the
potential. There are well regarded business gurus who have come from a
consulting background, but a guru is not a leader – a guru is an influ-
encer and a shaper of opinions. Sometimes you
see a successful chief executive with a background
in consulting, and they are probably a great
leader. But on the whole I am sceptical about pro-
fessional consultants as leaders. The consultancy
profession encourages the development of a range
of skills which sometimes can be mistaken for
leadership, such as strong communication and influencing skills.
Normally though, consulting does not require significant leadership
skills. You can be a very good consultant without having the ability to
lead or inspire.
The fact that consultants are different from employees, managers and
business leaders should not be taken as a criticism of consultants.
Consultants are not employees, managers or leaders – because that is not
what the role entails or requires. Consulting is a very different role from
“you can be a verygood consultant
without having the
ability to lead or
inspire”
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being an employee, manager or leader. Consultants must appreciate these
roles, be able to work with them and be able to influence them. Some
consultants may have a background in organisations which required
them to manage or to lead, but this is not universally true. Consultants
should not forget that the role of the consultant is to consult, not to
manage or to lead.
Now, having said all this, comparing consulting to other roles
does to some extent depend on the type of consultant being talked
about. There are two dimensions of consulting we should be aware of
and differentiate:
1 Internal or external consultants: An internal consultant is a full-time
employee of an organisation who has a role as a consultant to the
business. Typical examples include human resources (HR) or internal
change management specialists. An external consultant is someone
who is engaged for a specific consulting project, but otherwise is
independent of an organisation. Internal consultants tend to have a
greater understanding of an organisation’s culture and are familiar
with many aspects of a business that an external consultant will take
some time to learn or understand. External consultants will typically
have a broader range of experience and have done work similar to
their current engagement in other organisations.
2 Strategic, operational, implementation or specialist: Many
consultants work in a wide range of roles and float between providing
strategic advice, helping with implementing it and supporting
operational managers. But generally we can differentiate between
consultants (and consulting companies) who advise organisations at a
strategic level – what direction a business should be taking; at an
operational level – how the business should be run on a daily basis
efficiently and effectively; or at an implementation level – how to
deliver projects and changes (which may be derived from the advice
of a strategic or operational consultant). There are also specialist
consultants who focus on a particular area of advice. Arguably all
consultants should be specialists, but what I mean here are, for
example, consultants who focuses on very specific areas such as
regulatory compliance advice or on minimising technology costs.
Another thing to consider is whether the work being done is consulting
or another related profession. There are several job titles in common use
which are often employed in relation to consultants, or in relation to
people doing work that can seem similar to that of a consultant. The
main examples are:
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111 � Consultants and consultancy
� Contractor: A contractor is a temporary employee who is usually paid
a day rate to complete some work which is of a transitory nature,
where it is not appropriate or not possible to employ a permanent
member of staff. This covers a wide range of areas – from office
cleaners to very short-term senior staff. The overlap with
management consultants is that many projects require temporary
staff, and these are often contractors. Organisations are often left with
a choice of whether to use contractors or consultants. A rough
difference is that a consultant is employed to advise or provide skills
the client does not have access to, and a contractor is employed as an
extra pair of hands to increase the capacity of an organisation beyond
that available with existing permanent staff.
� Interim manager: An interim manager is a specialised form of senior
contractor. An expert manager is engaged to perform a management
role for a limited period of time – for example because a senior
manager is ill or on maternity leave. Interim managers should be
expert managers, who fit quickly into even the most senior
management roles. It is really impossible to define hard and fast
boundaries with consultants, as many consultancies offer interim
management services and some consultants regularly work as interim
managers – but when they do they are not working as a consultant.
� Coach/mentor: It is common to pay for professional coaching and
mentoring, to help individual managers. Such work is normally done
on a one-to-one basis. Coaches and mentors are slightly different, but
they are both concerned with helping individuals to reach their full
potential. A consultant may work as a coach or mentor to individual
managers, but there are also professional coaches and mentors, who
rightly do not consider themselves consultants.
� Facilitator: A facilitator is someone who uses facilitation skills to help
a group or team resolve some issue or problem. Facilitation is one of
the most misused words in business and is explored further in
Chapter 7. Facilitation is often closely associated with workshops, but
it is possible to use facilitation in other situations. Facilitators do not
advise directly, but help clients to solve their own problems. I regard
facilitation skills both as an expert profession in its own right, but to
a certain degree also a core skill of all consultants.
It is worth understanding the differences in these roles, which can be
real, but the boundaries are often exaggerated for commercial or personal
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reasons. Professional interim managers, facilitators and coaches have
valid reasons related to the nature of the roles to differentiate themselves
from management consultants, but it also makes commercial sense to do
so as well. Many consultants have the necessary skills and often work in
one or more of these roles, but you should not assume that all consult-
ants can or even need to be able to perform such roles effectively. Put
another way, you can be a successful consultant without, for example,
having the capability to coach or be an interim manager.
Varieties of consulting organisations
There are many different organisational structures you can work in as a
consultant, and the choice is important as it will affect the type of proj-
ects you do, the nature of the day-to-day work, and the level of risk and
uncertainty you expose yourself to. There are essentially four ways you
can work as a consultant:
1 as a solo or independent consultant working for yourself or your own
company
2 as an employee of a major consulting company
3 as part of an organisation offering a portfolio of services of which
consulting is only one – the most common is the consulting, IT
development and outsourcing company, but there are other variants
4 as part of a small consultancy company.
To some extent the choice depends on personal preferences, and what
opportunities are open to you. I have worked in organisations in all these
models.
The independent consultant is usually either someone who has worked
in a larger consultancy but wants a more self-sufficient lifestyle, or an ex-
senior manager who now wants to advise rather than manage. There are
many reasons for choosing to become independent. I now prefer to work
for my own company as it enables me to max-
imise my personal flexibility. The cost is that I am
completely dependent on my own ability to find
projects and generate an income. However, once
you have an established reputation this is not that hard. Organisations
always need help. Additionally, as my business costs are comparatively
low, and I have other revenues, should I choose not to work for a few
months I do not need to generate significant revenues to cover my
Understanding consultants and consultancy12
“organisationsalways need help”
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business costs. I have access to a wide variety of work. I even undertake
some very large engagements as I have a network of trusted colleagues,
and we work together often to deliver larger engagements than a single
consultant can manage.
At the other extreme are the major consulting companies. If you have
little experience, are a recent graduate or like to combine consulting with
a corporate culture these are the organisations for you. The big consul-
tancies can be attractive places to work. For example, they tend to give
great opportunities for professional development, international working
and arguably reduce your personal risk as you have teams of people
around you also helping to win and deliver engagements. Additionally,
the larger firms often win massive projects which may require leading-
edge thinking and techniques, although on the largest projects you can
feel like a cog in the machine rather than a real consultant. If you
become a senior manager (or partner) in such organisations the rewards
can be high. But it does mean all the baggage that comes with corporate
life such as annual appraisals, fitting in with company culture and worry-
ing about things like brand risk. Big consultancies are also notoriously
political environments. Some are focused on people who fit their specific
organisational culture, which can give the consultancy a very defined
feeling that will not suit everyone.
Companies offering a portfolio of services beyond consultancy provide a
large variety of career options. However, if your firm is not purely a con-
sultancy, there is always the tension over how independent the consulting
advice is and whether it is really just a sales channel for other services.
Some outsourcing firms have very successful consulting divisions, but
there is always a doubt in some clients’ minds as to whether the consult-
ing is impartial advice or a funnel to win outsourcing contracts.
Whilst I am happy not to work for a large firm any more it is fair to say
that I probably could not do what I do now had I not learnt what I did
working for the major consultancies I was employed by. It is by no means
a bad place to start.
There are many smaller consultancies, which offer a compromise
between the complete self-sufficiency of the sole trader and the corporate
hierarchies of the larger firms. Some of the smaller consultancies are
industry leaders in specific consulting niches. For instance you can find
consulting firms who specialise solely in financial regulation, telecom-
munications, customer services or cost control in manufacturing. If you
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have a particularly focused specialisation there may be a firm for whom
you are a perfect fit.
Why do you want to be a consultant?
If you roughly understand what a consultant is, then it is time to reflect
on whether and why you want to be one, and if your reasons have a real-
istic chance of being fulfilled.
The best reason for wanting to become a management consultant is simply
because you enjoy the process of consulting with clients. Of course, if you
have never worked as a consultant what ‘consulting with a client’ means
will be unclear. If you do know, and this is the reason for becoming a con-
sultant, then you are well set for a successful career. However, most people
have more pragmatic grounds for becoming a consultant.
A common reason to join the profession is the potential variety of the
work. Although as a consultant you may work in a specialist area, you
will work in many organisations. The context and culture of the organi-
sations and details of the problems will vary significantly. I find
consulting work highly varied. I have worked all around the world, for
companies in a wide variety of sectors, with clients of differing levels of
seniority, to help resolve a divergent range of problems. However, if the
service you will provide to organisations is very specialised – for example,
helping them to be compliant with a specific piece of industrial regula-
tion – what variety you gain from different clients you may also lose in
essentially doing the same piece of work again and again.
Some people join consulting for skills development. This typically arises
from one of two sources. Development may happen because of the wide
variety of challenging work you are involved in. And there is no quicker way
of improving your skills than doing a wide variety of challenging work.
Alternatively, and this is most true for graduates coming into consulting, it is
because you join a company who understands that its key asset is people
and hence is willing to invest significantly in their development. Consulting
does provide a great way to develop a powerful set of useful skills, such as
problem analysis, communication skills and influencing skills. One impor-
tant exception to this is that if you want to learn how to manage people
then you will be better off seeking an operational line management role.
However, this brings me to another potential advantage of consulting. If
you want to, you can avoid much of the burden of line management that
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151 � Consultants and consultancy
goes with a corporate role. Some individuals love managing people, some
hate it. If you work for a large consultancy you may still have staff whom
you have to performance manage and motivate, but the teams tend to be
small. As an independent consultant staff management is not something
you have to worry about.
Graduates often want to join consultancies for the lifestyle and travel.
There are a few professions which enable you to travel even more and to
wilder places, such as mining and oil exploration, but generally there is a
fantastic opportunity to travel as a consultant if you want to – especially
if you are multi-lingual. Such travel can be exciting and rewarding.
Working in foreign countries gives you a perspective that other travellers
never gain, but it is a double-edged sword.
Travelling all the time can be dull. You have to be
a little shallow to be really interested in having
gold frequent flyer cards with several airlines.
Often the locations sound exotic, but an office is
an office wherever it is in the world. Continuous travel will also play
havoc with your social life.
Some people want to enter consulting for the money. The money earned as
a consultant can be good, but of course it depends what you are used to.
Few consultants achieve the rewards of the chief executive of a major com-
pany, unless they happen to become a senior partner in a big firm. On the
other hand, most reasonably successful consultants earn more than senior
middle managers and junior executives in most other industries.
There are much more down-to-earth explanations for becoming a con-
sultant. Some people just fall into it. I was recruited by Coopers &
Lybrand out of industry, and frankly I had no idea what consulting was
but it was better money, which for a young man with a family seemed
an attractive proposition. I was lucky in that it is a career that has suited
me immensely. Other people come into consulting because they feel
they have no other choice. Perhaps they have been senior managers
who find themselves late in their careers having been made redundant
and, irrespective of age discrimination laws, cannot find a suitable alter-
native role. These are not necessarily bad reasons for entering the
consulting profession. We are all, at times, hard-nosed about our careers,
and just because you entered the profession as way of overcoming
redundancy does not mean it will not be a huge success. On the other
hand, simply because you have some business skills does not mean you
will thrive as a consultant.
“working in foreigncountries is a double-
edged sword”
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A phrase that has become common recently is the ‘portfolio career’. This
is a career in which you mix various different types of work together. This
is definitely possible as a consultant, especially if you are self-employed.
Some types of work can complement consulting very well. I know many
people who manage to control this mix very successfully. I have several
professions: as well as running my consulting business I write, deliver
training courses and seminars and take regular time out to study.
Whatever your reasons for considering consulting, don’t fool yourself
that it is always an easy ride, or that it will give you a completely flexible
lifestyle. For example, as a self-employed consultant you may well be able
to take more holiday, you may well be able to work part time – but, and
it is a big but, within the constraints of your clients’ needs. You may
decide to work only nine months a year, but that does not mean you can
definitely choose the three months you don’t work to be 1 November to
31 January every year whilst you are in the South Pacific, and expect at
the same time to be 100 per cent fee earning until 31 October, and have
an immediate start again on 1 February of the following year. Clients
won’t usually wait for a particular consultant: if they have a problem
they want someone to fix it, and if you are not available they can usually
find someone else to do the work just as well. Consulting opportunities
cannot simply be turned on and off. They have to be searched out and
won. Clients and engagements do not easily fit a predictable pattern. If
you want flexibility you do need to have some flexibility yourself.
Whatever flexibility you want from consulting is effectively a constraint
on your ability to service clients. If you are clever and pragmatic there is
no reason why the constraints cannot be overcome and you can manage
to balance your own and your client’s desires very well. But you cannot
both maximise your income and maximise your personal flexibility
(unless, perhaps, you really are a world renowned industry guru).
I know many people who love working as a consultant. But consulting
does not suit everyone’s personalities. If you are constantly working in
different organisations, it changes the relationship with the place you are
working. To some extent you will always be an outsider, which does not
suit everyone’s personality. Consulting can leave many people with an
ongoing feeling of uncertainty and risk. As one project ends, where is the
next and when will it start? If you are an independent consultant there is
no career path as such – you may want to vary your work, and may over
time increase your rates, but there is no management hierarchy to be
promoted through. If you work in one of the large consultancies,
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171 � Consultants and consultancy
promotion is possible, but for most firms seniority beyond a certain level
does not just depend on your consulting skills and expertise, but on your
ability to sell.
Consulting offers great opportunity, but it is different from other types of
employment. It offers potentially high rewards and significant flexibility.
If unmanaged, it can intrude into your personal life, but arguably so does
any senior role. If you are pragmatic and flexible, then you can get a
good level of rewards and flexibility in return.
The economics of consulting
The past few decades have brought an increasing stress on the work–life
balance and less on the financial factors of employment. However, a key
aspect in deciding whether to be a consultant is whether you will make
the income you desire. Whether a career in con-
sulting can provide you with the money you want
depends on your expectations (or income needs),
your degree of success, but also the inherent eco-
nomics of consulting. Before entering this
profession you should understand your potential
income. I am going to look at this only very, very simply. This is not a
business plan for a consulting business, but it does explain the basics.
Let’s start by considering the case of a single independent consultant as this
is the simplest to understand. I will only look at revenues. Costs for inde-
pendent consultants are generally low, and most of those that are incurred
are attributable to clients and can be recharged as expenses. So, I am going
to ignore them for now. This is of course a gross generalisation, but it is fine
to begin with as it will not change the overall outcome. There are two fac-
tors that determine how much money you generate as a consultant:
1 the number of chargeable days a year you achieve
2 your daily charge-out rate.
(Not all consulting projects are charged on a daily basis, but this basis is
accurate enough to understand the general economics of the business.)
It is really as simple as that. So how do you know how many days a year
you will work for and what daily charge-out rate you will achieve? There
are huge variations between different consultants. Taking account of fee
rates and number of chargeable days it is quite easy to find two apparently
“this is not abusiness plan for a
consulting
business”
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similar consultants, one of whom has an income three or four times
higher than the other. At the extremes, comparing the lowest to highest
revenue-generating consultant then the multiples are much greater.
Some estimates
To estimate the daily rate you will achieve it is best to do a little research,
but it is not straightforward finding accurate information. There is no
easily available database of rates as there is no transparent market in con-
sultancy, and it is generally not in consultants’ interests to make it
transparent. A good place to start is the internet. There are websites dedi-
cated to sourcing consultants and other temporary staff that will give you
a rough idea of potential daily rates, but they do tend to focus on the
lower end of the market. There are studies of the industry, but they are
not always freely available. Even if you get hold of one, their categorisa-
tions of consultants may give you some ideas, but generally are too broad
to base your own fees on. A good source of information is your personal
network. Ask a few friends who hire consultants regularly, and you may
be able to get a feel for the sort of rates the big firms charge. These tend
to be higher than independents achieve, although this is not always true.
The best way to get a feel for rates is to find someone with some experi-
ence of the industry and ask them what they think you will be able to
charge. Never forget, whatever fee rate you expect or want, it actually
depends on a client being willing to pay it.
Next you need to estimate how many days a year you will work. If you
are new to consulting, do not be overly optimistic. Can you really work
5 days a week for 52 weeks a year? That gives you 260 chargeable days a
year, but you should never assume that what you make is 260 times your
daily rate. You will rarely be 100 per cent utilised – and even if you can
be, do you really want to be? As a rule of thumb, assume you will be busy
100 days a year. You may well be a lot busier, but if you cannot afford to
be a consultant working only this many days you are taking a significant
risk. Many consultants make a very comfortable living on this, and many
more are busy for considerably more than 100 days a year. But it is best
to be conservative at the start of your career.
Other factors
There are several other factors you must consider. There are possible tax
efficiencies of being self-employed or running your own business. You
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need professional advice to understand these fully, and tax legislation
can change at any time. Remember, if you are becoming a self-employed
consultant after a career in industry there are none of the benefits that
you may have received in your previous job. There are no extra pension
contributions, no bonus, no paid holiday, no health care or sick pay, no
car allowance, etc. Additionally, you should not confuse income with
cash flow. Consulting tends to pay big bills in dribs and drabs, and some
clients can be very slow in delivering cash into your bank account. I am
usually paid reasonably promptly, but some invoices have languished for
six months before finally being paid. You need to have a float of money
to cover for these periods.
For a consulting firm with multiple employees the economics are much
more complex. Costs cannot be ignored. Business costs for premium
office space and facilities may be high. Staff you employ will naturally
expect many benefits on top of salaries. There will be the costs of non-
fee-earning staff and senior staff: although they may be able to charge
some fees, these may not cover the full cost of their salary and expenses.
Bad debt has to be considered – that is clients who will not or cannot
pay. I have never (yet!) experienced this and it does seem to be rare.
However, in the largest firms, simply because of the volume of work they
undertake, occasionally a client may not pay. Whatever the size of firm,
slow payment remains a far bigger issue.
Profitability of consultancy companies can be very high when chargeable
utilisation is above a certain level, but drop below this level and all those
large salaries and fancy offices can soon lead to big losses. Hence the ten-
dency of some firms to recruit heavily in the boom times, but also to be
quick to make staff redundant when the economy is struggling. In the
end, although an accountant could find a million flaws in my simple
views, the profit of a consulting company can be approximated by a very
simple piece of arithmetic:
Profit = (days charged × average charge-out rate) – cost of business
The rate you charge and the number of days you work are dependent on
clients, but your costs are largely under your own control. With modern
technology and services you can run a consultancy on a shoestring, and
still look completely professional. Therefore the most important consid-
erations will always be making sure you charge enough days at a high
enough fee rate to generate the income you require. If you are commit-
ting yourself to significant costs before you have started to generate
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Understanding consultants and consultancy20
revenue, think again. You can always make those commitments once you
are sure of your income.
Finally, what about the situation in which you take a job within a con-
sultancy, as an employed consultant, rather than someone who runs
their own business? Here your salary is to some extent divorced from the
economics of the consulting business, and is down to what you can
negotiate. The big firms tend to have a standard package for graduates.
For more senior staff the salary and package will
depend on how valuable you are to the consul-
tancy and what you can negotiate. At a more
senior level your value to a consultancy is more
related to your relationships and personal net-
work than your pure consulting skills. Generally,
the large consultancies pay well and provide a good set of other benefits.
There are professions paying higher, but consulting has to be considered
as towards the top end of the market in terms of salaries. As an internal
consultant it is different, and your salary will depend on the market rates
associated with your specialisation and the remuneration policies of the
specific firm you are being employed by. Generally, salaries are lower
than in the consultancy companies.
What is a good consultant?
By this point you know what a consultant is, why you might want to
consider it as a profession and whether you will make any money. In this
final section I want to consider what makes a good consultant. Much of
this book is taken up with giving advice on how to be a good consultant;
this short section is concerned with what would be assessed as a good
consultant.
When I told a friend of mine, who is a successful and experienced con-
sultant, about this book he responded with the comment that there is
little to write. He said the book would only be about 10 pages long, but
then went on to advise that I should not write a book, but a haiku! The
truth behind this jibe is that it is quite simple to define what a good con-
sultant is – but most of this book is about how to achieve this rather than
defining it. My poetry skills are limited, so I will stick to prose rather
than the haiku. A good consultant: continuously adds value to clients com-
mensurate with his or her fees.
“big firms tend tohave a standard
package for
graduates”
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We will explore what adding value means in later chapters.
There is a significant difference between being good at something and
being a good consultant. There is an old joke, aimed rather unfairly at
teachers, saying: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach. This joke can be
extended to become: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach; and those who
can’t teach, consult. The joke for teachers is unfair, but it hides an important
truth – there is a difference between being good at something and being a
good teacher. As many students will attest, being a good university lecturer
is quite a different skill from being a brilliant academic. I am sure we have
all experienced the giant brain who cannot explain anything, and the
person with a nominally lesser grasp who explains it very well. While most
teachers are perfectly capable of doing, that is not what they are employed
for – they are employed to impart and embed knowledge and skills in their
students. Whether or not they can actually ‘do’ is to some extent irrele-
vant. It is similar for consultants. There are many advantages in having
management experience, but consulting is not about managing. Equally,
having been a great manager is an advantage for consulting, but it does
not guarantee that you will be a successful consultant.
From your perspective you are a good consultant if you achieve your per-
sonal objectives through consulting. I cannot tell you what your personal
goals should be, and the rest of this book is about how you can continu-
ously add value for your clients. However, you may wonder whether you
have the right type of personality to succeed as a consultant. There is no
single personality type who makes the best consultant, but I will pick on
a few factors which I think are important.
Firstly, as a consultant you should be a people person. It is not necessary
to be a natural extrovert, but you must be happy engaging with others.
You will constantly be working and interacting with people, and if this
does not excite you then consulting is not for you. Next, you should be
flexible and adaptable. Client needs and expectations vary enormously,
and you need to flex to the situation. It may surprise some people, but it
also helps if you are not status conscious. Although you may end up as a
hugely successful consultant earning much more than most of your
clients, when you are on a client’s site you are just a consultant doing a
job for them. Consultants must be orientated to resolving problems. A
client has engaged you to help; there are many forms this help can take,
but all of them must result in resolving a client’s problems. Next, whilst a
consultant is there to help, they must not be over hasty in determining
solutions. You must have the personality that wants to solve problems
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properly, rather than resolve the most apparent symptoms. You want to
be like the doctor who finds out why a patient has spots rather than the
one who just gives a cream to make them less itchy. Finally, you must be
someone who listens. To be objective and to provide a diagnosis that is
most helpful to the client requires listening and assessing the situation.
Solutions must be tailored to the specific context.
There are many other factors which influence your ability to be a great
consultant, but the above are critical.
Summary
If you are new to consulting there are some essential concepts you must
understand. You should now be familiar with the main concepts covered in
this chapter. They are:
� The role of a consultant and the difference between it and other roles,
especially that of a line manager.
� The skills of a consultant in relation to those of other professions such as
contractor or interim manager.
� The core consulting jargon.
� The variety of consulting organisations.
� Why you want to be a consultant and whether it is a profession that can
fulfil those needs.
� The economics of consulting.
� What a good consultant is.
The rest of this book explains how to be a good and successful consultant.
Understanding consultants and consultancy22
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Why does anyone buy consultancy?
Consultants regularly present the consulting profession as highlyintellectual and just a little bit special. Yet underneath the hype,management consulting is merely an industry providing a service
in response to a customer’s need. All the normal lessons from sales and
marketing apply. The customer may be called the client, but it is only on
this client’s willingness to provide money in exchange for the consul-
tant’s service that the industry is built. Selling consulting is not especially
difficult, but it is essential for anyone who wants to succeed as a consult-
ant. If you never make a sale then even the best consulting skills in the
world are only of theoretical value.
In this chapter I explore the basis for selling consultancy – a client who
buys. Later in this book we will discuss interesting and powerful ideas
about consulting, but I want to start relatively simply and prosaically, as
success as a consultant must start with your feet firmly on the ground!
Although the chapter is aimed at external consultants, the lessons are
applicable to internal consultants. Whilst the challenge of ‘selling’ serv-
ices internally within an organisation is different in some respects, for
instance the lack of a formal contract, the essential need to identify
opportunities and encourage a client to ‘buy’ is still there.
No matter how wonderful, unique or valuable your skills are, no one buys
consultancy simply because of your abilities. Clients buy consultancy
because they have a need or desire which consultancy is perceived to be
capable of fulfilling. This chapter explores what these needs are. One of the
fundamental mistakes new consultants make is to misunderstand that it is
chapter
2
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not skills that create the opportunity for consulting services, but client
needs. Skills are required to market and deliver consulting, but if you do
not understand your client needs, then you will struggle to sell an engage-
ment. Before you spend time perfecting skills, gaining qualifications or
acquiring accreditation you should heed the most basic marketing lesson:
to understand what your customers desire.
Having a need is an essential part of a client buying consultancy, but there
are additional prerequisites which determine whether a client can and will
buy the service you offer, even if it fulfils their
needs perfectly. Before considering what makes a
client buy, it is useful to look at the prerequisites
for purchase. I explain these in the first two sec-
tions of this chapter.
Much of this chapter considers the client as if there is an obvious individ-
ual client. The final section of this chapter looks at one of the possible
minefields of consultancy, in answering an often surprisingly complex
question: who is your client?
The prerequisites for selling consultancy
What are the prerequisite conditions which must be met for it to be pos-
sible to sell consultancy? I have identified eight basic prerequisites which
must be present in order to sell a consulting engagement:
1 There is a client.
2 The client has a currently unfulfilled need.
3 The client believes that they require help to resolve this need.
4 The client knows about you and your services.
5 The client perceives that you are capable of fulfilling this need.
6 You (or someone else acceptable to the client) are available to fulfil
the engagement.
7 The client has a budget/finances to pay for your services.
8 The client has authority to spend the budget/finances.
Without over analysing these prerequisites let’s quickly review them.
The first prerequisite is the most obvious, so obvious it can seem like it
need not be stated. Hidden in the obviousness is an unchallenged
assumption. The assumption is: if I have business knowledge and skills I can
Understanding consultants and consultancy24
“it is useful to lookat the prerequisites for
purchase”
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be a successful consultant. Documenting prerequisite 1 may appear unnec-
essary, but I know of consultants with all sorts of esoteric and interesting
skills, for which there is no client. So, unsurprisingly, they do not find
work. They moan and ponder about how to increase their skills further,
thinking ‘surely then I will gain work’, without noticing that there are
many more poorly qualified, but highly successful consultants. Before
you spend time analysing and perfecting your service line, check that
there is likely to be some form of client. Whatever skills or service line
you have – no client, no income!
When there is a potential client, to sell a service, they must have a cur-
rently unfulfilled need, and a belief that this need can be fulfilled by
consulting. Unfulfilled needs exist aplenty in business. Ask most man-
agers if there is anything they would like help with or problems to be rid
of, and you will soon get a very long list. This list radically shortens
when you ask them which of these problems is a candidate for resolution
by a consultant.
Let us suppose we have met the first three prerequisites. There is a client
with an unfulfilled need that they accept they need help fulfilling. We
are getting closer to the possibility of selling an engagement.
Prerequisites 4 and 5 relate to you personally. The client must know
about you. A client cannot buy goods and services they know nothing
about. This is a common problem in consulting. If you happen to be
working for a major international consultancy most potential clients will
have heard of you – although even then, they may well not know your
full range of services. On the other hand, if you are a small consultancy
or an independent consultant most of your potential clients have no
knowledge of your existence. Clients not only need to know about you,
but to even get a sniff of real work you need to be perceived as poten-
tially capable of fulfilling their needs. Simply put: are you a known and
credible supplier? Unlike the first three prerequisites, prerequisites 4 and
5 are largely in your control and depend on your marketing and net-
working skills. If you are in a situation in which the answer to this
question is no, the follow up is obvious: what will you do to become a
known and credible supplier? (See chapters 3, 5 and 9.)
Of course, to perform an engagement you, or someone else you can put
forward who meets prerequisites 1 to 5, need to be available to do the
work. Consultants use the term availability to refer to time when they
are available to work on a live engagement – i.e. time when the consult-
ant is not working on another engagement, busy with business
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development, sick or on holiday, etc. Availability is difficult to predict.
Engagements don’t just end on a fixed date, and the time it takes to sell a
consulting engagement does not usually neatly align with the time it
takes to complete whatever else you are working on. Get your timing
wrong and you may win some work when you are still busy with another
client. You do not actually need to be available to perform the engage-
ment to sell the engagement to a client. It is possible to sell work without
being available to deliver it, but unless you can make yourself available
quickly, the sales activity is a waste of your and your client’s time.
Prerequisites 7 and 8 relate to money. You are a commercial business, and
therefore are only going to work if there is access to finance to pay your
fees. There are obvious situations in which this is not going to be true;
for instance, companies going bankrupt or organisations with very
restricted budgets. Commercially, these are to be avoided. As an excep-
tion, you may choose to take on some pro bono work for a good cause. I
say as an exception not because I want to put you off undertaking pro
bono work, but for the simple reason that unless you are privately
wealthy it can only be a small proportion of your work or you will not
stay in business long. A more common problem is not that an organisa-
tion has no money to pay your fees, but that the individual manager
who is your potential client has no direct access to a budget or no ability
to influence someone else to spend. It is always useful to ascertain early
in your client negotiations if a client has sufficient money which they are
authorised to spend.
In this section I have summarised the core prerequisites for a client to
buy consultancy. Without these prerequisites being in place, no matter
how hard you try, there will be no sale. But there is another side to the
equation. Not the client perspective, but yours. Although it is not a pre-
requisite for buying, it should be a prerequisite for selling – that the
client can provide you with whatever you need to do your work. Few
consulting engagements can be undertaken without any client support.
For instance, you may need access to human resources, almost always
require some data and information, and will always need time to com-
plete your work. Clients may not want or be able to fulfil all your
prerequisites. As a consultant you must be flexible
and often ingenious in finding ways to complete
engagements without all the ideal things you
think you need to do your work. However, whilst
you may be able to compromise there are some
Understanding consultants and consultancy26
“as a consultantyou must be flexible
and often
ingenious”
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272 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
minimal prerequisites that must be met. If the client cannot fulfil these
prerequisites for the work, the engagement should not progress (see
Chapters 5 and 12).
Obstacles to selling consultancy
The existence of an opportunity, which meets the prerequisites outlined
above, is the starting point for a sale. We are going to look at identifying
opportunities and selling consultancy in detail later in the book (Chapter
5), but just because there are opportunities does not mean you will neces-
sarily gain work. Clients have choices. There are many consulting
companies, and there are thousands of individual consultants. For every
opportunity there are also many possible obstacles to sales
What are the main impediments to selling consultancy? Here are some
key obstacles to sales:
� You may not convince your client that you are the right choice.
Clients will not just select you – you have to overcome the obstacles
of their natural scepticism and doubt. Doubt may arise if you do not
have a sufficiently established reputation, or if you write a poor
proposal. Scepticism of your skills will be reinforced if there is bad
chemistry between you and the client. The latter is one of the most
difficult issues to deal with. Each of these problems can be overcome,
but each reduces the likelihood of a sale.
� You are often in competition, and each credible competitor is an
obstacle to your sale. You not only have to be able to meet the
prerequisites of a sale, but you must be the best from a competitive
position. What the client regards as the best will vary from situation
to situation. A key activity in a competitive situation is to extract the
client’s decision-making criteria for selecting a consultant. Typical
criteria are your fee rates, experience and skills, availability, and your
demonstration of your understanding of the situation. But there will
be less tangible factors as well, such as how much the client likes you.
� Your needs and the client’s may not match. This is explored in more
detail in Chapter 5, but is summarised here. A client does not just
have a need to buy, but you must have a desire to sell. An
opportunity not meeting your needs can be an insurmountable
obstacle. A client may not be offering a high enough fee rate to
interest you. There may be some physical or geographic prerequisites
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you are not willing to commit to – working at nights or thousands of
miles from home.
� There is another more complicated reason why an opportunity may
never become a sale. Imagine your client meets all the prerequisites to
sell to. Further than this, you have had a series of productive
conversations during which you have reached a mutual conclusion
that you can help the client and they will meet your prerequisites of
engagement. What can go wrong now? Client needs can change.
During the process of engaging and selling to a client it is not unusual
for needs to change. This is particularly frequent if the sales process is
protracted. The reasons are many and varied. Common reasons
include a change in the client’s business circumstances, an evolution
in understanding of needs as your discussions become more detailed,
or the involvement of another stakeholder with different ideas from
the original client.
In the first two sections of this chapter I have explored the various pre-
requisites that must be met and obstacles that must be overcome in order
to make a consultancy sale possible. It may be that after reading this list
you think it is never going to happen. Don’t despair – these prerequisites
are regularly met, which is proven by the vast volume of consulting sales
that are made all the time. I have listed them not to put you off, but to
enable you to align all your ducks in a row, painlessly.
On numerous occasions, I have seen consultants (including, on reflec-
tion, myself) making epic efforts to gain a sale, only to end up wasting
time as one or more of these prerequisites was not met. This cannot
always be prevented, but frequently the wasted effort is avoidable. It is
often determinable early in the sales process that some crucial prerequi-
site cannot be met. Frequently, getting a client to answer a simple
question like ‘what budget is available for this work?’ is enough to deter-
mine there is no real opportunity. Unless you have some power to
change the situation, then you are much better off moving on to the
next opportunity than working hard where no engagement will be avail-
able. I have never heard of a client deliberately wasting a consultant’s
time – as it is their time too – but sometimes it can feel as if they are! A
client may simply have not thought through all the implications of
engaging you, or sometimes they value just talking to a consultant with-
out committing.
Understanding consultants and consultancy28
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The client’s explicit needs for buying consultancy
Let’s explore prerequisite 2 from the list earlier in this chapter in more
detail: the client has a currently unfulfilled need. This is the most complex
and important item on that list, and the one that consultants spend a
significant proportion of their time identifying and exploring. What sort
of needs do clients have? Clients have a huge variety of needs and
desires. I cannot write a list of all the possible client needs that exist, but
I can place them into a short set of categories. These are not mutually
exclusive, but the core needs clients typically fall into one of more of the
following categories:
� The client thinks something along the lines of: ‘I have a problem
which I want solved – and I think a consultant would be able to solve
it for me.’ This is the traditional reason for buying consultancy.
Variations on this theme include:
– I want a bit of fresh creativity, innovation or new ideas which I
cannot find in my existing employees.
– I need some facilitation or workshops to solve a problem.
– I want access to some specific IP (intellectual property), tools or
techniques that a consultant has.
� A client has a new or ongoing initiative/project but does not have all
the required resources. They think: ‘I will ask a consultant to fill a role
on the project.’ Depending on the precise type of work this may be
truly consulting, but more often it is really contracting. However, if
the work is interesting and the fee rate is right there is no reason not
to pursue it.
� A client has some operational work and the normal manager is
away, unavailable or still needs to be recruited. Alternatively, there
is a temporary operational role to fill. This is the realms of interim
management, but the boundaries between interim management
and consultancy are fluid and many consultants make excellent
interim managers.
� A client has too much to do, juggling too many tasks at once and needs a
little bit of relief or else risks dropping one of the balls. The client wants a
consultant to come in and seamlessly take control of one or more of the
juggling balls so they can give a bit more time and attention to the
remaining ones. This is a factor in many consultancy sales.
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� Occasionally, a client may be told to get some assistance from a
consultant. This instruction may come from a supportive or frustrated
senior manager telling a subordinate how to fix something that
should have been resolved long ago. Alternatively, it may be a
demand from an external source, such as an industry regulator telling
a company to quickly become compliant with an area of regulation.
� Finally, a need can be created. Consultants with time to spare and a
bit of creative insight can come up with all sorts of appealing and
exciting service lines. Occasionally, a client will listen to a cold sales
pitch and be interested enough to buy your service. The client may
not have known they had a need, but after listening to the
consultant’s pitch finds that they do. It’s like advertising: you did not
know you wanted chocolate until you saw the advert! However,
unless you have a strong relationship with your client, this is a hard
act to pull off. It is possible, and successful consultancies do regularly
achieve this. One of the reasons for fads in consulting services is to
establish competitive differentiation and to create demand. Chapter 9
explores the situations in which this is possible.
Hidden grounds for buying consultancy
What a client tells you, when discussing their needs for consultancy, may
provide a clear and complete picture of why they are considering your
services. However, this is unusual. Most people have other grounds that
they do not divulge. Sometimes they are embarrassed to tell you every-
thing or maybe they feel it is better if some things remain confidential.
They may think if they tell you the truth you will not do the work.
Sometimes they do not tell you because they do not realise the informa-
tion is relevant or important to you. Often they do not tell you because
they have not analysed all the reasons they want to use a consultant and
are not consciously aware of the grounds themselves.
Irrespective of the situation, you will usually start a consulting engage-
ment with an incomplete and sometimes incorrect understanding of why
the client is engaging you. In practice, this is neither always avoidable
nor necessarily an intractable problem. But, generally, you are in a better
position to fulfil the client’s needs if you understand what the hidden
grounds are.
You may not understand all aspects of the client’s grounds for buying
consulting because the problem is complex and cannot be easily fully
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312 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
explained without some time involved in the
organisation. This involvement can only happen
when the engagement starts. It is not unusual for
understanding of needs and selection of
approaches to fulfilling these needs to change as
the consultant fulfils the engagement. This is one reason why it is often
effective to start a large engagement with a smaller scoping exercise,
when both the specific problem and nature of the client’s organisation
are explored.
There are many other motivations for employing consultants which will
not be immediately apparent when you are first engaged. Typical exam-
ples of hidden grounds for buying consulting include:
� Risk reduction: a client does not know how to overcome a problem,
does not have confidence to so, or thinks there’s too much risk in
doing it themselves. These are perfectly valid grounds for engaging
consultants. As a consultant, if you do not reduce a client’s business
risk as part of your work – for example the risk of taking the wrong
decisions or performing a poor implementation of change – then you
have not really added value. If you have a very strong relationship
with your client they may admit this, but reducing business risk is
rarely explicitly stated as a rationale for engaging you.
� The client has tried already, but has failed or is struggling to overcome a
problem. Rarely will a client admit this directly to you, but it is
important to try and ascertain if this is the case. If a client has
previously failed to resolve a problem then their need for help
increases, but their emotions towards the work and the consultant are
easily prejudiced. Although this situation is common it does need to be
treated with care. If mishandled, you can be perceived as positioning
yourself as ‘better’ than your client. This is never popular with clients!
� The client wants to gain buy-in to an idea or project. A client can
simply want something confirmed that they already know. They may
ask for advice, when what they are really asking for is your agreement
to their existing position. A client is unlikely to say directly to you: ‘I
am engaging you to confirm my opinions.’ This can be tricky, as of
course you may not agree with their standpoint, and can easily stray
into an ethical dilemma (see Chapter 10).
� Clients sometimes engage a consultant because they need to be seen
to be doing something, not because they actually want anything
done. Clients have many stakeholders they need or want to keep
“involvement canonly happen when the
engagement
starts”
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happy. These include more senior managers and external stakeholders
like regulators. By explicitly employing a consultant, to perform an
engagement which the client has no interest in, they can sometimes
artificially satisfy such stakeholders. The risk to the consultant is
limited, other than that findings and advice may never be
implemented by the client.
This is by no means an exhaustive list. The central point is to be alert for
the true, covert motivations clients have for engaging you. The only way
to understand the hidden grounds is by observation and entering into
exploratory dialogue with the client. If you meet all their explicit needs,
but never fulfil their hidden needs, you will not satisfy your clients – and
often the hidden needs are more important than those explicitly stated.
As all good marketers know, client satisfaction is a crucial element in a
successful business. In Chapter 5 we will explore this further.
Having sold an engagement to a client, the subsequent challenge for a
consultant is to continue to remain involved. There are many reasons
why a client may retain a consultant, the most obvious being the need to
follow on from a completed engagement. A less overt reason is that the
client values the ongoing advice and support of the consultant. Much of
the value of consultants can come in peripheral activities: extra value
that the client gains simply by the consultant being around. This can be
small tips, advice, problem solving, tools and so on.
Who is your client?
New consultants often talk about their client as if it is always absolutely
clear who the client is, and also use the term client and the name of an
organisation interchangeably. As in ‘my client is XYZ Corporation’. Your
fees will be paid by XYZ Corporation. XYZ is the client organisation, but
you cannot interact, advise or have a relationship with an organisation.
Your client is one or more human beings. There are many situations in
which there is clearly one client, and you can be sure that the interests of
the client and the client organisation are aligned, but often this is not
clear cut. This can result in two related problems: firstly, the difficulty of
identifying the true client, and secondly, conflict in the views of different
stakeholders and clients.
You need to know who your client is because the client is the person (or
group) who your consultancy is aimed at. The client is the person who
will judge whether the consultancy has been successful or not. If you do
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332 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
not clarify who the client is you may never be judged to have completed
your work successfully. A different problem is that without a clear-cut
client different people in an organisation can legitimately ask you to do
all sorts of work. Not having an unambiguous and single client can be
compared to the situation in which as an employee you do not know
who amongst a group of managers is your boss.
One reason for this lack of clarity is that there are often multiple stake-
holders in a client organisation who have different views and interests in
a particular engagement. Although it is theoretically meaningful to dif-
ferentiate specifically between a client and other stakeholders, in reality
the boundaries are not always clear cut. There can be a wide variety of
interested parties in any consulting engagement.
On some engagements this is a minor issue. On
others, different clients/stakeholders can be in
direct and explicit conflict over the needs and
direction of a consulting engagement, with the
consultant left like some UN arbitrator in the
middle trying to resolve the dispute with limited resources. The conflict
may be explicit, but sometimes it is hidden, which is worse, as the con-
sultant can progress the engagement with one understanding and only in
the latter stages when feeding back to one client comes against another
stakeholder who denigrates the work.
Another situation arises when the person who engages you, who you
take to be the client, is actually hiring you under the direction of a more
senior manager. The senior manager is really the client. The person who
engages you may not accurately represent the true client’s needs. This
can lead to all sorts of misunderstandings and problems.
Different stakeholders are quite likely to have different views on what is
required from an engagement, and even how the work should be
approached. Some stakeholders may think you are the ideal candidate to
perform an engagement, others may doubt your suitability to do the
work. Various stakeholders will have all sorts of different decision-
making criteria. Ideally, you need to clarify all of this.
Another source of confusion is the difference between a client and an
organisation. A client is a tangible person. You can speak to them and
through dialogue get an understanding of their wants and desires, needs
and wishes, interests and foibles. An organisation is an abstract entity,
and if such an entity can be said to have interests you can only deter-
mine them indirectly – by speaking to the staff and managers of the
“there are oftenmultiple stakeholders
in a client
organisation”
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organisation. Problems arise because the interests of the individuals in
the organisation probably never align with those of the organisation.
Even if a member of an organisation’s staff is trying to be objective and
ignore their own interests, they will be constrained in achieving this by
their biases, inherent assumptions and lack of full understanding of what
the interests of an organisation are. One reason for clear and simple
vision and mission statements in organisations is that all staff can then
determine what the interests of the organisation are and are not.
We are therefore in a situation of imperfect information and limited con-
sensus. One of the tasks a consultant initially has in any engagement is
not only to understand the client’s wants and needs, but to clarify who
the client is. Ideally there is one clear client who has the remit and
authority to describe exactly what you should do. In practice, this is not
always achieved. Power in organisations does not always fit the organisa-
tional hierarchy, and you will not always be so lucky as to have one main
stakeholder in your work.
Why is this a problem? Because a lack of clarity over who the client is,
and no real understanding of the client’s need and desires, leads to all
sorts of other difficulties. Your engagement may be perceived as a failure
if you please one person you perceived as a client, only to find someone
else – who is really the client – is displeased. You cannot complete an
engagement successfully without understanding client needs, which you
won’t do if you have not identified the client correctly. You may have
difficulty finishing your work as you try to satisfy more and more client
stakeholders. If you are working to a fixed fee, trying to satisfy everyone
causes you to lose money. There are many variations of these sorts of dif-
ficulties.
How can you solve this issue? There is no foolproof way to resolve it in
every situation. Your role as a consultant may be explicitly to help reach
consensus between all stakeholders. But it will not always be, and even if
you are there to drive consensus your role can never be to sort out all the
differences of opinion in an organisation. However, you do have to
achieve at least a sufficient consensus to be able to complete your
engagement effectively. There are five main steps to achieving this:
1 Openly discuss the issue with whoever first engages you, and try to
get them to support you in identifying and resolving any differences
of opinion. If this is not possible, you should strive for the manager
who engages you at least to accept the implications of an imprecise
understanding of needs.
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2 Understand who might be clients and stakeholders in the work, and
then explore and analyse the specific situation, identifying true
clients and exploring their needs.
3 Ideally, identify one primary (or ‘real’) client who will resolve any
conflicts and arbitrate in any disputes with other stakeholders.
4 Take a commonsense check. When you do have an understanding of
the different client and stakeholder needs, do they form a coherent
and consistent set? Can you fulfil this set of needs in a sensible and
achievable engagement that feels right for the organisation?
5 Write down your understanding of the situation in your proposal.
Then if things are not as they appeared to be, you at least have a
document you can point to with your understanding as agreed with
the client. However, for some sensitive needs this is not possible.
We will look at the points in this list again in Chapters 5, 9 and 10. For
now, I want to focus on step 2. Who might your client be? This will vary
from situation to situation, but the choice of the person who is your
client starts by considering the person who first engages you. Typically
you will be approached by an individual about the work the client organ-
isation wants performed. This person may or may not be the ‘real’ client.
I call this person the client interface.
Another possible client is the manager who has instructed the client
interface (usually a more junior manager) to engage you. In some situa-
tions, it was a personal decision of the client interface to engage you, but
it is quite common for a more senior manager to direct the client inter-
face to hire a consultant. This senior manager is the real client. Ideally,
you want to develop a direct relationship with this person, as they are
the one who really wants the work done and are likely to be the judge of
its success.
There will often be senior managers or executives with no direct involve-
ment or interest in the work you do, but who influence the work
indirectly by being concerned or even assessing the performance of the
manager who engages you. This is the underlying client. The underlying
client is important, as in the end this is the person or group your real
client mostly responds to.
There are budgetholders and approvers who need to be convinced before
you invoices are paid. You are a commercial business and need to be paid
for your work and therefore must be comfortable that such people will
authorise your invoices. Usually the person you work with as a client is
352 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
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Understanding consultants and consultancy36
also the person who authorises your bills for pay-
ment, but not always. Whoever authorises your
bill is the financial client. The financial client is
important as of course you want to get paid!
Finally there is a whole host of other client staff who review, approve or
may simply be asked an opinion about your work. They may also work
for you on the engagement. Such staff are not really clients, but you
cannot ignore them as they have the ability to influence the judgement
of your client both positively and negatively.
Behind these various people lies another group, who will be more or less
important depending on the nature of the engagement. These are the
client organisation’s stakeholders. These include external groups who
may have an interest in the work, for example shareholders and owners,
and for some industries, regulators. Many consultants never interact with
these groups, but for some consultants they are a major influence on the
success of the consulting engagement.
A typical set of clients is shown in Figure 2.1. The solid lines represent
typical direct relationships relevant to the engagement. The dashed lines
represent other possible relationships relevant to the engagement.
When considering this set of clients and stakeholders the following
points should be taken into account:
� The client is always a person. You may be paid from a large corporation’s
bank account, but you are engaged by, interact with and take instructions
from an individual or group. An individual or group responds to your
advice and accepts your invoices. For many reasons we may say ‘my
client is XYZ Corporation’, but in reality it is always a person.
� Ideally there is one client, which is sometime achievable, but there
will always be more than one stakeholder.
� The best situation is to understand and fulfil the needs of the client
and all relevant stakeholders. It is often not possible to satisfy
everyone and therefore you need to identify who is the real client and
how you will resolve conflicts with other stakeholders.
� Some of the problems that arise from having multiple
clients/stakeholders will create issues for you, but not your real client.
For example, you may be asked to do more and more work by
different stakeholders, to the point at which you lose your profit
margin on the engagement.
“whoeverauthorises your bill is
the financial client”
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372 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
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� There may be ethical issues associated with multiple clients with
different interests (see Chapter 10). After all, if there are multiple
interests, who actually represents the organisation?
� There is a potentially complex relationship with client staff. They
may think of themselves as ‘the client’, when in reality they might be
a resource for you to use on the engagement, or even the subject of
your work.
� Finally, if you are working for a large consulting company your
stakeholders may include people who are within your own
organisation or other bodies. These people can make requests at the
most difficult time during an engagement. More than one new
consultant has been shocked when the work they thought they had
agreed with their client, and considered as finished, was rejected by a
partner or senior manager from their own company as not good
enough. Hence a consultant may also have to work to keep a range of
people concerned with different aspects of the consultancy firm’s
interests satisfied. For instance, there will be people responsible for
the quality, risk and brand of a consulting company. Even if the client
is happy with the work, such managers in the consulting firm may
not be if it is not of sufficient quality or risks the firm’s reputation.
There will be staff concerned with utilisation. Utilisation is how
consulting firms make money. There is always pressure on consulting
engagements to maximise billable utilisation for the maximum
number of staff. Of course, the client wants the opposite!
Consulting firms are always trying to improve their knowledge and
IP development. Consultancies view most engagements as a potential
opportunity to increase their IP and knowledge. There will also be
people with the fundamental business concern of whether an
engagement is profitable and if it offers the opportunity for further
sales. Finally, outside the consulting firm itself there are stakeholders
such as professional bodies, who have some influence on how the
work is performed and any standards associated with it.
These additional stakeholders can make the situation more
complex. This increase in complexity is shown in Figure 2.2.
Understanding consultants and consultancy38
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392 � Why does anyone buy consultancy?
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Summary
This chapter has covered some of the fundamental challenges in consulting.
It is important to understand these because as a consultant you will face
them all on a regular basis. Hence I want to give you a brief summary to
ensure the key points are remembered. Each of these challenges is explored
in more detail, together with ways to overcome them, in the rest of the book.
� Consultants sell to and are judged by a client. The concept of a client
needs to be explored thoroughly as in any situation there may be
different individuals who may be the client. The greater the clarity you
have over who the client is, the greater the likelihood that your
consulting engagement will be a success.
� The client has needs, and a consulting engagement is designed to fulfil
these needs. If you can understand and fulfil your client’s needs you will
have the opportunity to sell and deliver consulting engagements. But you
will not sell, no matter how good a consultant you are, if the
prerequisites for buying consultancy are not met, and if you cannot
overcome any obstacles to sales.
� To sell and deliver a consulting engagement you must have a proposition
that will fulfil the client’s needs. To position your consulting proposition
correctly you must understand the client’s explicitly expressed needs, but
there are usually a hidden set of needs which can only be exposed
through observation and exploratory dialogue with the client. If you do
not expose the hidden needs, there is a significant risk you will not
satisfy your client.
� When you begin a consulting career, identifying clients and exploring
needs may seem contrived and difficult. As your experience in consulting
grows, assessing clients and stakeholders becomes second nature and to
some extent subconscious.
Understanding consultants and consultancy40
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Your consulting service
In order to work as a consultant you must decide what service you aregoing to offer your clients, which is the main topic of this chapter.Confidence that the service is viable comes from understanding who
your potential clients are and what they need (see Chapter 2). The central
lesson from the last century of marketing is to start by focusing on what
clients want, rather than what you would like to sell. This lesson is at the
heart of client-centric consulting. However, whatever clients might want,
your service has to be based on something you are capable of delivering.
Experienced consultants know that some clients, with whom you have a
strong relationship, will hire you because you are a competent person
who can turn your hand to many things. However, if you do anything
and everything for one client you cease to be an independent consultant
and effectively become part of the client’s team. If you simply want to
generate revenue this is not necessarily a problem, but it is a risky strategy.
You will become reliant on one client, and if this is really what you want,
go and get a job as an employee of that client. If you do not, sooner or
later your client will cease re-engaging you. In order to avoid this risk you
want to be hired by a variety of clients, each for a limited period of time.
In turn, to achieve this you must have a skill set, competency or capability
that will help them to overcome problems they have. Even internal con-
sultants want to avoid the situation in which they work for only one
manager, and want to help a wide variety of managers in the business.
Many consultants do not have a specific service line as such, and drift
from engagement to engagement as opportunities arise. Some consultants
chapter
3
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manage to keep themselves highly utilised doing this, but it is not the
best approach. Like walking past a shop that sells different goods each
week, clients do not know why they should specifically come to you. The
times when clients are willing to pay the highest rates are when they have
a pressing issue which they perceive a limited number of people can
resolve. If you want to charge the highest fees you need to be able to dif-
ferentiate yourself from the mass of consultants and contractors. One
important way to create differentiation between yourself and other con-
sultants is to have an area of specialisation. This is your consulting service.
The challenge with services is to know what they are and how to deliver
them, but it is equally important to be able to position them with clients.
It is no good having a service that clients do not understand or do not
think that they want. There is also the classic business trade-off between
being a niche player or offering a more generic service. This trade-off is
essentially between:
� highly specialised skills; and
� generic skill sets.
Highly specialised skills have limited competition, but potentially limited
need. When they are required they may generate high fees, but there is a
risk that the market can evaporate. A service line in year 2000 compli-
ance was hugely profitable in 1999 and many
consultants joined the frenzy. On 1 January 2000,
when the year 2000 problem was shown to be
insignificant, the service became unsellable.
Generic skill sets may always be in demand, but there will be many con-
sultants with similar skills. Whilst you may always be able to find work,
the fee rate will tend to be lower. Project management skills are very
valuable to clients and almost all clients run projects regularly. There are,
however, many skilled project managers and unless you can differentiate
your skills, the rates will tend to be relatively low.
What do you have to offer clients?
The obvious starting point for developing your service line is to think
through what skills, experiences or capabilities you have. What can you
currently do? If a client asked you to tell them, briefly, what you can do,
what would you say? Not only should you think about what you cur-
rently know, but also what you want to do. Most of us can do many
things that are not forms of work that we actually want to do.
Understanding consultants and consultancy42
“there is a risk thatthe market can
evaporate”
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433 � Your consulting service
My first piece of advice when thinking about service lines is to relax. New
consultants often become overly stressed with the thought that they do
not have any skills that are sellable. You almost certainly do. Clients
always need help and always have problems. You do not have to know
everything or to be a world expert in anything to be a very successful
consultant. There are very few world experts. Most clients do not need
world experts and cannot afford them. Clients need competent people
who can help them to resolve the issues that they have. To be able to
help someone you must know more about the problem they are trying to
resolve than the client does. In some situations, one or two pieces of
information may be the difference between being able to add value and
not being able to help. In saying this, I am not implying that all you
need to be able to do as a consultant is bluff your way with some buzz
words. However, if you are a competent and capable person, you do not
always need to know a huge amount about a specific problem to resolve
it. You just need to know enough.
If you have already had a career or some work experience in one or more
industries, you already have knowledge and skills that will be useful to
some clients. Clients are looking for people who can do one or more of
the following:
� Make the challenge of managing easier. Managers are hard pressed in
modern industry: even if you can only help them with one of the
many tasks they have to do, this has value.
� Provide knowledge and experience relevant to specific functions,
sectors or services that their work relates to.
� Give them access to the relationships they need to do their job.
There are a series of questions you can ask yourself. How can you make a
client’s life easier? What sorts of common problems are you well posi-
tioned to solve for them? What functional knowledge do you have – are
you an HR, IT or some other specialist? What sector knowledge do you
have – do you know about banking or the defence industry? What serv-
ices or specialisations in business do you know about – regulation, health
and safety, software development or accounting policy? Who do you
know who might be useful to clients? Try jotting down answers to these
and similar questions and see if any pattern of knowledge arises, or if
there are areas in which you have real skills. As a consultant you should
not be seeking to be a master of all trades, nor do you need to be better at
something than all clients. You merely need to find areas where you have
a comparative advantage over some clients.
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Understanding consultants and consultancy44
If you do not think you have sufficient skills to either present a service
line credibly or to be able to do it in real life, you can always try to expand
your skills. Everyone is capable of learning at every stage of their lives.
There are millions of good business books and a huge amount of free
online information. With some research you can pull together a body of
knowledge that will be useful to some clients. However, I do caution you
to understand the difference between being able to bluff about a subject
and win some work, versus really being able to do it. Additionally, there
are many good courses and training opportunities. Finally, you can always
go away and study for a relevant degree or an MBA.
However, don’t be fooled into thinking that with some qualifications the
floodgates of work will open. Clients primarily want intelligent but prac-
tical people, not academics or people with 101 qualifications and
accreditations. I am not belittling the value of qualifications or accredita-
tions, or the intellectual rigour of a good academic. I am merely saying
that clients who buy consulting are typically only moderately impressed
by such things. There are situations in which the advice of an academic
is valued above that of other consultants, and some academics do have
lucrative consulting practices, but few generate an income as significant
from consulting as a successful professional consultant.
Having a specific qualification can provide a level of differentiation, but
clients are really looking for a proven ability to deliver recommenda-
tions, develop realistic plans or implement change, relevant to their
specific context or environment. Clients may require qualifications in
certain specialised areas, but do not be fooled into thinking that a string
of great qualifications will win you any consulting work. Clients are
mostly interested in track record. A few credible past clients who will
willingly provide strong, pertinent references will
sell you more work than any qualifications. By all
means seek qualifications if you believe you will
learn valuable ideas whilst doing them, and no
doubt qualifications help in being selected for
recruitment into permanent roles. But a consultant is not being looked
on as a permanent recruit: no badge or title alone will give you any con-
sulting work.
The exception to this is the situation where there is some barrier to entry
or highly recognised differentiation. There are many people with MBAs,
but there are comparatively few with well recognised MBAs. A Harvard or
INSEAD MBA, rightly or wrongly, still – and probably always will – impress.
“clients are mostlyinterested in track
record”
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There will always be a limited number of people with the best qualifica-
tions. There are also other types of ‘accreditations’. For example, if you
want to work in sensitive areas of government you usually have to be
security vetted. Vetting can be a tedious and long-winded process, but
once you are vetted you have a competitive differentiation above anyone
who is not. Those who have not been vetted are effectively barred from
some types of government work.
The best way to develop the right saleable skills is to deliberately go after
consulting engagements that make you credible in that field. If you want
to be an expert in setting up data centres or in providing strategic advice
to the directors of charities, then the best place to start is by setting up a
data centre or working on a strategy for a charity. There is of course a
potential vicious circle here: ‘I can’t do work X because I have never done
any of work type X, and I have never done any of work type X because I
can’t do it.’ The answer is to start with realistic expectations. You cannot
expect to be taken as competent in a field you have never done any work
in – so when you first work in an area you must start at a relatively junior
level. On the other hand, many areas of specialisation underneath the
hype and the jargon are similar to others. The secret is therefore to do
two things when interacting with any client:
1 Present your skills and experience in the most compelling way as
relevant to the client’s need. Stress the similarities between what you
have done in the past and what is being asked for now. If you have
worked in telecommunications and the customer works in retail
banking, don’t point out how different the industries are, but stress
similarities. They are both extremely regulated environments, are
highly competitive, have growing customer service expectations,
outsource extensively, are capital intensive, and are both dependent
on and spend significant amounts on technology.
2 Make yourself rapidly familiar with the jargon of an industry. There
are some real differences between industries, but fewer than initially
appear. I have worked in the public sector, telecommunications,
media, financial services, manufacturing, utilities, the health sector
and mining. Yes, there are real differences, but one of the main
differences is down to language. The barrier to entry into some
specialisations is primarily learning the jargon.
Whatever age you are and however many years you have worked in one
industry, there is nothing stopping you presenting your years of experi-
ence in the way that is most appropriate for a different sector or service
453 � Your consulting service 453 � Your consulting service
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Understanding consultants and consultancy46
line. There may be difficulties in learning new skills and capabilities at
any time, but most are in the mind or about personal attitude and can be
overcome. We all can, to a large extent, invent ourselves and continually
reinvent ourselves in the way we want.
One way to develop a successful consulting business is to get into a new
area of consulting first. If you are first into a specialisation there is no
competition, and there are no recognised qualifications or experts. You
are the guru by default. Spotting trends in management thinking early
can be very lucrative. Relying on a trend is risky, as the market may never
take off, but management as a whole is prone to fads and fashions. Some
of these trends are vacuous and blow away within a few months or years.
Others have a lasting impact on the way management is done. If you suc-
cessfully spot a trend and enter a market early, the potential is huge.
Types of services
Winning work is not just about being competent – it is also about being
credible. Competency is an objective statement of your capabilities.
Credibility is the subjective perspective of clients and other consultants.
Credibility depends on a whole host of factors, and one building block of
a credible service is being able to position your skills relative to typical
client needs. This enables clients to label you, and use the label to under-
stand what you do, and ideally to think of other situations in which they
can use your skills. If you have a skill or knowledge that is valuable, you
have the basics to becoming a competent consultant. By positioning your
skills as a consultancy service you can convert competency into credibility.
The most basic way to label yourself is as a useful pair of hands, or
another head with which a client can enlarge a team for a short period of
time. The typical situation is that a client is short of a resource for a proj-
ect, and you can fill the gap. Whilst there is nothing wrong with project
work, this type of positioning should be avoided. There are exceptions,
and I am not saying don’t do project work, just don’t label yourself as a
useful pair of hands. This is the route to low-fee contracting work. It
should be avoided for two reasons. Firstly, you can probably do very simi-
lar work, but position it in a different way and fulfil a differently
perceived client need and significantly increase
your fees. Secondly, there is a lot of consulting
work, often the most interesting and lucrative
engagements, that is not available to people just
“you must beperceived as a skilled
consultant”
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473 � Your consulting service
because they are a useful pair of hands. To win it, you must be perceived
as a skilled consultant.
A useful way to think about how you position your service is against
three dimensions which consulting services can be categorised into:
� the sector
� the service line
� the phase in the change lifecycle.
The sector
The sector is straightforward to understand. What is the industry sector
your skills are most relevant to? You can position yourself as an expert in
financial services, the public sector, manufacturing or telecommunica-
tions to name a few. Often clients are not only looking for skills, they are
looking for skills that are relevant to their industry. For example, billing
in telecommunications is different from billing in other industries – if
you want to work on billing systems in telecommunications you must
have telecommunications experience. Similarly, financial regulation is
specific to financial services, and even to sub-sectors within financial
services. You must have relevant sector experience to successfully posi-
tion yourself as a consultant in financial regulations.
The service line
The service line you work in is akin to a function in an industry, but is
somewhat broader. You may be a specialist in IT, HR, regulations, opera-
tions management, project management, performance improvement or
something similar. Many service lines are common to most industries.
For instance, all businesses which employ people, irrespective of the
sector, have HR needs and can be helped by HR consultancy.
To win some consulting opportunities requires both a service and a sector
specialisation. In other situations you need either sector or service line
experience, but not both. For example, staff performance management
processes and systems are relatively non-sector specific. A specialist in
staff performance management should be able to work across sectors.
However, a business strategist is likely to require detailed sector-specific
knowledge to understand the competitive situation and market trends.
In general, the more focused and rare your specialisation, the higher the
fee rate you can charge but the higher the risk of finding no opportunity.
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It is important to understand this is a very rough generalisation and
there are many exceptions. Some consultants I know have very unusual
skills, but there is enough work to keep them permanently busy at a high
fee rate.
The phase in the change lifecycle
The last categorisation is what I call the phase in the change lifecycle a
consultant works in. I will discuss change more in Chapters 4 and 8, but
in essence all consulting is about change. Whether it is providing strate-
gic advice through to helping in an implementation project, the
outcome from consulting should be that something has changed in a
client organisation. It may be that a better decision has been made, a
manager has improved skills or a more fundamental change has occurred
in the business.
Change is complex, but it can be thought of as a lifecycle. The lifecycle is
an endless loop and therefore does not really have a start point, as
change never ends. But we can think of the lifecycle for an individual
change starting with an idea or concept. The idea can take the form of a
definition of what an organisation should be trying to achieve.
Consulting associated with defining why and what an organisation
should seek to achieve is called strategy consulting. Having decided what
direction the business should be going in, the actual operations of the
business can be assessed to determine how well it is performing relative
to the strategy and what should be improved. This is operational con-
sulting. Having identified possible improvements, change initiatives can
be planned to deliver the improvements, where a plan defines what and
how the change will be made. This is implementation planning. Finally,
a planned change can be delivered, with a sustainable change made to
the organisation. This is implementation (or delivery) consulting. Once
change is achieved the business is in a new state, and this cycle can start
again. This lifecycle is shown in Figure 3.1.
Typically, the more closely a consulting engagement is related to strategy
consulting the more important specific sector expertise becomes. The
more a consulting engagement is related to implementation consulting
the more important specific service knowledge becomes. However, this is
a very broad generalisation.
Some organisations with consultancy businesses, including many of the
largest companies, offer a range of additional services beyond those of
Understanding consultants and consultancy48
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493 � Your consulting service
pure consulting. As well as supporting change implementation they offer
software or other technology development services. Such organisations
will offer to run some parts of the organisation’s ongoing operations,
which is usually called outsourcing. Consider a client organisation that
wants to improve customer service. To make this improvement, the
client organisation needs to set up a new customer call centre. The call
centre needs new computer systems and staff. Some consultancies not
only help with the identification of such problems and manage the
implementation of the resultant changes – they may also offer to develop
new IT systems for the call centre and to set up and run the call centre
for the business. This is shown in Figure 3.2. This figure also positions
how contractors and interim managers relate to this change lifecycle.
So far in this chapter we have looked at consulting services where the con-
sultant provides recommendations or implementation skills – in other
words the consultant helps the client directly. The relationship between
the consultant and the client is one where the consultant tells or advises
the client what to do. This is sometimes thought of as a teacher–student
or doctor–patient relationship. There is another style of consulting, which
we will explore in more detail in Chapter 7. This is where the consultant
does not provide the client with direct recommendations, but instead
Implementation
planning:
How and when
should the client
make the change?
Strategy
consulting:
What should the
client be trying
to achieve?
Implementation
consulting:
Deliver sustainable
change for the
client
Operational
consulting:
How well is the
client performing,
what should change?
Figure 3.1 The change lifecycle
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Understanding consultants and consultancy50
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helps the client to help themselves. This is sometimes known as process
consulting (and must not be confused with process design or business
process engineering, which it has nothing to do with). Another name for
this type of consulting is facilitation. A facilitator does not provide a
client with a solution to a problem, but instead helps the client to identify
and solve the problems themselves. A major advantage of facilitation is
that clients are much more likely to accept the result from a consulting
engagement when they have developed it themselves. Coaching and
mentoring can also work on a similar basis.
All the points made in this chapter should influence how you should posi-
tion yourself as a consultant. Do you want to be seen as an expert in a
sector or service line, a strategy or operational consultant, as someone who
can plan change, a specialist in implementation, a facilitator – or some
combination of all of these? Making your choice is not about closing
doors, as there is no reason why at different times,
even within the same client, you cannot swap
between the roles – but clients like to and probably
need to be able to label you. What you want them
to do is to label you in such a way that you have
access to, and are seen as a credible support in delivering, the broadest
range of high, value-adding opportunities.
Positioning your services with clients
Success as a consultant requires a market for your service and it must be a
service for which someone is willing to pay a day rate that will give you a
sensible return. We will deal with finding clients and selling to them in
Chapter 5. At this stage I want you to consider sales only conceptually.
What do you need to have in place for clients to understand and accept
your services?
The first thing to remember is that you are not selling to yourself. You
are selling to a client. It does not matter how wonderful you know your
service to be, what matters for selling is only what clients think. Clients
have to need or want the service you are offering, and to understand it.
Contrary to the opinion of some novice consultants, few clients are
impressed in the slightest by obscure jargon and incomprehensible serv-
ices. Clients are looking for a number of things, which can be
summarised with a list of words starting with ‘c’. Are you: capable, com-
petent, coherent, credible and client-centric?
513 � Your consulting service 513 � Your consulting service
“making yourchoice is not about
closing doors”
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How will you explain the value you can bring to a client and the specific
service you can provide? There is a big difference between what you
know you can do, and a saleable proposition.
I like to think in terms of pigeonholes. A pigeonhole is the name given to
a compartment in which mail is put in an office when it is separated out
according to department or even individual. The expression has come to
be associated with a way of labelling people. In work we can be associ-
ated with pigeonholes relating to our skills, ways of interacting and
relationships and groups we belong to. I could be pigeonholed as ‘a man-
agement consultant’ or ‘an author’ for example.
Pigeonholes are often seen as overly restrictive and generally a bad thing,
but they are useful. We all need them, especially at the start of a relation-
ship. Pigeonholes provide a short-hand for what we can do. No one
remembers all of a CV or list of qualifications, but people do remember
things like ‘great strategic thinker’, ‘reliable project manager’ or ‘dreadful
team player’. These labels are easy to remember and they stick. We are all
much more complex than a few simple phrases and none of us likes being
pigeonholed. The secret therefore is not to let it passively happen to us,
but proactively to choose the pigeonholes we want to be put in. We can do
this in the way we consistently and coherently communicate to clients.
This is one reason why I put coherence as something clients need to see
in your service. If you are incoherent about how you label yourself, or
you position yourself with labels that do not seem to fit together coher-
ently, then irrespective of whether the labels are true or not clients will
not accept the pigeonholes you want to give yourself. For instance, let’s
imagine the pigeonholes you want are ‘great high-level business strate-
gist’ and ‘fantastic C++ software programmer’. If you happen to be a great
high-level business strategist and a fantastic software programmer, so
what? Does any single client need to know this? No. Worse, the labels are
not complementary and reduce the credibility of each other when put
together. They do not seem to be a coherent pairing of labels, even if
they do happen to be true. The client who buys you as a corporate strate-
gist and the one who buys you as a software programmer will usually be
different people. Keep them as separate pigeonholes for separate clients.
I cannot stress enough that you should not position yourself as a good
person who can do anything. Being positioned in the ‘jack of all trades’
or ‘useful pair of hands’ pigeonholes will not lead to you getting the
highest value consulting work. You may sometimes sell, but high rates
are paid to people who have skills that fit a specific client issue, not to
Understanding consultants and consultancy52
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533 � Your consulting service
people who just happen to be useful. Good consultants avoid presenting
themselves as a jack of all trades. The talent is to present your skills
broadly enough to be attractive to clients for a variety of work, but nar-
rowly enough to be a credible supplier of specialised services.
The truth is, of course, that many of us actually have at heart a pretty
generic skill set. Do not despair. Even the most basic and generic of skills
can be labelled in an attractive way that differentiates and enables you to
charge your clients higher fees. For example, my core consulting skills are
related to project and change management, which is probably as generic
as you can get in consulting. There are thousands and thousands of con-
sultants who have or claim to have a similar skill set. If you have such a
skill set you should seek some differentiation by adding on sector-specific
knowledge, or experience of specific types of projects. The day rate for a
generic project manager is several times lower than an experienced con-
sultant programme manager with knowledge of a specific industry or
type of project.
Although you have a set of skills that you can use to link yourself consis-
tently to every opportunity, you should try to position your skills as
uniquely relevant to each and every opportunity. One common vehicle
to explain your skills and services is the CV. The novice thinks of the CV
as a list of experience and qualifications. The experienced consultant
knows a CV is a sales tool. As such, it has to be tailored to the sales
opportunity. A client is never looking for the
cleverest consultant in the world. A client is look-
ing for a consultant with sufficient relevant
experience to be able to help with their problem.
I have a master CV on which I have listed every single project I have ever
done and every company I have ever worked for. No one sees this, except
for some consulting associates I trust. Apart from the fact that it is far too
long for most clients, it does not provide a simple, easily understandable
and consistent picture of what I can do. I think it shows strong experi-
ence – but it shows that I can do too many things! Hence, when I have
an opportunity that requires me to send my CV, I tailor it to the situa-
tion. I do not lie or make things up, but I stress the relevant areas of
experience, and equally importantly I remove work that is not relevant.
Even if you really are a master of many professions, clients will not
believe you are. The impression from a CV with many different skills is
not of a specialist who can do several things but a jack of all trades.
“the experiencedconsultant knows a CV
is a sales tool”
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Understanding consultants and consultancy54
However broad your skills are, the route to success is to find a niche that
suits you, or identify a market that is not adequately serviced by consult-
ants and to develop those skills. Of course it is worth having more than
one string to your bow, but only because it reduces the risks of not find-
ing work and not because it will make you more attractive to a client in
any one specific situation.
Once you have identified the services you will provide, do not think that
you never need to reconsider them. Irrespective of how leading edge your
services seem, you need to be flexible and constantly reinvent yourself.
Service lines move on. For example, years ago no one asked if a project
manager was qualified. Now there are various accreditations in project
management and soon there will be chartered status for project managers
in the UK. Software package like Baan or PeopleSoft were all the rage for a
while, and a Baan or PeopleSoft consultant could have earned a good
income. Who hears of them now? Business process re-engineering was
something different and highly paid in the early 1990s; now it is a com-
modity skill that many consultants have. As a graduate from university I
was initially trained as an MVS systems programmer. Many current read-
ers will not have the vaguest idea of what that means.
Positioning services may seem to be something to consider only for the
novice consultant. It is true that when you have worked with a client and
have a great relationship with them your specific service lines are less
important. But you can never rely on one client – you will always need
new ones. Even if you trust an individual client manager to employ you
on a constant stream of engagements, you do not know what will
happen to their business in future. Even chief executives get fired or fall
out with their boards sometimes!
Differentiating with intellectual property
One way to create a truly differentiated service from other consultants is
to develop some intellectual property (IP). For consultants, IP consists of
ideas or approaches to solving consulting problems that are unique to
the consultant and which the consultant can control access to.
Intellectual property can be methodologies or may be data such as
benchmarking data. Some large consulting firms invest heavily in IP or
intellectual capital to differentiate themselves from other firms.
A consulting organisation’s methods, tools and processes can be valuable
and undoubtedly provide a certain amount of differentiation. They are par-
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ticularly valuable when new ideas in management arise. The first consult-
ants with a defined approach to implementing these new management
approaches can win significant business, often at premium rates. Six sigma
has now become a common tool, but when it first arose those consultants
with six sigma methodologies could charge a premium rate. However, gen-
erally I am a little sceptical about consulting IP for the reasons noted below.
First, IP ages very quickly. Knowledge is inherently transferable and in the
long run impossible to protect. If you are a manufacturing company, you
may have some secret or patented manufacturing process, and you can
probably keep this secret from competitors for some time. The fundamen-
tal problem consultants have with IP is that there is an inherent conflict
between having unique knowledge and being a consultant. As a consult-
ant you are paid for your skills and knowledge because you share them
with your clients. Once you have shared your ideas they are out in the
open. You may have only shared knowledge with one company, but client
staff will move on to other firms and take with them any good ideas you
have taught. In large consulting companies you may only train your staff
in your IP, but consultants very often move from one consulting firm to
another, and cannot avoid taking concepts and ideas with them.
The second point I make about IP in consulting is that there is actually
very little of it around, at least much less than consultants claim.
Certainly, if I apply the true legal definition of IP I am doubtful that very
many consulting approaches would meet this definition. Much IP is
more about branding and consolidating knowledge than it is to do with
the creation of really innovative thinking. For example, many consultan-
cies have different approaches to ERP (enterprise resource planning)
implementation. These approaches may be valuable, have been devel-
oped from many years of hands-on experience, and enable a firm to
implement an ERP system more rapidly and at a lower risk than those
without such a methodology. But if you look at several companies’
approaches to ERP implementation there really is not a huge amount to
differentiate between them. It is a mature market. No doubt some people
do it better than others, but everyone involved in this type of service
knows the steps to follow to implement an ERP system.
If you do have some IP, don’t be paranoid about losing it. If your IP helps
you win work or to deliver assignments, then great. But clients are not
paying to have access to your IP. They are paying for your ability to deliver
great consulting. No client thinks ‘wonderful consulting, they shared their
IP with me’, clients judge success in much more tangible ways: ‘I can
553 � Your consulting service
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Understanding consultants and consultancy56
make better decisions now’, ‘my strategic direction
is clearer’, ‘I have a realistic implementation plan’,
‘that was much faster than I could have done it’,
or ‘the change was implemented well’.
Don’t be afraid about your IP leaking to other consultants. A consultant
with no experience and no relevant skills cannot pick up a piece of con-
sulting IP and deliver a value-adding result. Intellectual property in
consulting provides differentiation, enhances approaches, speeds up
progress and reduces risk. It never removes the need to have skilled con-
sultants. I have written many of my ideas in books which are widely
available, but I am still certain that I have a set of skills that are valuable
to clients and which cannot easily be found in other consultants. It is
not that I have deliberately left things out of my books; it is simply that
many factors in being a great consultant are more intangible and come
from my ability to apply knowledge – not simply that I know lots of
things. If consulting was just about knowing lots of information then the
internet and services like Wikipedia would have already removed the
need for consultants altogether.
The final point about IP is that you can develop it as your experience
grows. You do not need it before you undertake paid work. You need to
be careful from an ethical viewpoint that you are not claiming you have
a methodology you have not yet fully developed. But within reason it is
acceptable to create it as you go along. To some extent you have no
choice. Consulting approaches and methods are based on experience, as
this is really the only way to gain a method that is of any proven value.
Summary
Successful consultants build a profitable consulting business by thinking
from the client’s viewpoint and developing service lines that are meaningful
to the client.
� Start by identifying what skills you have. Consider what you can do that
will:
– make the challenge of managing easier for clients
– provide relevant knowledge and experience to clients
– give access to additional useful relationships to clients.
“if you do have someIP, don’t be paranoid
about losing it”
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� Develop your services by thinking about the sector, service line or phase
in the change lifecycle they are targeted towards.
� Label, position and explain your services in ways that are meaningful and
easily understood by clients. Proactively manage how you are pigeonholed.
As a conclusion to this chapter it is worth reflecting on the following
question: how can you know that you are developing the right services? The
proof that you have chosen the right services can only come from experience.
If you have chosen the right service and are actively seeking clients, you
should find that:
� you are selling enough work
� you are able to turn down work that does not fit with what you want to do.
If you are not busy enough then it is quite possible that you need to rethink,
sometimes only in minor ways, what the service is you are offering or how
you are positioning it with your clients.
Let me end this chapter with a final thought about the skills you require. In
addition to the specialist skills you have, you need the skills of being a
consultant. A good consultant is not simply a bundle of knowledge and
capabilities about some area or another. This is essential, but it is not
enough. A good consultant knows how to be a consultant, and this is what
the rest of this book is about.
573 � Your consulting service
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The three core processes of
client-centric consulting
This chapter explains the consulting engagement process by lookingat the stages and steps in all consulting engagements. The advan-tages of understanding the engagement process is that it gives a
coherent structure to every piece of consulting work, and it provides a
language in which consultants can discuss engagements clearly and
unambiguously. The engagement process lies at the heart of all engage-
ments and describes the everyday work of a consultant. But the
engagement process is only one of the processes a client-centric consult-
ant must be familiar with. As well as understanding this process, the
consultant should also understand some of the client’s processes.
The emphasis in this book is on client-centric consulting. Therefore I am
going to position engagements into the wider setting of an organisation.
An engagement does not exist in isolation, but has a context within the
client business. This context can be understood by considering how a
consulting engagement fits with the operations of the client enterprise. I
will explain the three core processes a consultant should understand. The
three processes are:
1 The consulting engagement process: The necessary steps and their
logical order in the work the consultant is employed to deliver.
2 The client’s change process: A consulting engagement is always only a
part of a client’s process of making a change. How does the work on
an engagement relate to the wider change agenda in the business?
chapter
4
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3 The client’s operational process: Clients may thrive on change, but
they don’t exist to change. A business exists to deliver some product
or service on an ongoing basis. How does the work of the consultant
relate to this?
Although each of these processes is important, it is the relationship
between them all that is most important to a consultant. Each process
provides context to the others. By thinking beyond the engagement
process you are able to give truly client-centric consulting. In addition,
by understanding this context, the widest range of opportunities for
additional consulting sales can be identified.
Given the wide variety of possible consulting engagements, let alone the
varieties of businesses, it is not possible to define an engagement process
which is accurate for every situation unless it is so high level as to be
meaningless or it has so many options and ‘if-then’
type loops as to be impractical. I take a middle
course and outline a process that will work in the
majority of situations. I am not worried about the
lack of applicability to each and every occasion.
The engagement process I describe will be appro-
priate to most engagements, but you may need to
tweak it here and there in specific situations. This should not be difficult
once the basic structure is understood, as it is straightforward to tailor this
engagement process to a specific situation. What remains important, irre-
spective of how process steps need to be adapted, is the relationship
between the consulting engagement and the other two core processes.
Simply being aware that the relationship is important is a good start.
The most successful consulting provides assistance that is relevant to the
client and in doing so must understand the interaction between these
three processes. No matter how brilliant a consultant is, if the only context
they have is the limits and boundaries of the engagement they are working
on, they will never be able to achieve a full understanding and completely
meet client needs. The value a client-centric consultant adds is by giving
appropriate consulting advice relative to the client’s processes and context.
The engagement process
In this section I describe the engagement process, firstly at a high level
by dividing the process into three main stages (see Figure 4.1) and then
in more detail by breaking the stages into nine steps.
594 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
“it isstraightforward to
tailor this engagement
process to a specific
situation”
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Successful consultants’ objectives can be summarised as winning work,
satisfying clients and cultivating long-term profitable relationships. A
consulting engagement goes through three stages which achieve these
objectives. The first stage is associated with all the sales activities and is
called the propose stage. The aim of the propose stage is to win some
work with a particular client. The propose stage is ideally brief, as no
client is paying consulting fees whilst a proposal is created. In practice,
selling consultancy can be a protracted business. The propose stage will
either result in withdrawing from an opportunity or winning an engage-
ment. When work is won, the consultant moves into the second stage,
called the deliver stage.
The aim of the deliver stage is to satisfy your client by fulfilling their
needs. The deliver stage is usually the longest stage of the engagement.
The propose stage can be protracted, but the deliver phase is normally
more resource-intensive in terms of person-hours worked. However, it is
this work that results in the fees being earned by the consultant. A prof-
itable consultancy needs consultants to work more chargeable than
non-chargeable hours during the deliver phase – including also the time
spent in the propose stage. It is in the deliver phase that the consultants
add the most value to the client by applying the combination of skills,
experiences and capabilities they possess. The deliver phase is then fol-
lowed by the final stage, which I call the close stage.
Engagements end and you want them to end, or else you are not working
as a consultant. It is the successful completion of an engagement that
justifies your fees. Therefore a consultant has to work in such a way that
the engagement can end and so the engagement must always be focused
on reaching the end point. Do not confuse selling-on, which is con-
cerned with selling a subsequent engagement to a client, with not
finishing an individual engagement. The close stage can be very brief,
but it is important. One reason for this stage is to ensure any loose ends
are tied up, and often there are many on a consulting engagement. The
Understanding consultants and consultancy60
Deliver
to satisfy
Close
to cultivate
Propose
to win
Figure 4.1 The high-level engagement process
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most important part of closing an engagement is to provide an opportu-
nity to cultivate a long-term relationship with the client. An engagement
will end, but a relationship with a client should not.
Once the engagement process is broken into significantly more detail
than the model shown in Figure 4.1, it needs to become less generic and
more engagement specific. The process followed by a strategy consultant
may be quite different from the process followed by an IT consultant.
However, it is possible to show one more level of detail based on the
steps in a standard engagement, which is broadly applicable to most
engagements. This is shown in Figure 4.2 overleaf.
Let’s briefly look at each of these steps.
To write a proposal and hence win an engagement a consultant has to
find an opportunity. There are many sources of opportunities, but in the
end they all derive from some unfulfilled client needs. Sometimes clients
actively seek consultants to help them, and sometimes consultants come
across a client who wants consultancy. On other occasions, client needs
have to be teased out through ongoing dialogue and analysis. To begin
with, an opportunity tends to be vague and clients may have a tangled
web of issues. Consultants cannot simultaneously resolve every problem
a client has, so a period of exploration and dialogue with the client,
when the consultant works to focus to define the scope of engagement
and a precise set of deliverables, is required. Having collected enough
information the consultant must then develop a client proposition. The
consultant must frame a specific offering in the form of a proposal. (The
steps in propose-to-win will be described in more detail in Chapter 5.)
Assuming the client accepts the proposal, and during the frame step
there is normally a period of negotiation and tweaking of proposals, so
that eventually the consultant can start to deliver the engagement. A
consultant will commence the engagement by performing a range of set-
up activities, detailed planning and gathering resourcing for the
engagement. Next usually comes collecting information about the client.
The sort of questions the consultant is seeking to be able to answer are:
what is the client’s precise issue? What contextual factors need to be con-
sidered? What facts must be considered when determining the
recommendations the consultant will make? And so on. Having collected
sufficient information the consultant then analyses it and considers what
recommendations to make, and the shape and content of any deliver-
ables. The deliverables are then created. This includes activities such as
614 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
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Understanding consultants and consultancy62
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writing reports or developing final presentations. Finally, the deliverables
are handed over to the client. Clients are counselled on what to do next,
and receive the consultation they have engaged the consultant to give.
Occasionally clients are simply presented with final reports, but normally
the counsel and consult step is a time of discussion, client education and
a period in which the client has time to consider and then accept or
reject the findings.
The steps shown in the deliver phase are very general. In reality they do not
always happen in such a fixed linear structure. There are feedback loops and
iterations between the steps. In the consider step, it is not unusual to find
you do not have all the information you require and have to go back and
collect some more. Even in the penultimate counsel and consult step, a
client may disagree with a finding and it may be necessary to go back into
the create step, or an even earlier step in the process and produce revised
deliverables. It is sometimes necessary to return to the frame step and revise
the proposal because of what is discovered in the deliver stage of an engage-
ment. A consultant typically wants to avoid too many feedback loops as it
extends the engagement and can reduce the consultant’s profitability. These
feedback or rework steps are indicated in Figure 4.3.
The time spent in each of these steps varies tremendously, as does the
nature of the particular work. For example, if your key deliverable pro-
duced in the create step is a strategic analysis of a business, the work in
the collect and consider steps will be very different than if your main
deliverable is a change implementation plan. Chapter 6 will look at the
deliver-to-satisfy stage in more detail.
The close stage does not need to be broken down into any more detail at
this point. Closing an engagement and ensuring you cultivate your long-
term relationships with the client is explored in Chapters 8 and 9.
The client’s change process
In this section I want to relate the engagement to a client’s change
process. Let’s start by discussing the change process within a client and
then position it relative to the individual engagement.
Most organisations, especially commercial enterprises, exist in a state of
constant change. Even when organisations do not wish to change they are
forced to by commercial pressures, improvements in technology and modi-
fications in customer behaviour and views. Even the most seemingly
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Understanding consultants and consultancy64
conservative organisations undergo some change. This change may be rad-
ical strategic modifications endorsed or even demanded by shareholders
and other influential stakeholders. It may be the regular cycle of business
improvements that are planned by managers, usually as part of annual
target and budget setting. It is frequently the minor tweaks and enhance-
ments made at a micro-level by individual departments on an ongoing
basis. Whether it is strategic change, implementing new IT systems, busi-
ness process re-engineering, six sigma initiatives, reorganisations, cultural
change, cost reductions, quality improvement initiatives, expansions or
retrenchments, building moves and relocations, mergers and acquisitions,
modifying an individual procedure or any other form of change activity –
it is all part of the relentless drive to improve the organisation.
Few, if any, managers in a business have a perspective on all of this
change. In substantial organisations it is probably not possible to have
such a perspective. The most senior managers are aware only of the
largest initiatives, and all smaller modifications and adjustments are only
perceived by them in terms of increases and reductions in the opera-
tional performance of a business.
Such a swirling mass of change is difficult, if not impossible, to encapsu-
late totally in a single process, especially as every organisation
approaches change in its own unique way. But we can approximate to it
accurately enough with a simple model of how change occurs in an
organisation. This is shown in Figure 4.4.
The process shown has six stages. An individual organisation is nor-
mally working at all stages in this process simultaneously in different
parts of the business, with many parallel changes going on at once.
Hence one part of the business may be planning changes, another
implementing changes and a third thinking about its strategy. However,
if we consider an individual change we can walk through this process
in a logical order. A business thinks about the future, and taking
account of what is going on in the competitive environment in which
it operates, the business defines some form of
strategy. This strategy may exist as a tangible
documented statement of the way ahead for a
business, or it may be something more informal.
It could just be an ever-evolving set of ideas
within the heads of the senior managers in a
business. We can think of strategy as the high-level change agenda for
the business, but we can also think of strategy in a more modest way, as
“a business thinksabout the future,
defines some form of
strategy”
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the thinking and analysis that goes on all the time in a good manager’s
brain and which results in ideas for improvements.
The business will have some existing operations. By ‘operations’ in this
context I mean all the day-to-day work of the organisation – purchasing
supplies, developing products and services, selling and serving customers,
managing staff performance and so on. The operations are performed,
measured or assessed and then, taking account of the desired strategy,
improvements are identified. The improvements have to be planned,
whether the plan is simply the allocation of a minor improvement to a
specific member of staff, or the large-scale programme plans of radical
change in an organisation. Once the plans are complete, the improve-
ments can be implemented.
During strategy, planning and change implementation the business con-
tinues to operate. Following implementation the operations should
undergo some improvement. The improvement might be that some higher
level of performance is achieved, or operations are more efficient or more
effective, or perhaps new products and services have been launched or
654 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
Think:
Define strategy
Operate-improved:
Perform, measure and
confirm result
Operate-existing:
Perform, measure and
identify improvements
Plan:
Develop change plans
Implement:
Deliver improvements
by change
Monitor:
Assess competitive
environment
Figure 4.4 The change process in organisations
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Understanding consultants and consultancy66
existing products are better targeted at one set of customers or another.
Over time, by measuring performance it is possible to determine if the
changes have resulted in the level of improvement expected in a business.
The measured performance of the improved operations feeds back into
strategic thinking, and the whole change process starts again. The change
process is ongoing for several reasons. The implemented change may not
lead to the level of performance desired. Even if it does, the strategy will
evolve in response to new opportunities, new competitive threats, or
other modifications in the environment in which the organisation oper-
ates. Organisations, their managers and customers always have new ideas
and new desires constantly feeding the change process.
How does this relate to a consulting engagement? All consulting engage-
ments should result in a change within a client. If nothing has changed at
the end of an engagement then no value has been added to the client.
This change may be subtle or it may be profound, it may be short or long
term, it may affect a single individual or the whole organisation. Not only
do all successful consulting engagements result in change, the engage-
ments relate to one or more steps on the client change process shown in
Figure 4.4. If you are being asked for strategic advice and the advice is
accepted, it will result in a change somewhere in the strategic direction of
the business. If you are performing a review of operational performance
and your findings are accepted, it will result in a change somewhere in the
operations of the business. Obviously, consulting related to planning and
implementation are directly concerned with change.
The advantages of understanding the relationship between the engage-
ment process and the client’s change process is that it enables you to
tailor your work most appropriately to the client’s underlying change
agenda, and hence increases the likelihood of success. If you know why a
client originally asked for your engagement, and you have an idea of
what will happen once your engagement is complete, you are much
better positioned to provide consultancy that is targeted to the client’s
specific needs.
A second reason for understanding the relationship between the engage-
ment process and the client’s change process is that it increases your
chance of selling on. The change resulting from a consulting engagement
represents only one aspect of the change within a client. Whether the
client tells you or not, or even whether the client is conscious of it
or not, there is always a wider ongoing change agenda in every
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674 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
organisation. Whatever the engagement is, it will have been initiated due
to some previous thinking in the organisation, and if successful will in
turn result in changes in the business. If what you are doing is only one
part of a client’s change agenda, but you have an understanding of the
whole agenda – or at least know a bit more than the scope of your
engagement – you have much better information with which to position
your services for additional sales.
Having completed a consulting engagement, there is almost always a logi-
cal sell-on to the next stage in the change process. In Figure 4.5 I show
an example of how the client’s change process could be broken up into a
series of four consulting engagements based
around consulting service lines. The advantage of
thinking in this way is that it relates an engage-
ment to both the consulting service lines and the
process of change a client is going through. This
set of four diagrams shows a logical sequence of engagements. The nature
of each engagement is different, the skills required to do them vary sig-
nificantly, and it is unlikely that a single manager in the client
organisation would be the client for all of them. But, by understanding
that there is always a next step to a successful engagement, you can get
ready for any sell-on by identifying the right client for the work, and
pulling the necessary resources and proposal together. What makes large
consultancies successful is their ability to sell a variety of work to new
clients and sell on to existing ones.
The example shown in Figure 4.5 is one possible sequence of engage-
ments. A consultant starts by being invited to a client to develop a
strategy for them. The strategy engagement corresponds to the monitor
and think stages of the client’s change process. This leads on to an
opportunity, which the consultant wins, to perform an operational
review in the second engagement. The second engagement corresponds
to the operate-existing stage of the client’s change process. This identifies
situations in which the business does not meet the strategic require-
ments. Hence a change is required. Again the consultant sells on and this
change is planned and implemented with the consultant’s help in the
third engagement. Finally, there is a post-implementation review to learn
lessons for the next change, corresponding to the operate-improved stage
of the client’s change process. From an initially successful engagement a
consultant has sold on three further engagements, each of which is valu-
able to the client. The selling on does not have to stop. For instance,
“the nature of eachengagement is
different”
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Understanding consultants and consultancy68
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during the fourth engagement the consultancy might also offer to out-
source some of the client organisation’s operations.
Because the change process is an ongoing cycle, a consultant can enter
this process at any point. Consider the situation in which you may be
invited to help a client with some change planning. The completion of a
change plan obviously leads on to an opportunity for an implementation
engagement. But suppose that when you come to undertake the plan-
ning you discover that there is insufficient information to develop the
plan, or you think the basic change strategy will not work. If you can
convince the client of this, there is an opportunity to step backwards
through the process and look at operational performance or the strategic
thinking that led to deciding on the change. It is not unusual for success-
ful consultants to sell on by showing a client that what really needs to be
done is not the engagement they have asked for, but to rework one of the
preceding steps in the change process.
The client’s operational process
So far in this chapter I have presented the engagement process and its rela-
tionship to the client’s change process. This is helpful, but is not sufficient
to understand fully a client and position an engagement in the best way. A
client may be involved in significant amounts of change, and senior man-
agers may spend a high proportion of their time involved in change, but it
is always worth remembering that clients do not exist to change. They
exist to run an organisation, which is achieved by the daily operations of a
business. This includes activities like selecting and buying resources, find-
ing customers, developing and making products and services, selling
products and services, providing support to customers, managing staff and
finance, and so on. The enterprise may be sustained or improved by
change, but will not survive on change alone. It is easy for consultants to
lose sight of this, given their regular involvement in change.
The operational process is unique to an organisation, and there can be
no single, useful, universal or generic representation of all clients’ opera-
tional processes. This reinforces the need for client-centric rather than
generic approaches. What is important, in every situation, is to gain
some understanding of the client’s specific operational process.
A good place to start is to consider the perspective of the people responsi-
ble for operating the business. To an operational manager a piece of
consulting is not an important activity in its own right. Implementing
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Understanding consultants and consultancy70
change by applying a consultant’s recommendations is not an important
result by itself. The only result that matters to an operational manager is
achieving necessary levels of operational performance and, ideally,
improving on this. Consulting is only relevant to the extent to which it
helps in achieving or improving operational performance – or, with a
radical strategic change, in determining that the whole direction and
nature of the operations must be modified.
Consulting typically identifies and implements change for clients. The
change leads to performance improvements and hence the future opera-
tional results of the organisation are achieved.
Operations are done today and are about today.
Consulting is done today, but is about tomorrow.
In most organisations, the majority of staff and
resources are allocated towards the current opera-
tions of the business, not towards thinking about tomorrow or how
improvements can be made.
Even though the consultant’s work is focused on tomorrow, the work of
the consultant has an impact on today’s operational process. Consulting
engagements have various impacts on the operations of a business in a
number of ways, including:
� The way staff time and other resources are used: As discussed in later
chapters, few consulting engagements can be performed by consultants
alone. Time is needed from the clients, who are usually busy managers.
Client staff may need to be allocated full-time to work with consultants
for the length of the engagement – staff who otherwise would make
contributions to the daily operations of the business. Operational
managers can appear to have incompatible emotions – both welcoming
consultants for the value they bring whilst simultaneously cursing
them for the time and resources they absorb.
� The way consultants in the business affect it: Consultants are
usually strangers in a business, and all groups can be disrupted when
new people join. For example, consultants are often associated with
negative events in the minds of staff. The simple existence of
consultants in a business can start detrimental rumours going and
affect staff mood.
� The risk of collateral damage and unintended outcomes: Whenever
anything new comes into a business, or anything is changed, there is a
risk of some unintended outcomes – these may be positive or negative.
The actions of consultants can unintentionally disrupt operations.
“consulting is donetoday, but is about
tomorrow”
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When it comes to change implementation, this cannot be done without
an appreciation of the operations of the business. Organisations which
have existed for many years are usually robust, but the work of the con-
sultant has an effect not only within the scope of the engagement, and
not only upon the wider change agenda, but potentially on the broader
day-to-day operations of a business. Organisations, especially those
which are large or have existed for some time, are complex entities. They
are not made up from a set of stand-alone components. They exist as
organisations because the different components interact and are inter-
woven. One process affects another; one system interfaces with other
systems. The way one person works affects the way other people work
and feel. Wherever a change is recommended or implemented by a con-
sultant in one part of a business, it will usually have an effect elsewhere
in a business.
A consultant should always consider the operations of a business, simply
because without them the value of the consulting is limited. It is context
free. It is like asking an architect for a design to improve your house
without them understanding the design of your current house or how
you use it.
Considering the operational process of a business may seem to make the
consultant’s life harder, but it is essential for client-centric consulting.
However, there is another positive business reason to undertake this.
Understanding the client’s operational process provides the opportunity
for additional consulting sales.
Maximising consulting opportunities
A consulting engagement only touches on one part of a client’s business.
This may mean it is possible to up-sell: that is, to increase fees by extend-
ing the scope of the existing engagement to parts of the business not
currently within scope. For instance, if you are a consultant who spe-
cialises in launching new products and you are working in one division
of a business there may be an opportunity to help another division with
launching new products as well. There may also be many opportunities
to cross-sell. Cross-selling is selling other services lines to the same client.
For example, you may be helping an organisation improve the way it
manages staff performance management, and as part of this you identify
a general weakness in budget planning and budget management. There
is, therefore, a potential opportunity to sell some additional financial
714 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
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Understanding consultants and consultancy72
services. The point is that both in cross-selling and up-selling, the addi-
tional sales do not directly result from your current engagement. Your
current engagement gives you information about the way the business
operates and relationships that enable you to identify the opportunity
and increase the likelihood of a successful sale.
Figure 4.6 shows graphically the on-sell, up-sell and cross-sell concepts.
You may think at this stage that this differentiation between on-sell,
cross-sell and up-sell is not that important as it is all just pedantic varia-
tions on the theme of making additional sales. They are all additional
sales, but there is a good reason for stressing the difference between the
three types. By seeing the difference it encourages you to think in the
broadest way about possible opportunities with your client. If the on-sell
is obvious, is there any possible cross-sell or up-sell? Alternatively, the
cross-sell may be straightforward, but is there any potential on-sell or up-
sell? Finally the up-sell may be there to take, but is there any opportunity
for on-sell or cross-sell? Successful consulting businesses increase their
potential revenue streams by thinking across
these sales approaches. It is not simply revenue
maximisation: if you are an independent consult-
ant who can only actually complete a limited
amount of work, the more opportunities you
identify, the more you can choose the work you
want to do and that which you can add most value to.
An easy way to think about on-sell, cross-sell and up-sell is to ask yourself
on every engagement the following three questions:
1 What is the sequence of activities following on from the current
engagement that will maximise value for the client? (On-sell)
2 Is the work of this engagement applicable to any other
departments/functions/divisions of this organisation? (Up-sell)
3 Does the client I am currently working for have any other unfulfilled
needs that different consulting services may satisfy? (Cross-sell)
Large consulting businesses may have a more significant involvement in
the operational process in a client business through the related services
of interim management and in outsourcing. These are valuable and spe-
cialist services which are critical to the operations of many businesses
and there can be a symbiotic relationship between them and consulting,
but they are outside the scope of this book.
“think in thebroadest way about
possible opportunities
with your client”
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734 � The three core processes of client-centric consulting
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Considering all the points in these sections, does this mean that the con-
sultant has to be an expert in every aspect of the operational process? No.
That is not required and would not be practical. However, a consultant
should seek to understand enough about an organisation’s operational
process to be able to position an engagement relative to this process. This
is both in the client’s interest as the consulting will be more relevant, and
in the consultant’s interest as it can lead to more sales. This is one main
reason why experience of an organisation can make the contribution of a
consultant more valuable. There are various pros and cons of internal
versus external consultants, but one significant advantage of internal
consultants should be their understanding of the operational process,
and their ability to shape an engagement appropriately so it has the max-
imum positive and minimal negative impact on the business.
The impact of the consultant upon the organisation and the sustainabil-
ity of any resulting change are discussed in more detail in Chapter 8.
Up-sell, cross-sell as well as on-sell are revisited in Chapter 5.
Summary
If you have read this book in chapter order, you have now completed the first
part made up of the initial four chapters. You should have a clear
understanding of the world of the consultant and be comfortable with the
central topics and jargon of consultancy. The central message is both to
appreciate and be willing to expand your skills in consultancy, but also to
strive continuously to put this into the context of the client’s organisation.
This is at the heart of client-centric consulting. You have no business without
clients and their unfulfilled needs. If you can position your services relative
to real client needs and fulfil those needs, you have the makings of a sound
consulting business.
Understanding consultants and consultancy74
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Consulting
engagements
part
two
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Finding and winning work
This chapter is concerned with the propose-to-win stage of theengagement process, and explains the find, focus and frame stepsin detail (see Figure 5.1). It is one of the longest chapters in the
book, as it relates to one of the most important things for a consultant to
get right. If you are completely new to consulting, this is likely to be the
part of a consultant’s work you are most unfamiliar with. For experienced
consultants, this is often the area of improvement that is most beneficial.
The propose stage covers everything from first contact with the client to
the point at which a live engagement starts. Alternatively, it can end
when either the client or consultant has decided not to progress with the
opportunity. This is a critical phase, not just because it determines if you
have any income or not, but because it sets the scene for the whole
client–consultant relationship, and establishes expectations about how
the engagement will be carried out. Depending on how you approach the
proposal stage, you can end up with highly profitable, low-risk, enjoyable
Find Focus
Propose
Frame
Figure 5.1 The steps in the propose stage of the engagement process
chapter
5
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engagements; loss-making, unpleasant and highly risky engagements; or
no engagements at all. To a great extent, this is under your control.
One of your aims as a consultant is to sell profitable engagements that
add value to your clients. On top of this, you will have personal goals,
such as having enjoyable work or being involved in engagements with
some wider positive impact on society. The propose-to-win stage is struc-
tured to help you achieve your aims, and to filter out or eliminate
engagements which will not meet your requirements.
The propose stage is a significant part of a consultant’s business develop-
ment. ‘Business development’ is a catch-all term used by consultants to
encompass all their non-chargeable activities associated with generating
work. This includes everything from writing articles, attending confer-
ences, developing marketing materials, taking
prospective clients to dinner, as well as direct sales
activity. Some consultants avoid the word ‘sales’,
almost as it if is somehow distasteful. Large con-
sultancy firms have employees who are effectively
professional sales people, as they are rewarded
purely on sales targets, but they are often given
some more ambiguous title, such as partner or director. However, the
truth is that whilst selling consultancy may differ from many other forms
of selling, beneath the words the purpose of the propose stage is to sell.
The chapter is split into several sections. The first section, which is about
finding opportunities, will be of interest mainly to external consultants,
and is biased towards those from small companies as these are usually
the organisations who find it hardest to market themselves. Consultants
in large companies may sometimes suffer from a lack of sales, but gener-
ally they have no problem finding potential clients. The remaining
sections should be of interest to all consultants: internal and external,
solo consultants and those in the largest firms.
Selling work is important to every consultant. If you work as an inde-
pendent consultant you must have an ability to generate sales otherwise
you will have no income. To become senior in most large consultancy
companies you need to have some business development capability. An
ability to consult with clients is not enough: beyond a certain level no
sales means no promotion. Internal consultants may have a captive
client and hence feel that selling is irrelevant to them. But even for an
internal consultant the ability to identify needs and frame appropriate
solutions is essential to being valued in the organisation.
Consulting engagements78
“some consultantsavoid the word
‘sales’, almost as it
if is somehow
distasteful”
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Finding opportunities
There are many great sales techniques. The expert sales person has an art
which is not easy to encapsulate in a few paragraphs. However, behind
all the skills is a simple truth: to make a sell there has to be a coincidence
of needs. The client has to need (or want) help from a consultant, and
the consultant has to need (or want) to work with a client. If both needs
exist, there is an opportunity to sell; if not, there is none. If you accept
this simple truth, then selling relies on two factors:
1 awareness of client needs – consultants finding prospective clients
2 awareness of consultant capabilities – clients finding prospective
consultants.
Of course, there is more to selling than this. But this is where it all starts
and is the most important part. I have sometimes sold work very quickly
simply because I have stumbled across a client with a need or the client
has come across me when I have been free.
Many consultants worry they are not capable of selling. Don’t get
stressed about selling. People and organisations really do have problems
and really do want to buy solutions to overcome them. If you can con-
vince the client you can help, you will sell. The challenge is finding
people with problems suited to your capabilities rather than just opti-
mistically pushing what you can do.
Consulting is inherently a networking business. It is a job in which you
are as good as your network. The more people you know and the more
who have a positive regard for you, the more likely you are to generate
sales leads. Most sales leads come from your network, not from relentless
cold calls or responding to requests for information (RFIs), requests for
quotation (RFQs) or requests for proposal (RFPs). Hence the starting point
for finding opportunities is to build and manage your network.
Build and manage your network
A strong network of positive relationships is an important asset to a con-
sultant for all sorts of reasons. If you know lots of people with a variety
of skills and backgrounds, there will always be someone you can call on
for help, whatever your problem. A network provides information and it
provides access to resources. A network is also the source of many oppor-
tunities and for some very successful consultants it is the original source
795 � Finding and winning work
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of all their income. Major consultancies are more likely to recruit and
promote you if you have a good network.
What makes up your network? From a sales perspective obviously the
most important people are clients or prospective clients. But there is a
wide range of other people who can help you identify and progress
opportunities. You will know lots of people who are not prospective
clients, but who themselves know other clients. There can be other part-
ners interested in selling consultancy, for example consulting and
interim management agencies. One of the most important components
of your network is other consultants.
Do not overestimate how much competition you face from other con-
sultants and play everything close to your chest. Similarly, do not
underestimate how much work can come from developing relationships
with other consultants. Many engagements cannot be done by a single
consultant, and consultants will regularly come across engagements they
cannot do. Experienced consultants actively seek others to be involved in
such situations. This is not pure charity. Introducing other good people
to a client can enhance a consultant’s relationship with their clients. One
should avoid being naive about sharing leads with every consultant, but
if you appropriately share sales leads, intellectual capital and other
resources you will receive them back in return.
If you are an independent consultant with a specialist niche skill it can
even be helpful to form a relationship with a consultancy business. For
commercial reasons such firms will naturally always try to allocate their
own staff to client engagements first, but sometimes they are short of
resources or do not have all the skills required. Most of the big firms have
some form of associate network – where an associate is a contract con-
sultant who joins an engagement team without becoming an employee.
For some of the mid-size and small consultancies much of their work is
staffed by associates. It may not provide a continuous stream of work,
but it may well bring you some significant engagements.
You should deliberately build and manage your network and not leave it
to chance or let it develop purely haphazardly. There is a big element of
luck in any network of relationships. You may fortuitously bump into all
sorts of useful people. But don’t leave it just to
luck. Much of building a network is informal. We
develop relationships as a normal part of commu-
nicating and working together. But informal does
Consulting engagements80
“much of building anetwork is
informal”
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815 � Finding and winning work 815 � Finding and winning work
not mean accidental. You should seek opportunities to introduce yourself
or be introduced to people who can be useful to you. Then actively
manage the network. Contact people in your network regularly. Don’t
wait years and years to speak to someone you once knew who is now in
an important role. Don’t leave people who have been valuable clients in
the past out in the cold. If you have done a good job for them, then they
are quite likely to request your services again – just don’t let them forget
about you.
Awareness of client needs
Your network should be your primary vehicle to become aware of clients
with needs. The easiest and best way to find opportunities is simply to
observe, listen and make sure everyone in your network is aware of your
availability and capabilities. Beyond what arises directly in your network,
there are three main sources of additional sales. You can try cold calls,
that is directly approaching clients who you do not know and who do
not know you, but who you might think are potential buyers of your
service. Secondly, there are opportunities that come about because of
requests for proposals (RFPs). Finally, of course, the client may contact
you directly.
Selling consultancy relies predominantly on some level of relationship
with the person you are selling to. You have no relationship with some-
one you cold call. Unless well thought through, cold calls rarely work, or
at least the percentage of calls that will result in a sale is very low. If you
are going to cold call clients, make it a targeted approach to a specific
manager and aim a specific service line at them. It is incredibly unlikely
to result in a sale, but if you make enough calls you may generate some
further conversations and the basis to develop a relationship. Unless you
are very lucky, generic ‘I can help you’ sort of calls will not work.
RFPs are distributed by some clients as a way to buy consulting services.
(I will bundle variants such as RFIs and RFQs into the same category.) Of
course, a client must have some awareness of your company and services
to send you an RFP – but it may be very limited knowledge. On the other
hand, to receive some RFPs you may need to be registered with a client’s
procurement department. Some clients have to use RFPs because of their
tendering regulations. Other clients choose to use them as a way to opti-
mise their procurement of consulting. RFPs are more typical for large
engagements and public sector work. The question you must ask is: do
you want to respond to such tenders or not?
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Consulting engagements82
There are pros and cons of tender situations, and not everyone is a fan of
them. The opportunity from RFPs can be huge, but the cost of sales can
be high. RFPs can be onerous to respond to, and if many consultancies
are requested to respond, the probability of winning may be low. For
some clients, the only way to work with them is by responding to RFPs.
It is usually the smaller firms who avoid RFPs because they cannot afford
the costs of responding to them, but there are exceptions. I know of one
professional services division of a vast multinational services provider
that shuns RFPs altogether. I also know of some independent consultants
who get much of their work through them.
One specific RFP to watch out for is when a client organisation is looking
to enter a framework agreement with a consulting company to provide
consultancy on an ongoing basis. Some firms have a single favoured sup-
plier for consulting, and winning the framework agreement can be
lucrative. Alternatively, other organisations insist that you have a frame-
work agreement with them before you can be considered for even a single
consulting engagement. For such firms the framework agreement is not
anything exclusive, it is a part of their standard procurement process.
The other way you can become aware of client needs is if the client con-
tacts you directly. To do this they have to have some knowledge of your
skills and services. This is discussed below.
Client awareness of consultants
Rather than consultants finding a client, clients with problems can find
consultants. Many of my colleagues, with well-established reputations,
get all their work from clients contacting them directly. For this to
happen, the client has to be aware of your service as a consultant. Mostly,
this is about clients ringing up consultants they have a relationship with,
that is consultants who have successfully delivered engagements to the
client’s satisfaction in the past. But it is possible to more generally raise
awareness of your capabilities and hence increase the likelihood that
clients will consider you when they have a problem.
The common term for activities used to raise awareness of your capabili-
ties is marketing. Marketing generally increases the likelihood of sales
without being targeted on one sale in particular. You can easily spend a
lot of time and effort on marketing. The point is to choose what market-
ing to get involved in and what is not useful. Unless you are a major
consulting organisation, the amount of marketing you can afford to do
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835 � Finding and winning work
will be limited. There are many forums which provide marketing oppor-
tunities, such as conferences and workshops. Professional societies often
run networking events and breakfast meetings.
There are hundreds of journals and business mag-
azines you can write articles for. Writing and
publishing a book can generate sales. You could
consider maintaining a blog. Most of these things have to be done at
your own cost. All of these may result in some leads, but focus your time
on what you will get the most benefit from.
Consider a marketing activity such as presenting at a conference. Is it
actually going to generate you any work? There are many reasons for pre-
senting at conferences, but before you think that a conference will lead to
sales, reflect on who makes up the typical audience. If you are a specialist
in work of type X, going to a conference which is full of other similar spe-
cialists may well be important to your skills development but may also be
worthless from an opportunity development perspective. Do specialists of
type X buy the services of other specialists of type X? For instance, one of
my skills is project management. I attend and talk at project management
conferences as it helps keep my thinking fresh, but not to sell consulting.
Project managers generally do not buy consultant project managers.
Clients who have projects to run or project management teams to
improve are the buyers of consultant project managers. Such clients do
not typically attend project management conferences. For similar reasons,
if you write articles, books or a blog you should think through who reads
them and whether the readership includes prospective clients.
Any sophisticated marketing, and all but the most limited of advertising,
is the domain of the large consultancies with a known brand. There are
many advantages to working for a well-known consultancy. Some clients
will contact you directly. A client is more likely to take a cold call from
such an organisation seriously. The big consulting organisations may
have full-time business development and sales staff. Generally, the
smaller firms cannot afford staff dedicated to selling.
Full-time consultancy sales staff will approach new clients directly, but
they spend much of their time listening for client pulls rather than push-
ing services. They are waiting to hear about client problems, which they
know will be there.
More cost-effective marketing mechanisms for smaller consultancies are
leaflets and websites. Personally, I do not favour leaflets as I think few
“you could considermaintaining a blog”
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clients read them and they are a dated format, even when distributed
electronically. The exception can be when a client has shown interest in
your services and you give them a leaflet which they can read and under-
stand what it is that you offer. Overall, my advice is to spend the money
you would have on a leaflet on a good business card. Websites are useful
and I have had enquiries from mine, but they were all from people who
were already looking for me or my company. They found my website and
hence were able to contact me, but they did not come to know of me
because of my website. Mostly, I use the website to direct potential
clients who want to know what services I offer. Professional and social
networking sites also provide the opportunity to expand your network.
If you choose to have leaflets, websites or business cards, avoid the temp-
tation to save a few pounds by designing them yourself. Unless you have
a real design flair, the chances are that they will look unprofessional.
What information they contain may be great, but the perception that
badly structured and poorly implemented communication gives is nega-
tive. The danger is that you convert a mechanism that can allow a small
firm to look big, into something that makes you look like a complete
amateur. Big corporations with large consulting budget generally do not
want to be involved with amateurs.
Have you found an opportunity?
Let’s assume you have found something that you think has potential
because a client has contacted you directly or you have come across a
client with a need. The end point of the find stage is to determine if the
opportunity is real and to decide if you are going to invest time chasing
it. You must follow some opportunities or else you will never get any
work, but there is a direct and indirect cost to pursuing every opportu-
nity. There is the direct cost of your time and associated expenses, and
the indirect cost of not doing whatever else you may be doing with that
time. This is not the step for detailed analysis, as you do not have the
necessary information; this will be collected later. But roughly estimate
the amount of time you will use chasing the opportunity, how much you
want the work and what the probability is of winning it. Unless winning
the work is critical, if the costs look too high or the probability of a win
is too low, don’t go further. Hopefully, you will find plenty of other leads
you wish to pursue further.
Selling consulting can be straightforward, although it can be a time-
consuming and frustratingly elongated process. The main thing to
Consulting engagements84
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855 � Finding and winning work
remember is that a client is very unlikely to buy a service that they do
not think they need. If they don’t think they need a service, then you are
usually wasting your time trying to sell it to them. On the other hand,
once a client has perceived a need then it can be plain sailing. Most
clients have far too much to do and issues galore. If you can take one of
the balls away that they are juggling and solve any associated issues, you
will be adding value to them.
Focusing the opportunity
Having found an opportunity, you need to develop a deeper and more
focused understanding of the situation. Consultancy takes many forms,
while clients’ needs are hugely varied and normally neither instantly
clear nor totally transparent. To be able to focus on the essential and
uncover hidden needs and desires requires information. This information
is found through exploratory dialogue with the client and client repre-
sentatives. You need to find out what the client really wants (as discussed
in Chapter 2), collect the information necessary to decide if you are
going to bid, and assemble the data required to pull a winning proposi-
tion together. This includes gaining an understanding of the wider
situation. You cannot understand a client issue fully without some
understanding of the context and culture of the organisation.
The exploratory dialogue is not just about gathering information. If it
was, you could write a list of questions and email them to the client,
review the responses and perhaps send a few follow-up questions. You
could go around this loop until you had all the
information you need. Sometimes with competi-
tive RFPs this is exactly the approach that must be
taken. But it is sub-optimal. The exploratory dia-
logue performed during the focus step does more
than ask and answer a set of questions. Just as
important is how you ask your questions and how you interact with the
client to develop a strong relationship (see Chapters 9 and 11).
The way you focus the engagement helps to set expectations between
yourself and the client. You should aim to develop a common under-
standing of the problem and the approach you will take to resolve it.
Later on, you can concentrate on the formal language of the proposal
and the correct legal terms in the contract, but in most cases the
common understanding developed during this focus step is far more
“the exploratorydialogue is not just
about gathering
information”
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Consulting engagements86
important than the documented terms. Dialogue is critical to building
your relationship with the client and gaining the client’s input into the
work. This input is partially about information, but it is also about ensur-
ing the client is involved in the work. The more involved a client feels,
the more likely the work will progress successfully. A well-run focus step
is of enormous value to you, as it enables the development of a great pro-
posal, but also to the client, as it can clarify their own thinking. Some
consultants call these activities contracting with the client.
Another way to think of contracting is as a risk management exercise. By
going through discussions with the client you aim to reduce both your
and the client’s risk. The consultant’s risk is reduced by exposing as much
pertinent information about the future engagement as possible. This
reduces the likelihood of unpleasant surprises once you get into the
engagement. The client’s risk is reduced by having an opportunity to
interact with the consultant and judge whether they are competent and
someone they can work with once the engagement starts. You will never
know everything until you actually start the engagement, so focusing
cannot remove risk, but it needs to reduce it to the level that you are
comfortable estimating a price and suggesting an approach for a piece of
work. A phrase commonly used by consultants to refer to this stage of
contracting is qualifying an opportunity.
One colleague of mine colourfully likened qualifying opportunities to
two dogs sniffing each other and finding out if they are going to bark at
each other or wag their tails. There is simultaneously a desire to know
more and a little wariness.
It is difficult to predict and plan this stage of the engagement process.
Sometimes it can happen over an intense few hours or days. On other
occasions it may drag out over weeks or even months of intermittent dia-
logue. Unless well managed, it tends to crawl along. The tendency for this
focus stage to be elongated is one of the reasons why some consultants
have multiple opportunities progressing at once, and start progressing
new opportunities before existing engagements have finished.
From your perspective, there are four main questions you must answer
during the focus steps:
1 Do you want this client?
2 What is the client’s underlying issue?
3 Is it an engagement you want and have the capability to do?
4 Are you likely to win it within a reasonable level of effort?
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These questions assume that you are dealing with a new client. Focusing
is simpler with an established client, as you can ignore the first question.
I am going to look at each of these sequentially, but although there is a
broad logic to the order they are presented in, in reality these four issues
are explored and resolved in parallel. The second question is usually the
most complex to answer and is the focal point of this section.
Do you want this client?
The first question to answer is whether you want to work with this client.
In answering this question you start to collect the information you need
to develop a proposal, and so it is both about qualification and informa-
tion gathering. You should never be hasty to discount clients, and I reject
very few opportunities just because it is a client I do not want. However,
there are some people who do not make good consulting clients and
with whom it is a struggle to have a constructive working relationship
(regarding the latter, see also Chapter 12).
Perhaps the most obvious thing is to identify who the client is. As was
discussed in Chapter 2, this is not always as straightforward as it initially
seems. You may assume that the first person you interact with is the
client, and often you will be right, but not always. However, follow the
advice in Chapter 2 and you should be able to pinpoint the client.
There are good clients and there are difficult ones. You should not reject
difficult clients out of hand, as many will have significant consulting
needs and you will still be able to add value to them. You should try to
understand how difficult they are likely to be, as, if nothing else, difficult
clients tend to extend the length of consulting engagements and you
need to size the work accordingly.
There are some minimal characteristics a client must fulfil. They must be
willing to buy and they must have access to funds in order to pay. The
client must be willing to provide support and resources for the engage-
ment. There are many ways to design an engagement using variable
levels of client support and resources, but there is a minimum level
required. The client must understand that delivering a good result from a
consulting engagement is a partnership between
the consultant and the client. The client is neither
buying a product nor are they outsourcing a prob-
lem to someone else. They will have to remain
involved. Finally, the client needs to appreciate
875 � Finding and winning work 875 � Finding and winning work
“you must getsomething out of the
engagement or else it
is not worth doing”
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Consulting engagements88
that, as a consultant, you must get something out of the engagement or
else it is not worth doing. At a minimum this is your fees, but the more
attractive the client can make the engagement, the more likely you are to
be motivated to execute an excellent piece of consulting.
There is a lot of information to collect and clarifications to be achieved
to develop a good proposal. Information, such as available budget, styles
of working, the level of access to client staff that will be possible, contex-
tual constraints and so on, must be collected. Such information can
come from the client directly, but can also be derived from other people
in the client organisation. Some clients like to delegate the interaction
with consultants. There is nothing in principle wrong with this, other
than it is in your interest for your relationship to be with the client and
not the client’s staff, but it should not stop you progressing. However,
the client must have some direct involvement in focusing the engage-
ment. As a bare minimum the client should:
� define the objectives of the engagement
� define how the success of the engagement will be assessed.
If the client is not willing to do this, then it is quite likely that they will
not be actively involved in the engagement if and when it starts. This
indicates a difficult client.
You should also identify who is involved in deciding who will win the
engagement. For instance, are the procurement department involved? If
they are, what is the procurement process you must adhere to? It is also
useful to clarify who will be the decision makers and other stakeholders
in the live engagement once it starts. A very large group of decision
makers and stakeholders will tend to make the engagement more com-
plex and take more time or consultant resources, which needs to be
factored into your proposal.
One critical set of information is the client’s buying or selection criteria.
You should identify what makes a consulting proposition attractive or
unattractive to a client. You can easily develop a better proposal than a
similarly skilled consultant by understanding what will make your
proposition attractive to a client. Examples of possible criteria include
whether the client is cost sensitive, or wants the best possible piece of
consulting irrespective of the fees. Does the client like clever intellectual
rigour and sound argument, or do they prefer pragmatic advice from an
experienced hands-on consultant? Does the client favour detailed written
proposals or short presentations? The easiest way to find this information
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895 � Finding and winning work
is to ask the client directly what their preferences are and what style of
working they like.
The information you collect in this step should give you a clear indica-
tion of whether you want to work with the client, and if it is a client you
can profitably provide consulting to. In the end, there is rarely a black
and white answer to this question, merely indicative facts and impres-
sions you must make a judgement about.
What is the client’s underlying issue?
The most important factor for the consultant to understand is the client’s
underlying issue. Many consultants fail to sell because of a lack of under-
standing of the client’s real issues. Even if the consultant sells, the client
ends up disappointed as the result does not meet their real needs. You must
clearly identify what it is that makes the client want to use consultants.
Clients involve consultants for a whole host of reasons. Sometimes they
want creativity – that is the ability to help them to gain a new insight.
Perhaps they want expertise to help in making a decision. They may
want people with specialist skills to identify and overcome problems in a
specific area of their business. They may desire access to a consultancy’s
intellectual capital, such as processes describing a tried and tested
methodology. Clients may want an independent viewpoint, and a differ-
ent perspective on issues which are perplexing them. The client may
want to use a consultant for political reasons, for example to validate a
decision or push through unpopular strategy. All these relate to the con-
text in which you are consulting, but on top of understanding this you
must understand the specific issue the client wants addressed. Clients do
not buy consulting for general reasons, but because of a specific issue or a
set of issues. It is these that you need to tease out through your
exploratory dialogue.
What do I mean by an ‘issue’ in this context? An issue is a problem the
client has, or an opportunity the client wants to seize, that generates a
need for assistance. An issue can be phrased as a question, and it is always
helpful to consolidate the information and ideas about the client into a
single question. When you write your proposal, you are offering to answer
this question for the client. Of course, clients never actually have one
issue. They have a complex mishmash of problems, opportunities, irrita-
tions, concerns, ideas and feelings. Some clients have a razor-sharp focus
on a single issue they want help with, but much of the focus step is often
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Consulting engagements90
trawling through the wide and murky sea of client thinking until you
identify one or a few related issues they really need or want help to resolve.
New consultants often do not understand why it is important to identify
an issue. Surely the consultant is there to help, and if the client is suffer-
ing from this muddle of challenges then shouldn’t we help with all of
them? The answer is no. Consultants are not employed to do a client’s
job for them. If a client wants that, then they require an interim man-
ager; when you propose consulting, you do not offer to run the client’s
business. The general value proposition of a consultant is to resolve
issues in a limited period of time. That may consist of providing clarity
about what the issues are, identifying ways to resolve the issue, helping
to plan the implementation of the resolution or supporting its imple-
mentation. If a client wants help to resolve several unrelated issues, you
may bundle them into one engagement, but you are doing several sepa-
rate pieces of consulting.
It is critical to being able to make a coherent and understandable pro-
posal that you boil down the set of client problems to a single issue, or
small set of issues. If you cannot, then try and sell a consulting engage-
ment that aims to gain clarification. In other words, to specify the client
issue as ‘I cannot make sense of all the problems I have’ and the consult-
ing proposition would be something like ‘to make sense of the problems
and develop a prioritised plan of action for their resolution’.
To sell consulting, not only do you have to understand the client’s issue,
but you need to link it to your capabilities or service lines. The whole
aim of the propose stage is to show a client you can resolve the issues
they have. There is a natural tension to balance.
You do not want your assessment of the situation
to be constrained by your service lines, otherwise
you will start to see the solution to all problems as
a limited set of services. True client-centric con-
sulting does not limit itself in this way. However,
you will need to make a proposal, and it will require you to show a link
between the client’s issues and your capabilities. Hence it is helpful to
think about how you align your service lines to the client’s issue. I must
stress that this is not about the application of standard services to a
unique client problem. You are not selling off-the-shelf products. Your
service will need to be tailored to the specific situation, but the issue still
relates to your service lines. You are being engaged because you have
experience, and your experience is encapsulated in your service lines.
“the whole aim is toshow a client you can
resolve the issues they
have”
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Start by indentifying the client issue and then translate this into your
service lines. To sell consulting, the translation from a client issue into a
consulting service line should be transparent and intuitively obvious to
the client. By thinking about the client’s issue and its relationship to
your service lines, you can:
� Develop understanding: If you think of a client’s issues in terms of
your experience you are in the best position to ask the right questions
and clarify the situation.
� Position and label the problem and the solution you are proposing:
Real issues in business are complex, but people understand best when
they can be described in simple terms. You should aim for a proposal
that is very clear.
� Make a compelling proposition: The most compelling proposition
will result from a true understanding of the client’s issue, and
showing that it directly links to your skills.
Figure 5.2 shows how you can start to align your service lines to client
needs. There are six columns, and each column represents a general cate-
gory of client issue. At the top of each of the columns is an issue from a
client’s perspective. At the bottom of the column are potential consulting
service lines that can be used to resolve this issue. Not all client issues
will fit into the six categories shown in these columns, but most align
more or less to these sorts of categorisation. Of course, your analysis
needs to get to a much more specific client issue than defined here, but
even at the level shown in Figure 5.2, you can start to determine if what
is required is a strategic analysis, selecting solutions, implementation
planning or implementation management.
Being able to categorise in such a way is helpful and important. The dif-
ference, for example, between a client issue being ‘am I doing the right
things?’ and ‘am I doing things in the right way?’ may seem insignifi-
cant, but they are fundamentally different questions to answer. The
former is a question about strategy, the latter is about operations. The
first is concerned with what an organisation should be doing, the second
is concerned with how it should be doing whatever it does.
Misunderstand whether the client issue is the former or the latter and
you will offer what is fundamentally the wrong service line to the client.
The larger consultancies tend to arrange service lines along the way
shown at the bottom of each the columns in Figure 5.2. There will
be strategy experts, specialists who can analyse an area of a business
915 � Finding and winning work
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Consulting engagements92
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at
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g
u
re
5
.2
A
lig
ni
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s
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vi
ce
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s
to
c
lie
nt
n
ee
ds
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935 � Finding and winning work
operations and recommend improvements, consultants who are expert
in specifying solutions, consultants who do implementation planning
and management, and usually consultants who can review aspects of
operations to assess performance. By categorising an opportunity in the
way shown in Figure 5.2, it is possible to start to identify which consult-
ants should be used to develop the proposal.
What these consultancies are doing is aligning service lines with the
client’s perceived issues. In reality, there will be a more complex analysis
going on, once additional characteristics are considered, such as the client
sector and scale of the client organisation. For instance, the approach to
strategy for a major multinational bank may be different from that used
with a small, regional, manufacturing company – but the general princi-
ple of positioning a strategy service line relative to a client in either sector,
who wants to know if they are doing the right things, remains the same.
Figure 5.3 is a redrawing of Figure 5.2 emphasising the range of client’s
perceived issues that map on to the consultant’s service lines.
The power of such a simple analysis of client needs should not be under-
estimated. It is very easy when analysing a client to get bogged down in
all sorts of issues and information. As a consultant looking to make a
sale, the basic question will remain: what is the client fundamentally
looking for? Do they want some thinking and strategic insight, do they
want some planning, or do they want help implementing change?
One area where a good consultant is differentiated from less able col-
leagues is in the willingness and ability to challenge the client in terms of
their perceived issue. A good consultant does not simply work out the
client’s perceived issue and offer a service line that matches it. This can
lead to sales, but you can add more value. A client
may have a perception of what they want, but
after some exploration the consultant may think
that the client is wrong.
Now there is naturally a good and a bad way to tell a client that you
think their understanding of the issue is wrong, but if you do it well, a
consultant can add significant value – and it is value that is added before
an engagement has even started. This is what I describe as identifying the
client’s underlying need, to differentiate it from the client’s perceived
issue. Figure 5.4 represents this situation (see page 96).
“the consulatntmay think that the
client is wrong”
M05_NEWT0873_01_SE_C05.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:10 Page 93

Consulting engagements94
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5
.3
D
ir
ec
t
re
la
ti
on
sh
ip
o
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se
rv
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e
of
fe
ri
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t
o
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p
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is
su
es
M05_NEWT0873_01_SE_C05.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:10 Page 94

As an example consider the second column from the right in Figure 5.4.
The client has a change implementation plan and is asking for the consult-
ant to help implement it. The obvious response is to offer a project and
change management service. However, the consultant may look at the
client’s plan and think that the plan is not good enough or will not work.
In this case, the consultant wants to push the client back around their
change lifecycle (see Chapter 4), and instead of selling project and change
management the consultant wants to sell the client improved planning.
Figure 5.4 shows four situations in which the client’s perceived issue is,
in the consultant’s view, misplaced. The consultant responds by challeng-
ing the client and offering a different service line to the client.
A client can easily take offence when a consultant rejects their own
assessment of the situation. Even if the client does not get offended,
there is always a risk associated with telling a client that you think the
need they have is different from what they believe. It may lead them
simply to reject you out of hand. But in many cases this is a risk worth
taking. If the client accepts what you say, then you have shown your
skills already and may strengthen your relationship. If the client rejects
what you say and your analysis is correct, then it is possible the engage-
ment would not have been successful anyway.
There is an ethical risk here, of the sort described in Chapter 10. Look
again at Figure 5.4. If you look at the columns from left to right across
the page there is a logical sequence of engagements. It starts with a piece
of strategic analysis, through an operational review and then identifying
and implementing solutions, and ends up with a performance review fol-
lowing implementation. As a consultant you may only be asked to be
involved in one, or even only part of one, of these issues. However, if you
are engaged to deal with one of the client issues to the right-hand side of
the diagram, by challenging the client’s perception of the issue you may
move to the left-hand issues. By doing this you are extending the oppor-
tunity. The work you were originally approached about may still be
required, but at a later date when you have improved the preceding
work. Proceeding in this way because it is right for the client is an exam-
ple of excellent value-adding consulting. If you do it simply to sell more
work, then this is questionable ethical behaviour.
An alternative approach to challenging the client is to stick always to
offering the client what they have asked for and only offer services which
directly correspond to the client’s perceived issue. Any changes in
approach or focus of the engagement are left to when the engagement is
955 � Finding and winning work
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Consulting engagements96
C
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M05_NEWT0873_01_SE_C05.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:10 Page 96

won. The advantage of such an approach is that you will know much
more and have a better understanding of client issues once the engage-
ment is underway. No matter how long you spend in the focus step, you
will not have as good an understanding as you have once the engage-
ment is underway. It may be that even with a really detailed focus step
you need to change the service line or approach anyway once the
engagement starts. You are normally also not being paid for your time in
the focus step, so you will want to conclude it as rapidly as possible. The
problem with this thinking is that it is far harder to change an engage-
ment once it is underway, and it is riskier for you as a consultant. If you
offer a client one service line, and that service line turns out not to fulfil
the client’s issue because the issue identified is not really the underlying
one, the client will not thank you and may actually blame you for any
resultant problems or costs. It is much better, if possible, to identify the
client’s real underlying issue now, rather than later in the delivery stage.
Assuming you can get to a clarification of the real client issue, it is also
worth exploring why the client is seeking assistance from consultants at
this point. Few issues are new, so why is the client seeking a consultant
now? Is it something they have decided, or are they being coerced or
encouraged by a more senior manager? If so, you want to understand
that senior manager’s drivers to ensure the
engagement you will propose will fulfil their
needs as well as the person you are interacting
with as a client. The best solution is to ask a client
directly why they have contacted you. This can
short-circuit many potential sales problems, it can highlight obstacles
that people want to overcome and it will quickly clarify if it is a coerced
purchase or not.
Is it an engagement you want and have the capability to do?
As you are analysing the situation and developing an understanding of
the client’s issue, you will naturally tend to consider whether you want
the engagement. Is it a dream engagement that will earn you high
margin fees, or is it a nightmare waiting to happen that is likely to leave
you with an endless piece of work for minimal income? Most assign-
ments are neither of these two extremes but sit somewhere in a spectrum
between them. You will not be absolutely certain how any one engage-
ment fits in this spectrum until the engagement starts. But you can give
yourself sufficient information to understand, to an acceptable level of
risk, how close to the dream and far from the nightmare you are.
975 � Finding and winning work
“why is the clientseeking a consultant
now?”
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The first obvious question is: can you do it? Do you understand the
client need sufficiently and have adequate skills and expertise to fulfil
those needs? Some client engagements align perfectly with your skills.
Many client engagements will not be suitable for you as they require a
different skill set. Being a specialist is as much about being clear about
what you don’t do as it is being an expert in what you can do. However,
it is likely that the very many and possibly the majority of engagements
that come your way are neither a perfect fit nor a complete miss with
your expertise. You must then make a balanced and honest judgement –
can you do the work or not? If you are unsure, the best approach is to
have an open discussion with the client about where you can add value
and where you cannot. My experience is that such honesty leads to
deeper relationships with clients.
You will have some of your own requirements before taking on an
engagement. You need to clarify if the current opportunity will fulfil
these or not. You should try to be as clear as you can about what your
requirements are, both for your own satisfaction as a consultant and so
that you can determine your ability to complete the work successfully.
You will almost never get everything you would like, and therefore it is
best to categorise your needs into three groups:
1 Mandatory needs: Without these being met you will not pursue the
work. For instance, the minimum day rate you will accept, or the
client’s willingness to meet with you regularly for the life of the
engagement, etc.
2 Desirable needs: You will do the work anyway, but tailor the proposal
depending on whether these will be met or not. Examples include
whether you can work at home on Fridays, or whether the client has
full authority to mandate access to the resources you require, etc.
3 Nice-to-haves: These are things you will ask for, as nothing is lost by
asking, but don’t worry if they are rejected. For example, a private
office to work in on the client’s premises, etc.
Finally, what are the risks associated with the engagement? Is the client
looking for any guarantee or to offset risk on to you? Ideally, you should
bear as little risk as possible. On the one hand, it is not unreasonable for
a client dealing with an expensive expert to expect the expert to have
sufficient confidence in their advice to guarantee benefits. However, as a
consultant you do not have enough power to ensure that your recom-
mendations are undertaken in the way you recommend they are done.
Consulting engagements98
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Secondly, you rarely have sufficient resources to provide any meaningful
guarantee to a client anyway. Be wary of accepting any engagement in
which the client is expecting you to take any significant share of the
client’s business risk.
Are you likely to win it within a reasonable level of effort?
Selling consultancy takes effort, sometimes considerable effort. So at
some point you must determine if you have a realistic chance of winning
the engagement. To answer this question positively, you need to have
some understanding of the client’s wants and needs, be comfortable that
you can work with the client, and have a belief that you can develop a
compelling proposal.
You also must consider the competition. The more competition there is,
the less chance you have of winning the work. It is much easier to work
in a non-competitive situation. This is not uncommon, at least for
smaller engagements. Lots of competition is not only a pain for you, it
can mean more work for the client as they enter a dialogue with several
different consultants and review and assess different proposals. But if a
client is seeking a consultant for any sizeable piece of work, or for any
critically important advice, it is sensible for the client to look at alterna-
tive offerings from different consultancies.
You should understand whether the situation is competitive or not, but
do not worry too much about competition. If you have a good under-
standing of the client’s issues and can make a compelling proposition to
overcome them, you have a good chance of getting the work.
Most consulting theories and processes stress the importance of the
focus phase. Many consultants don’t spend enough time in or effort on
the focus step. Yet, in something so inherently vague and subject to
progressive elaboration like a consultancy engagement, there is a limit
to how much certainty focusing can give. What is essential is that there
is sufficient dialogue and groundwork to limit the engagement’s scope,
and to define an approach, timing and fees that you have sufficient
confidence in.
You can spend too much time agreeing to the work. This may be because
the client is risk averse, does not know what they want or is getting lots
of your time for free. Whatever the reason, it has to stop – in the end it is
not even in the client’s interest as they won’t fully understand the work
995 � Finding and winning work
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Consulting engagements100
or the solution until the engagement starts. At some point you must
decline the opportunity or move into framing a proposition. If you
decide not to progress an engagement, see the advice in Chapter 12,
especially the section on how to say no to clients.
Any further information must be left to discover in the live engagement,
accepting that you never have perfect information and any proposal will
be subject to change. What is most crucial is to determine that you and the
client can work together and that the client under-
stands and accepts the work you do and the way
you do it. The style of interaction during the focus
phase sets the client’s expectations of how the
interaction will continue during the live engage-
ment. Often, it is building this working relationship that is the most
important part of focusing. One of the key parts is the signals you send as
much as any hard facts that are agreed. Of course, certain definition of
scope, approach, budget, etc. is ideal, but this is not always possible.
Framing a proposal and winning an engagement
Having collected sufficient focused information, you now move on to
the frame step and formalise your consulting offer to the client. This is
the point at which you convert your thinking and various findings into a
documented proposal. The proposal must reflect the client’s needs and
have a realistic chance of winning by appealing to the client with a com-
pelling proposition.
There is no set format for a proposal. Usually it is a written document,
and it can be text-based or a presentation. Either way, a proposal should
provide enough information for the client to be able to decide to engage
you. It must be sufficiently compelling, even if the client has queries and
questions, to position you as the consultant the client should be working
with. The proposal should also be appealing. Clients are not just buying a
service, they are also buying you.
The proposal for a complex engagement may be an extensive document,
but it does not need to be long. Some of my proposals are encapsulated
in a one- or two-page letter, but there are times when it needs to be
longer. The situation may be complicated, there may be a need for a
complex contract, or it may concern a concept that cannot be explained
in a few words. Irrespective of its size, the proposal must include:
“determine that youand the client can
work together”
M05_NEWT0873_01_SE_C05.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:10 Page 100

� an understanding of the client’s issues
� the approach you will use to resolving the issue
� the commercial terms
� a value proposition – a statement which explains to the client the
value they will gain by investing in the proposal.
These four components must be included in every proposal. Each can
range from a very brief description to many pages of text. Unless the
client asks for huge amounts of detail, brevity is preferred. Being able to
encapsulate accurately client needs and approaches in a short description
shows real understanding. It also makes the proposal easier to produce
and manage. However, depending on the situation, there is a wide range
of additional materials you may need to add to a proposal. The addi-
tional material to consider can include:
� Other information which will encourage the client to choose you –
this could be case studies, or client references, etc.
� Information the client has specifically requested to be included – a
client may ask for any range of facts and figures, such as a consultant
CVs or a general description of your company’s service lines.
� Clarifications and conditions that you consider are essential to
document to reduce your risk on the engagement or to define ground
rules for how you work together – this might include explaining
whether you are based on the client’s site or will work from your
offices, or the fact that you must have certain dedicated staff allocated
to the engagement by the client.
Setting out to write a compelling proposition can be challenging. You
may have collected a huge amount of information and initially may
not be sure what precisely you are going to offer the client or how you
will present this. It is worth spending the effort to get the proposal
right, especially if you are in a competitive situation. There can be a
massive difference in the appeal of a well-written and well-structured
proposal, compared to a poorly structured and incoherently written
proposal – even though both could be produced by consultants with
equivalent skills to resolve a client issue. Techniques such as the pyra-
mid principle and mind mapping (see the references at the end of the
book on page 279) can help tremendously.
When preparing a client proposition, I find it helpful to think in terms of
three critical dimensions to a consulting engagement:
1015 � Finding and winning work
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Consulting engagements102
1 What is the client issue?
2 What is the consulting approach?
3 What is the scope of consulting intervention?
This is summarised in Figure 5.5. Let’s look at each of these briefly.
Client issue
The client issue was identified in the previous focus stage by exploratory
dialogue. You must reflect the client issue and situation in the proposal.
Be clear about why you are documenting the client issue. You do not
write it down in the proposal so the client can understand it, although
sometimes a good proposal can help to clarify a
client’s own thinking. You write it down to show
to the client that you understand their needs. You
are not writing an essay for someone who knows
nothing about the client’s business. You are illus-
trating your grasp of the client’s situation to the person who best
understands it – the client! You must show an interest in and under-
standing of the client’s real problems, not just your service lines.
If as part of your focus step you have decided to challenge the client’s
perception of their issue, you should do some expectation setting. When
a client asks for X, and you respond with, ‘we don’t think you need X, we
are going to offer you Y’, they will at least be surprised and possibly
annoyed. It is best to talk to them informally first before offering a
“be clear about whyyou are documenting
the client issue”
Client
issue
Consulting
approach
Scope of
consulting
intervention
What is the issue the client
wants resolved?
Accept issue as is or challenge?
How can I help in resolving it?
Organisational scope:
what are the boundaries of my help?
Changed lifecycle scope:
think, plan, implement or review?
Should I be an expert or process consultant?
Figure 5.5 The dimensions of a consulting engagement
M05_NEWT0873_01_SE_C05.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:10 Page 102

proposal that does not meet their expectations. In an informal discussion
you can explain your rationale for an alternative approach and gain their
support. Call the client and say you want to discuss the proposal before
you submit it, to check it will meet their needs.
Consulting approach
The consulting approach is where your specialist skill is applied. You are
competent because you have an approach to solving the issue. You are
credible because you can explain this to a client in a way they grasp and
have confidence in. Additionally, you must consider whether you are
positioning yourself as an expert or as a process consultant (see Chapter
7). Are you going to tell the client what they should do, or are you going
to help the client to work it out for themselves? These are fundamentally
different approaches to consulting. Some clients need experts, other are
better off with a process consultant.
Your approach should make it clear to the client what deliverables they
will get, and how those deliverables will make things different for them.
As you write the proposal, put yourself in your client’s position. Clients
not only want to know what the experience of working with you will be
like, they want to know what they are getting for the money they are
investing. What is going to be different for the client when the engage-
ment ends? Will they understand some issue better, will they have been
trained to perform better, will they have a next-steps plan, or will they
have an implemented solution? Make it absolutely clear. A client is
unlikely to buy if they do not know what the engagement produces and
what the outcome from the engagement will be. What are the tangible
deliverables (if any)? If your engagement is largely delivering intangible
deliverables, such as skills transfer to client staff, the client needs some
way of gaining confidence these will be delivered.
Scope of consulting intervention
The scope of the consulting intervention relates both to the client’s
organisation and to the client’s change lifecycle. From the client’s organi-
sational perspective you should ask: what staff, departments, functions or
business processes will be included in the scope of the engagement?
From the change lifecycle perspective you should ask: are you essentially
helping the client to think, to plan, to implement or to review – or some
combination of all of these?
1035 � Finding and winning work
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Consulting engagements104
Other factors in a proposal
Try to avoid jargon or consultant-speak in the proposal (see Chapter 11).
The only jargon that is permissible in a client proposal is the client’s own
jargon. Clients are rarely impressed by obscure terminology. Using such
terminology only reinforces how remote and dissimilar you are from the
client. Remoteness and dissimilarity in a consultant are not virtues from
the client’s perspective.
If you are concerned that the live engagement is likely to veer away from
the proposal, you may want to include a short description of how you
will deal with this should it occur. You may choose some form of formal
change control process, or more simply note that you will review regu-
larly and agree amendments to terms with the client. If you cannot
finalise and agree to all the details, you must at least agree to how it will
change (e.g. ‘my rates are £xx per day and this is approximately 10 days
work – if that is insufficient we will …’).
When you agree to work with a client you usually commit to a start date
for the engagement. This means you must have an understanding of
your forward availability. If the client says yes to the proposal, can you
start next Monday or will it be next month? The ideal situation is that
you finish one engagement and immediately start
the next. In reality, this is difficult. Engagements
do not always end when you expect them to, sell-
ing takes time, and clients can be unexpectedly
slow in making decisions or committing to an
engagement. If you always wait for one engage-
ment to end before looking for the next you will become underutilised.
Clients generally understand that you are not sitting waiting for their
work, and as long as you are professional and do not make promises you
cannot keep, clients will be flexible about your availability, within
reason. One approach I use is to agree to start the engagement by a spe-
cific date as long as the client commits to it before another date. So, I
might write in the proposal something like: ‘As long as I receive confir-
mation that you are satisfied with this proposal by Monday 5 June, the
engagement will start on Monday 19 June’.
The final part of the proposal is ensuring it meets your organisation’s
legal, contractual and commercial terms. You should clarify what is and is
not included in those commercial terms, such as expenses and VAT. Major
consultancies will have a set of standards for all these points. If you are an
independent consultant I would not overly worry about complex
“clients will beflexible about your
availability, within
reason”
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contracts. Write a clear and unambiguous letter of what you are offering, the
price and conditions you think are important – that is usually sufficient.
Before you send the proposal to a client, check it. Go through it in detail
and confirm it says exactly what you want it to say and that it cannot be
misinterpreted. The best way to do this is to ask someone independent to
read it and test that they get the understanding you expect from the pro-
posal. Finally, ask yourself ‘so what?’ When a client has read a proposal,
they should have a clear understanding of what you are proposing and
why it is a good proposition for them to invest in. If, after reading the
proposal you have written, you think the client might think ‘so what?’,
then the proposal is not clear or compelling enough.
Keep on winning work
The aim of a proposal is to get a client to commit fees to you in return
for a consulting engagement. Consultants need many engagements
throughout their careers, so the steps of finding opportunities, focusing
on client needs and framing a proposal should be ones you refine and
improve all the time. If, during the proposal phase, you decide to decline
the work or don’t win it, follow up with your client to maintain a rela-
tionship. Just because you did not get this piece of work does not mean
you will not get another. If you win the work, start thinking from day
one about on-sell, up-sell, and cross-sell. The more successful your pro-
pose stage, the more certain your income is.
One way to measure the success of your propose stage is to think about
the percentage of opportunities you win. A more sophisticated way to
measure the success is to think about your whole sales pipeline. Your aim
is not to win every opportunity that comes your way, but to win suffi-
cient opportunities to keep yourself busy, with a minimal opportunity
cost. The less effort and cost you expend in winning sales, the better it is
for you. Let me show this in an example.
1055 � Finding and winning work
Look at Figure 5.6. It shows the sales pipelines for two different consulting
companies. They both start with the same number of opportunities and end with
the same number of live engagements. On the surface these may seem to be
equally well run businesses. In reality, consultancy 2 operates its propose-to-win
process far better than consultancy 1. In consultancy 1 too many opportunities,
Example
�
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Consulting engagements106
This is an extreme example to make a point. The fewer proposals you
focus on, the more likely you are to win them as you can really focus
your effort on them. If you are considering opting out or are unlikely to
win, it is most efficient from a business perspective to eliminate the
opportunity as early as possible.
Summary
The propose-to-win stage is a critical part of the consultant’s work. You
cannot succeed as a consultant without developing a real competence in
finding opportunities and converting them into sales. This does not mean
you need to be an expert sales person, as there are different ways to achieve
these goals.
relative to how many are actually won, are turned into proposals. This can eat up
huge amounts of consultant time. In consultancy 2 poor opportunities are
eliminated early in the process. Relatively few engagements are focused on, and all
the engagements that reach the frame step are converted to live engagements.
Find
Focus
Frame
P
ip
elin
e – co
n
su
ltan
cy 2
Win – deliver
engagement
Live engagements
Client opportunities
P
ip
elin
e – co
n
su
ltan
cy 1
Figure 5.6 Comparison of two consultancies’ sales pipelines
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There are three main steps within the propose-to-win stage.
� Find: This step is concerned with finding opportunities and aligining your
need for profitable engagements with the client’s need for help.
� Focus: This is an exploratory step, requiring dialogue between yourself
and the client. Its aim is to align understanding between yourself and
the client, and to manage expectations and risk. In focusing an
engagement you should seek to answer four questions:
– Do you want the client?
– What is the client’s underlying issue?
– Is it an engagement you want and have the capability to do?
– Are you likely to win it with a reasonable level of effort?
� Frame: This step requires you to develop an appealing and compelling
proposal. A good proposal shows your understanding of the client’s issue,
how you will overcome this issue, and the value proposition the client
gains by engaging you.
The propose-to-win stage is summarised in Figure 5.7.
1075 � Finding and winning work
Find Focus
Propose
Frame
� Develop network
and raise
awareness of
your consulting
capabilities
� Identify
opportunities
� Initiate
exploratory
dialogue with
clients
� Confirm this is a
client you want
� Identify specific
client issue(s)
� Align with
service lines
� Confirm you
want the
engagement and
can do it
� Determine if you
can win the
engagement
� Document
understanding of
client issue
� Select approach
to overcome
client issue
� Define
commercial terms
� Develop value
proposition
� Scope the
engagement
Figure 5.7 The propose-to-win phase of the engagement process
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Delivering consulting engagements
and satisfying clients
The core work of all management consultants is the delivery ofclient engagements. The engagement represents the time when aconsultant’s specialist skills, knowledge and service lines are
applied. This chapter describes the process of delivering engagements,
together with many tips and techniques essential for great consulting,
and is relevant to all consultants. It should be read in conjunction with
Chapter 7 on process consulting and facilitation.
Some senior managers in consultancies are no longer involved directly in
engagements, but spend their time in managing the consultancy, busi-
ness development and selling work. This is purely for the commercial
benefit of a consultancy. Of course, a consultancy as a commercial enter-
prise needs to be successful and profitable. However, it should not be
forgotten that the primary source of that success is not in the way the
consultancy is managed or engagements are sold, but comes from adding
value to clients by delivering consulting engagements that meet their
needs. A client-centric consultant always has client needs at the forefront
of their thoughts, and a consultancy business should be structured and
managed to optimise the provision of client-centric consultancy.
This stage of the engagement process is called deliver-to-satisfy, as the
main objective is not just to complete a piece of paid work, but to satisfy
the client. The steps within this stage are shown in a linear fashion in
Figure 6.1.
chapter
6
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1096 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
D
e
li
ve
r
C
o
m
m
en
ce
C
o
lle
ct
C
o
n
si
d
er
C
re
at
e
C
o
u
n
se
l
an
d
co
n
su
lt
Fi
g
u
re
6
.1
Th
e
de
liv
er
s
ta
ge
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The linear structure in Figure 6.1 aids understanding but, in reality, this
stage is highly iterative. Whilst a consultant must generally progress in a
logical order from an initial commence step to a counsel and consult step,
there will be regular jumping between the steps. For example, when a con-
sultant is presenting a report to a client, they may realise the report has
missed some vital point. The consultant returns to the create step and then
further back to the consider step to revise their recommendations. In doing
this, they may realise they need more data and have to briefly return to the
collect step. In a complex engagement, there will often be a periods of
simultaneous working across the steps in the deliver stage. Hence, in reality
the process will look more like that shown in Figure 6.2.
This chapter is ordered in the sequence shown in Figure 6.1
Commence
Having successfully won an engagement, the first step in delivering it is
the commence step. Commence is concerned with planning and resourc-
ing the engagement. In order to do this a number of decisions have to be
made. The direction and nature of these decisions will be shaped by
agreements made and information collected in the propose stage, but
Consulting engagements110
Counsel
and
consult
Collect
Consider
Propose
Deliver
Close
Commence
Create
Figure 6.2 Iterative working in the deliver stage
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normally it is only when an engagement is won that a fully detailed
engagement plan is developed and named individuals are committed to
working on the engagement.
The nature of a plan for a consulting engagement depends primarily on
the scale and complexity of the engagement. A large consulting engage-
ment with many consultants working on it for several months may
require the involvement of a dedicated and experienced project manager.
At the other end of the scale, a small engagement with a single consult-
ant working on it for a few days requires little more than an ordered list
of actions that need to be completed. Most engagements sit somewhere
between these extremes.
Project management in a typical consulting engagement is not complex,
but consultants are often not great project managers. This can be seen in
the stress and semi-chaotic rushing around that typify the end of many
consulting engagements. The end is always predictable and a little plan-
ning makes even the most complex consulting
engagement run much more smoothly. A good
plan reduces risk and increases profitability. An
effective plan makes the consultant seem more
competent in the client’s eyes, and generally
reduces the level of stress on everyone in the con-
sulting team. I run courses on project managing consulting engagements,
and I have observed that even very experienced consultants benefit from
thinking more about planning their engagements.
You do not need a qualification in project management to manage a con-
sulting engagement, but an engagement is a project, sometimes has
complex logistics (such as aligning many people’s diaries at different
times), and a degree of logical and systematic ordering of tasks is
required. At some time, each and every consultant may have to deliver a
consulting engagement on their own. Hence, all consultants must have
the basic capability to project manage the consulting engagement. The
basis of managing a consulting engagement is a plan.
An engagement plan needs to be comprehensive but flexible. Ideally, it
contains every aspect of the work required to complete the engagement.
However, typically in consulting engagements it is difficult to determine
all the tasks required until the engagement is underway. Therefore the
plan has to have enough flexibility to add new tasks as the engagement is
performed, without increasing resources or the project timescale.
1116 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
“a good planreduces risk and
increases
profitability”
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One feature that can make planning a consulting project more complex
is that, unlike many other projects, the timescale and amount of consult-
ing resource to be used is often agreed as part of the proposal, before the
detailed plan is developed. This may seem to be an illogical ordering of
activity, and it regularly causes issues, but it is not an insurmountable
obstacle. The costs and timescales estimated in a proposal should only be
done by someone with experience and with a realistic view of how com-
plex the engagement is. Additionally, there is some leeway in most
engagements to scale the deliverables from the engagement relative to
how much time is allocated in the proposal. For example, a report on an
aspect of a business can be developed in more or less detail, and with
more or less information gathered, depending on the constraints
imposed by the proposal. Of course, client expectations must be aligned
with this scaling.
What differentiates a really good engagement plan from a weaker one is
that it is begun by considering the end point of the engagement first. A
good plan is developed by thinking through what the result from the
engagement should be, and how to bring the engagement to an end. The
plan is then elaborated by working backwards through the tasks that
must be done to enable this result.
The result of a consulting engagement may be the creation of a set of
client deliverables or some predefined outcome. A deliverable is a defined
output which is usually tangible, but sometimes intangible, and which
the client can utilise. Examples of deliverables include reports, presenta-
tions, training courses, process designs, plans, lists of recommendations
and so on. An outcome is a change in the client’s business. Examples of
an outcome include a 5 per cent reduction in the cost of operations, a
decision made, or consensus achieved in the new strategy for a business.
Traditionally consultants have been deliverable-focused, but increasingly
are more outcome-orientated. By offering a client an outcome and not
just a deliverable, it is possible to develop a better client value proposi-
tion and hence charge premium fees. It may seem a rather fine difference
between deliverables and an outcome, but it is important to understand
it whilst developing an engagement plan.
Let me illustrate with two hypothetical alternatives:
1 Deliverable: produce a revised strategy for a division of a business.
2 Outcome: achieve consensus on a new strategy and have all senior
managers working towards achieving the revised strategy.
Consulting engagements112
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1136 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
The former is concerned with developing and writing a report with a
revised strategy in it. The latter entails the creation of the strategy report,
but also requires ensuring all managers understand and agree with the
strategy, and have the skills and resources to move ahead and implement
it. The latter is a significantly more complex engagement, and as the con-
sultant it is essential you understand the client’s expectation with regard
to deliverables and outcomes.
Once you understand the outcome or deliverables wanted, the next stage in
developing a plan is to define the consulting approach or the process you will
follow to achieve this result. Some clients are only interested in achieving the
agreed deliverable or outcome and do not care how you achieve it. Many
want to, and you often need them to, understand the process which you will
use to get to this result. You usually need the client to understand the process
you will follow, because the client will be a participant in this process, and
will have to provide resources to support you in going through it.
One critical decision to make is whether you will adopt the style of an
expert consultant or a process consultant. Chapter 7 describes process
consulting, and this chapter is primarily orientated towards expert con-
sulting, although the boundary is not clear cut. The fundamental
difference is whether you expect to tell the client what to do (expert), or
whether you will work with the client so that they can define themselves
how to resolve their problems (process). These are radically different
ways of working. However, within a single engagement a consultant may
switch between these styles at different points.
It is also important to understand the organisational scope of a consulting
intervention. Are you dealing with the whole business, or will you look
only at a subset of the organisation, for example,
specific departments, divisions or processes? An
engagement to look at the recruitment process in
the sales department has a significantly smaller
scope than one to look at all HR processes in sales,
marketing and customer service. Consulting
engagements are for limited periods of time, and to achieve a high-quality
result it is usually essential to place some boundaries on the scope of the
work. An unbounded scope requires an unending plan.
All engagements need an engagement management process. The engage-
ment management process is the mechanism by which the engagement
is controlled. It typically requires a series of client meetings for the dura-
tion of the engagement. Whenever I run an engagement, I like to meet
“it is usuallyessential to place some
boundaries on the
scope of the work”
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my client every week to update them on progress, discuss any findings
and resolve any issues getting in the way of progress. Similarly, if you
work for a large consultancy, your management may require meetings to
ensure you are maintaining the necessary level of quality in your work
and are not exposing the consultancy to any unnecessary risk. Your con-
sulting company may have some mandatory processes to follow as part
of the engagement. If the engagement has a team working on it, the
team normally needs to get together regularly to update on progress,
align work and to resolve problems. The frequency depends on the
nature of the engagement. On some very intense engagements I bring
the team together on a daily basis, on others it is less frequent. The
engagement management process is normally very simple, and essen-
tially involves setting up a series of regular meetings with an agreed
agenda with client, team and consulting management. Experienced con-
sultants know that the trick is to make sure the meetings are agreed and
arranged at the start of the engagement. If they are arranged on an ad hoc
basis whilst the engagement progresses, you will soon meet delays as
people will not have time in their diary to meet you.
A final factor in developing the engagement plan is to decide whether
you need to include any risk management activities within the plan.
Consulting engagements are subject to a variety of risks, including access
to resources and the possible negative influence of some stakeholders
upon your work. Many risks have to be dealt with as they arise, but some
are predictable and it is worth considering what activities you will under-
take to overcome them. Risks are many and varied. Risks can be
identified by asking questions such as: what will you do if the client does
not provide the resources agreed at the times agreed? If you are basing
your engagement on some hypothesis about underlying problems, what
will you do if your hypothesis turns out to be wrong? What will you do if
you find out some influential stakeholder is opposed to your work?
Having developed the engagement plan, it is possible to determine what
resources are required to execute this plan. The resources are mostly
people. They will be consultants, but they may also be client staff. One
frequent problem on consulting engagements is getting real client staff
released to work on the engagements in practice, as opposed to a theoret-
ical promise by a client to give some staff to help. This is one reason why
it is worth agreeing this up front. If a client offers staff to work on the
engagement, make sure you get commitment to named individuals with
the necessary skills and time available to work on the engagement. But
resources may be more than people, and you must identify what else you
need to deliver the engagement successfully. Examples of other resources
Consulting engagements114
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include transport, building passes, office space, facilities, access to spe-
cific areas of a business and so on.
Table 6.1 presents a short planning and resourcing checklist. The aim is
to be able to answer ‘yes’ to every question in this table. For every ques-
tion you answer ‘no’ to, you must determine what actions you need to
take to resolve it.
1156 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
Table 6.1 Engagement planning and resourcing checklist
Yes No
Do you understand the constraints in terms of timescale and resources
that your proposal places on your engagement plan? � �
Do you understand the deliverables or outcome required from
the engagement? � �
Do you understand the process by which you will get to this result
(including whether you will work as a process or expert consultant)? � �
Does the client understand this process and agree with it? � �
Is the organisational scope/boundaries of the engagement agreed?
(Departments, divisions, processes included in scope and out of scope). � �
Have you included your engagement management process in the plan?
Does this include all actions required by your consulting firm? � �
Are you clear about what data will be available and the level of effort
to extract useful information (see the section on Collect below)? � �
Have you considered your consultancy’s quality assurance process in
your plan (see the section on Create below)? � �
Have you defined an engagement management process, taking account
of the need to interact with the client, the engagement team and
consulting management? � �
Are the engagement management meetings scheduled in attendees’ diaries? � �
Are there any significant engagement risks you need to build into the
engagement plan? � �
Do you understand the resources you require to complete the engagement? � �
Do you have access to all the resources you need (or a process to get
access to them)? � �
Do the resources have the necessary skills and time available to work
on the engagement? � �
Does everyone working on the engagement (client and consultant)
understand their role and activities in line with the engagement plan? � �
Have you included all the activities required to close the engagement
down, and to sustain any change resulting from the engagement
(see Chapter 8)? � �
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Collect
Whatever approach you take to helping a client, you need to collect
information. The information is required to understand clients and their
issues, scope engagements, understand impacts and the seriousness of
problems, and to identify solutions. Information must be available on
engagements as the basis for analysis and sometimes to measure results.
Information has to be developed. Data is collected, which will at first be
unsorted, in various formats, and is often of limited value in its initial
state. The data must be analysed and converted into useful and meaning-
ful information. There are many sources of data and many ways it can be
analysed. The specific approach depends on the type of consulting you
undertake, and much of the skill of a good consultant is about the ability
to identify pertinent data and to convert it into the most relevant infor-
mation in a specific situation. In this book I focus on data and
information in a generic sense – the details are situational specific and
will depend on your service lines and the individual engagement.
Accurate and sufficiently comprehensive data is critical to the success or
failure of your consulting engagement. You cannot draw valuable conclu-
sions without a relevant sample of data. The data collected is also related
to the way success is judged. There may be differ-
ent and conflicting views of success depending on
viewpoint and data collected. Ideally, you must
take account of these different measures and
viewpoints. It is common for consultants to stum-
ble when providing results to clients who ask
questions like ‘have you considered …?’, or ‘did you speak to …?’. To be
judged a success you need to be able either to answer yes to such ques-
tions or to describe why the question is invalid for the engagement you
are undertaking.
There are several challenges when it comes to collecting data, and the first
is to know what data to collect. To decide that, you must have a clear
understanding of the client’s issue and the scope of the engagement. If you
do not, most data collection is a waste of time. Assuming you do, the fun-
damental factor in determining which data to collect is to decide whether
you will base your data collection on a predetermined hypothesis or set of
hypotheses, or if you will be more unconstrained in your thinking. It is
common in consulting to start by generating a hypothesis about a client’s
situation and then to seek data which either proves or disproves the
hypothesis. Many strategy consultants use this approach.
Consulting engagements116
“you cannot drawvaluable conclusions
without a relevant
sample of data”
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1176 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
The advantage of starting without any predefined hypotheses is that you
may review a wider range of data sources and you will not be limited by
preconceived ideas. The disadvantage is that you start an engagement
with a completely blank sheet of paper and potentially an unlimited
timescale. If you start with a hypothesis about the client’s issue, then you
can short-circuit data collection by focusing only on the data required to
prove or disprove the hypothesis. An expert will have hypotheses about a
client situation and arguably should always be able to define some start-
ing set of hypotheses – if not, what is the expertise? But, at the same
time, starting with hypotheses increases the risk that you may miss some
unusual aspect of the client’s situation or innovative solution to their
problems. By having a preconceived idea of the client’s situation you
have limited the scope of your thinking and review.
Whether you choose to work with a set of hypotheses or have a com-
pletely open view depends on the nature of the engagement and what
your client requires. Both approaches are valid and each has some advan-
tages. If a client wants an expert to tell them what is wrong quickly and
based on past experience, then working with hypotheses is best. If the
client wants innovative and novel ideas and analysis of the situation,
then it is better for the consultant to take a more objective and open-
ended approach to data collection. What is important is to decide
consciously which approach is best, and to define your engagement
process accordingly.
It is helpful to be realistic about how objective you can be. There is
always a degree of subjectivity in collecting data. You can never collect
every possible piece of data, and the type of data selected and the
method of analysis are subjective choices. This is often forgotten and
what is presented as an objective review is really objective data selected
from a subjective perspective.
The decision on what data to collect must reflect the nature of the client’s
issue and the context and culture of the situation. It is often helpful to
explore issues and support further analysis by collecting quantitative data,
such as financial information, statistics, figures and measurements. But
client problems and issues cannot be truly understood without under-
standing the context. Few problems are totally independent and therefore
you have to have some understanding of the interactions with other areas
of the client’s organisation. You must also develop an awareness of the
client’s culture. Culture may be part of the client’s problem and part of any
solution. Culture will determine the relative importance of issues and the
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acceptability of solutions. Context and culture cannot be understood
purely by quantitative data. What this means is that it is usually necessary
to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. Relying only on one or
the other will bias the picture you develop of the client, and may also
affect how your recommendations are accepted. For example, using purely
qualitative data for people with a numerical bias may not result in client
acceptance of the findings. Conversely, using purely quantitative data for
people with a creative mindset may not be acceptable to them. Most
clients have some biases towards qualitative and quantitative data, but also
most engagements have a variety of stakeholders with different biases.
We are drawn to quantitative data because it can be manipulated and
seems ‘absolute’. In reality, even the most quantitative of consulting data
contains subjective estimates and subjective choices are made as to what
is relevant and what is not. We are drawn to qualitative data because it
gives us a deeper feeling for the situation, and is more difficult to argue
with. However, you will never be certain if you have collected a represen-
tative sample of qualitative data, and combining different pieces of
qualitative data is always to some degree arbitrary. Whatever balance of
qualitative and quantitative data you have, finding a sufficient amount
of quality data – statistically relevant, found by a quality process, from
appropriate reliable sources, etc. – is a key factor in determining the value
of the engagement outcome.
Collecting data can throw up a host of unpredicted challenges. The
expected data may not exist. It may be that what is ideally required is a
historic set of data, but nothing is available. In such situations there
needs to be a constructive dialogue with the client. Do you wait until the
data is available, does the consultant estimate based on other similar situ-
ations, or does the client use gut feeling? Although it is never perfect,
estimating and gut feeling are sometimes as good as it gets. Creating
completely new data takes time. Problems with data collection is a key
reason why you need some level of flexibility in your engagement plan.
It is only once the engagement starts that you will really understand
what data is and is not available from the client, and if you have com-
mitted a very tight timeline to a client with no understanding of the
available data then you are taking a significant risk.
There are many sources and approaches to collecting data on a consult-
ing engagement, and often it is necessary to combine data from multiple
sources. Sources include:
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1196 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
� observation – structured, unstructured, measured, unmeasured
� interviews
� focus groups
� historic data analysis of client records and reports
� reviews of reports and publically available data
� analysis of a consultant’s own records, for example benchmarking
databases
� surveys (face to face, telephone, postal, etc.).
Some sources of data require specialist skills to undertake (e.g. focus
groups), but generally all consultants must be able to construct and ask
pertinent and appropriately phrased questions, and understand the
responses given. (This is discussed in more detail in Chapter 11.) An
understanding of basic data analysis techniques, elementary statistics and
at least a basic use of tools like spreadsheets is usually essential.
Unless you have a well-established relationship, clients are rarely 100 per
cent open with you, and some client staff will deliberately withhold
information. This is human nature. Usually you do not want to know
everything; nor does the client want you to. The
problem with a lack of openness is that you may
develop a false picture of issues and factors like
resistance and drivers of change. The lack of open-
ness is more common with qualitative data.
However, occasionally you may be given wrong or
more usually out-of-date or incomplete quantitative data. Hence, in
deciding what data to collect and sources to use, it is sensible to do suffi-
cient data collection to enable you to verify data from several sources and
to spot inconsistencies and omissions. Additionally, when you draw con-
clusions you must always caveat them with the point that they are based
on the data that was made available to you.
When you find relevant data, make sure you understand what it really is,
and how it has been developed. Names for data sources can be mislead-
ing, and well-presented data may appear artificially credible and
powerful. If it has been derived from a suspect source or from a small
sample size, whilst it may appear valid it will be presenting you with
incomplete or inaccurate conclusions.
Data collected by consultants is not just used to draw conclusions, but
may also be part of the measurement of the success or failure of an
“some client staffwill deliberately
withhold
information”
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engagement. If you are expecting to deliver a specific and measured out-
come to a client, then measurement must start at the beginning and
provide a baseline. If you want to measure an improvement, the
improvement activity cannot start until measurement is in place. In real-
ity, managers who identify improvements will often not wait for
measurement mechanisms to be put in place before starting implementa-
tion. This is understandable, but it will make your ability to prove an
improvement difficult if not impossible.
Before you decide what data to collect, remember that there is a cost to
data collection. Although it is a gross simplification, typically more and
better data will take more time and resources to collect. Sometimes clients
are willing to pay for the best possible data collection. Often they are not,
and sometimes they do not have the time to wait for full data collection.
This must be discussed up front and expectations set as to what is and is
not possible, and clients should understand the implications.
There is a balance to be found, and more data is not always better. More
data can be a hindrance as well as a help. Driving for more and more
data will slow the engagement down. A stakeholder who objects to your
work can easily undermine it by challenging data sources. It is very easy
for a negative stakeholder to continually point out people you have not
spoken to or data sources you have not utilised. If you think this is a risk
to your engagement, you need to have a clear argument for what is a rea-
sonable and sufficient sample of data, and why you do not need to
search continually for more.
Occasionally, consultants themselves can cut corners with data collection
and base their findings and ideas on generic principles and limited sam-
ples. This is always risky and usually suboptimal for the client. As an
expert you should understand what is likely to be happening and what
the probable solutions are to any client situation with limited informa-
tion. But you must avoid the trap of thinking that every client is the
same. What is a relevant and significant sample of data in a particular sit-
uation depends on the context. One data point is never a relevant
sample, and generic information with no understanding of the client’s
context and culture is never a basis for value-added consulting.
Consider
Having collected sufficient data the consultant can analyse it and con-
sider what the most relevant findings and recommendations are. This is
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1216 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
where a consultant’s specialist expertise is directly applied by converting
a confusing mass of data into pertinent findings and recommendations.
Before analysing the data and producing helpful findings, it is important
to be clear about what a client requires, how a consultant adds value, and
also to understand the sorts of consultant pronouncements a client is not
looking for. This section starts by reflecting on what is of value to clients
and then provides some essential tips on findings and recommendations.
How the consultant adds value depends on the client’s needs, and for
each of the statements I am about to make there is probably a client who
wants something different. However, typically value comes from explain-
ing issues and identifying solutions. A client wants a concise and easily
understandable response to their request for help. They are not looking
to you to show how complex the situation is, or how thoroughly you
have analysed it with an immense and unintelligible list of points. The
client already knows it is complex. The client is looking for clarity, inno-
vation and a different answer than they would have come up with
themselves. The client may want to reduce risk. You do not help them by
identifying each and every possible risk, but by clearly specifying the
largest and most probable risks. An engagement needs to be sufficiently
wide ranging, but clarity, coherence and usefulness are of far greater
value than absolute comprehensiveness.
Conversely, what is the client not looking for? Typically, the client is not
looking for the consultant to ‘borrow his watch to tell him the time’.
Clients can read their own watches. They may want a consultant to con-
firm something they already suspect or believe, but that is not the same
thing. Clients do not want consultants to rephrase
their problems, by analysing what they know to
be wrong and telling them this in different words.
This is the doctor’s trick of giving you a name for
a disease which is essentially just different words
for what you have said – or sometimes exactly
what you said, but just in Latin. Clients may want you to analyse their
problems and define them better or prioritise them, but that is not
simply rephrasing them.
Clients are looking for meaningful analysis and recommendations. They
are not looking for simplistic views resulting in inappropriate or incom-
plete advice. If an issue interacts with another issue in the business, you
must reflect on the dynamic interplay, and not treat an issue as a stand-
alone problem, as the resulting stand-alone solution will not work.
“clients do not wantconsultants to
rephrase their
problems”
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Clients are not usually looking for sticking plasters or symptomatic cures
for their problems, but want final long-term resolution of problems.
Clients are not looking for unbalanced criticism – though of course if
they are doing the wrong things you must tell them, but in a construc-
tive way. When you criticise a manager, reflect on the degree of
management experience you have. Clients are looking for advice that is
helpful and usable in their situation, not ideas that are only applicable in
some theoretically perfect organisation.
Clients do not want to hear that the only problem is the organisational
culture. A consultant cannot alter the culture, and clients can only do so
over a long period of time. Although culture is often a contributory
factor to issues, continuous talk of the need for a change in culture is
usually lazy consulting. Also, you need to be aware of your own cultural
biases. How are they influencing what you see and your solution? (One
way to challenge yourself is to ask: ‘If this is such a terrible organisational
culture, how come this is a successful business. How many successful
businesses have I set up and run?’) You should identify and challenge
undesirable elements of organisational culture, but be aware of your own
preconditions and assumptions, and avoid simplistic analyses.
Similarly, if a client is going to solve a problem there is little point in
only identifying a list of external environmental factors that contribute
to the problem, which the client cannot alter. A client must understand
the constraints imposed by the environment they operate in. However, a
consultant must identify the things a client can change and rectify, not
just give a list of reasons for why things are the way that they are and an
excuse for the client to do nothing.
Most client value from a consulting engagement is developed in the con-
sider step. It is when findings are made and recommendations are
developed. Whilst a consultant must remain independent from the
client, there is no point in attempting to point out findings and make
recommendations, no matter how wonderful and insightful, that do not
add value to your current client at the point in time at which they are
being made. Before you undertake any analysis, bear in mind what is and
is not useful to the client.
How you analyse data will depend on the data collected and your spe-
cialist skill or service lines. If you are a strategist you may have collected
information on market drivers, competitive situation and customer
trends. If you are an operational consultant you may have gathered
information on operational performance, resourcing levels and budgets.
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If you are an implementation consultant you may have sought out
information on readiness to change, resistance to change and project
priorities.
One tip in analysing the data you have collected is not to jump to find-
ings and solutions too early. You must respect the client’s need for
urgency, but you must also avoid missing out on understanding the
problem. Try to avoid, or at least limit, your preconceptions. This is chal-
lenging because being an expert means you will have a whole set of
opinions which shape your views. The answer must be to balance speed,
expertise and previous knowledge with openness to consider the unique
characteristics of the situation.
To solve a problem in consulting we typically collect data and then look
for patterns in it. An important question is whether the pattern we find
is valid. In other words, is there enough data to support the conclusion?
A bigger issue is that there is often more than one pattern in any set of
data. Whenever you find a pattern, judge whether you have found the
right pattern or if there are other ones.
Look at the simple diagram (derived from Chappell, see page 279) in
Figure 6.3. Everyone may interpret such a diagram in a different way. For
example, is it: a 4 × 5 grid of dots; a rectangle of six dots surrounded by a
rectangle of 14 dots; two horizontal rectangles of 10 dots; three rows or
four columns between dots; or some combination of these?
1236 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
Figure 6.3 A simple diagram
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Consulting engagements124
This diagram does not represent a business problem, but the point made
is still valid. The data collected on a consulting engagement will be far
more complex than this and throw up a whole variety of possible pat-
terns. If you start to see a trend in the data early on, by all means be
excited by a possibly important finding, but also ask yourself: ‘Is there
any other way the data could be interpreted?’
Data, subsequent analysis and findings may initially provide a very com-
plicated picture of a business. Don’t be surprised if the problems in
business are complex. The number of people involved and the variety of
interacting processes and systems often make this often inevitable. One
reason clients are willing to pay for good consultants is to gain clarity
through this complexity. Often it is the symptoms of problems that are
much more complicated than the causes. The visible manifestation of a
problem is highly complex, and each symptom may seem unresolvable
in a short space of time, but the root cause may be
comparatively straightforward. For example, a
poorly designed commission system in a client’s
sales department will result in a huge number of
undesirable sales with massive knock-on effects
across the business. All sorts of problems can be
found in a business with a poor sales commission system, such as unde-
sirable customers, high complaints, high customer churn, low
profitability, staff turnover and poor staff morale. This can seem like too
complex a set of problems to solve in one go, but these are not the root
cause, they are only symptoms. The root cause is much simpler: the way
a client determines bonuses for sales staff. Find a root cause like this,
which is the source of many client problems, and you are on track to rap-
idly adding huge value to the client.
When analysing a client’s situation, remember that few problems are
purely technical. If you just try to understand and solve the technical
aspects you will not come up with a complete solution. Human aspects
play an important part in most businesses. The way staff are motivated,
levels of morale, performance management approaches and so on usually
play as significant a role as technical issues.
When reviewing an organisation’s capabilities in any area, focus on
strengths as well as the weaknesses. This is not a sop to the client, to help
in balancing the good with the bad, but because it is as least as powerful
and valuable to build on the strengths as to overcome weaknesses. It is
“the visiblemanifestation of a
problem is highly
complex”
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often far more effective for an organisation to try and build on its
strengths than to expend huge effort in trying to improve in areas in
which it will never excel.
Most problems are understood by a process of analysis and decomposi-
tion. This can be powerful, but there must be a synthesis in the end as
different parts of the problem interact. Unfortunately, not all problems
can be understood by decomposition. Some problems are dynamic and
have many interacting contributory causes. Unless you understand the
interaction between causes you will never solve this type of problem. In
these situations, the synthesis is more important than the decomposi-
tion. System dynamics offers a way to look at such interacting problems,
and using system dynamics can add powerful insights to clients (see the
reference to Senge on page 280).
A common reason to involve a consultant is to help a client make a deci-
sion. In making a decision you help a client to move forward, but all
decisions have implications. In making one decision the client often
closes off other options. Therefore you need to be sure you have reviewed
the right range of options with nothing missed and without the scope
being artificially constrained. The client should understand the costs and
implications of each option being presented.
Finally, a consultant should try to understand the
value of optionality to a client. Every decision to
some extent constrains future options. Clients
cannot predict the future. Therefore, what is often
of significant value to a client is not simply making the decision that is
of the highest value at this point in time, but the choice that still leaves
options open in future and hence has the greatest value over time.
Whatever findings and recommendations are made in the consider step,
before thinking about presenting them to a client, perform a common-
sense check on any conclusions. It is easy in the excitement, pressure and
intensity of a consulting engagement to come up with harebrained ideas.
The best consulting ideas meet three criteria: they are innovative, imple-
mentable and acceptable to the client. Ideas that fail on any of these
three criteria are worthless to a client. Before thinking about handing
materials over to a client, step back from your work and consider
whether it meets these three criteria.
1256 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
“every decision tosome extent constrains
future options”
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Create
The create step is concerned with converting findings, recommendations
or other outputs into a deliverable format that can be utilised by the client.
There are many possible formats, although consultants and businesses
have a tendency to focus on three: text documents, presentations and
workshops, or some combination of all of these. This section is focused on
the creation of client deliverables. Chapter 11 builds on this, by reviewing
the language of consulting. If your engagement result is a client outcome,
Chapter 8 relates to delivering and sustaining client change.
The consider step was concerned with ensuring that the contents of con-
sulting thinking resulting from an engagement are to the quality level
required. In the create step the consultant ensures findings and recom-
mendations are converted into a format which is credible to and usable
by the client. The importance of this step should not be underestimated.
Great content can be undermined in a client’s eyes by poor presenta-
tional format. Conversely, weaker content’s credibility can be enhanced
by high-quality presentation.
It is only when it comes to creating deliverables that you find out if the
findings and recommendations from the consider step are complete and
coherent. A set of findings can seem powerful and important in your
mind, but weaker or even incoherent when written down on a piece of
paper. Yet in the end this is what you must be able to do. It is one reason
why it is worthwhile starting to draft deliverables as early as possible in an
engagement. This is relevant even if you will only present verbally. For
verbal client feedback, think of the line of discussion you will use – if it is
not coherent then you cannot create the required deliverable. Early drafts
of deliverables focus the consulting team on the result they are trying to
achieve, and also ensure you do not reach the end of the engagement with
a set of incoherent or incomprehensible findings and recommendations.
What makes a deliverable usable by a client depends on the client’s
biases. Some clients love the dynamic interplay of verbal feedback in a
workshop, others clients prefer to reflect quietly over a written report
they can read several times and think through its
implications. One client will favour text, another
diagrams and yet others will like figures and
numerical analysis. Although different types of
consulting outputs are naturally more aligned to
certain presentational formats, it is very helpful to
Consulting engagements126
“your engagementplan should be clear
about when
deliverables will be
presented”
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1276 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
understand client biases and learning styles before finalising deliverable
formats. The deliverable is primarily to help them, not to show off your
skills or knowledge. To achieve this, your engagement plan should be
clear about when deliverables will be presented, and you should be clear
about who they will be handed over to.
In developing a deliverable the consultant needs to select the media format
(written word, spoken word, presentation, etc.), the structure of the deliv-
erable, the type of language used, the formatting within documents, and
the balance of factors like diagrams versus text. The language used needs to
be appropriate to the subject matter, but consulting jargon should be
avoided. The only jargon acceptable is the client’s jargon (see Chapter 11).
In general terms the consultant is seeking to create deliverables that are
powerfully persuasive, clear and engaging to read or use by the client.
A minor issue, but one which can cause some tension between client and
consultant if badly handled, relates to branding on deliverables. Most
major consultancies will brand all their reports and presentations with
their own company brands. Many clients do not mind how a document
is branded and therefore it is a useful way to ensure your consultancy
brand is exposed within a client organisation. A few clients find this
unacceptable, especially if the work is going to be presented to senior
sponsors or even external stakeholders by the client. When clients are
sensitive to branding on documents, it is rarely worth annoying or disap-
pointing them by insisting on your branding against their desires.
Branding can be as simple as the use of house style for reports and pre-
sentations. Without seeing the actual brand or the content, I can identify
the source of certain consulting reports just by their look, colour and
format. Some consultancies have very specific formats for all their docu-
ments. If you work for one of these firms then you must conform to their
corporate standards. My only advice in this situation is to try to avoid
impairing the quality of client deliverables by the need to force adher-
ence to a predefined format. The format should always be secondary to
the client’s usability of documents.
Deliverables should be marked in accordance with the terms of the pro-
posal and contract with regard to ownership of any intellectual property
or copyright, i.e. the documents should be appropriately marked ©abc
consulting or ©xyz corporation. If you are going to copyright a report in
your consultancy’s favour, this fact should not come as a surprise to a
client. Many clients do not care, but some occasionally respond very neg-
atively to the idea that they do not own the copyright for a piece of work
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they co-developed with a consultancy and for which they paid. Have this
debate early on rather than leaving it as a possible argument at the end
of the engagement. (See Chapter 10 on ethics.)
Deliverables need to be checked and quality assured (QA) before handing
over to clients. At the very least, read through all documents carefully.
Mistakes and omissions in documents look unprofessional, reduce credi-
bility and may expose you to risk. The large consultancies often have
complex and well-defined QA processes which need to be built into your
engagement plan as they can take extensive time. A QA process may
require you to spend time with senior consulting managers with very
busy diaries. If you are exposed to such a process, do not be surprised if
you are asked to make significant changes to the deliverables. After all,
the purpose of a QA process is to improve deliverables by asking for
changes in them. If you do not want this to become a major problem
then try to involve senior consulting managers responsible for QA as
early as possible in the engagement. QA processes may look at complete-
ness and relevance of deliverables, but they will also review the risk that
recommendations may expose a consultancy to.
Often it is necessary to iterate between this and the next step several
times until a client is fully satisfied with the engagement deliverables.
Counsel and consult
Clients are counselled and consulted not only at the end of the engage-
ment, but throughout it. A client and client’s staff should learn from a
consultant across the engagement. This may be from small items of
advice, by facilitating workshops, formal training and skills transfer activ-
ities, or simply by observing how the consultant works. However, all
engagements reach a logical endpoint, when a client must be told the
results of the work, counselled on their feelings and responses to this
work and consulted on what to do next. Whereas the create step devel-
ops deliverables, the counsel and consult step is about presenting and
discussing them with clients. This section should be read in conjunction
with Chapter 8 on understanding and overcoming resistance.
How you discuss your findings and recommendations is as important to
client acceptance as what your findings and recommendations are.
Findings and recommendations must be presented with clarity, confi-
dence and assertiveness. Consultants must appear non-judgemental,
non-emotional and to the point.
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1296 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
In presenting results you are looking for client acceptance, but of course may
have to deal with a level of rejection of your results. You must have sufficient
time in your engagement to identify and overcome any client resistance.
Such rejection may relate to a client’s emotional or logical response to your
results. It may relate to the content of your deliverables, but sometimes it can
be triggered by format or how you present. Try to separate these different
types of response, as they must be resolved in different ways.
Generally, at the end of an engagement you must present two different
things: findings and recommendations. You must understand that these
are quite different, and will each generate different
levels of understanding, interest and resistance.
Make clear which you are presenting when. Start by
advising or presenting findings and gaining accept-
ance to them. Normally, the recommendations will
follow on logically and there will be less reason to
argue against them. If you mix up findings and recommendations you will
tend to confuse the client and this can increase resistance.
Many consultants have never worked outside consulting and therefore
understanding what works and what does not, and what is appropriate in
any situation, is theoretical or comes from observation rather than direct
experience. Hence you must not confuse resistance with the fact that you
may actually have drawn the wrong conclusions, or even if you are right
it may not work in a specific client organisation. (See Chapter 8 for a
detailed discussion on resistance.) The challenge for a consultant is to
balance consistency and assertiveness in holding on to results that you
believe in and can justify, whilst also listening to the client and being
responsive to valid criticism and suggestions.
As part of an engagement a consultant researches a wide range of data to
prove hypotheses or suggest alternatives. Although you must be able to
justify your findings, the point of feedback is to provide clarity to the
client. Resist the temptation to report everything. Less is more powerful.
Differentiate between telling the client everything and telling them about
the most important or highest priority issues. A consultant provides focus
and not unfiltered masses of information. You can always write the details
in an appendix. Anyone can find 1000 problems in a large business. Few
people have the capability to identify the single most important issue.
Remember the lesson in the consultants’ dialogue: ‘Why did you write a
100-page report? ‘Because I did not have time to write a one-page one.’ A
synthesis that enables a client to understand a problem truly, rather than
get lost in the trees, is significantly more valuable to them.
“start by advising orpresenting findings and
gaining acceptance
to them”
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Consulting engagements130
Often the most useful feedback to clients is confrontational, but confronta-
tional does not mean argumentative. There are ways to present difficult
messages and ways to avoid them. Try to separate the confrontational con-
tent of your findings from your role as a consultant. Do not shy away from
radical ideas, since these are often the most valuable part of consulting. In
the end you must present what you think is right, which may not be what
the client wants to hear. However, if the confrontational or radical aspects
of your results are a relatively minor component of the overall deliverable,
separate them from your main findings so any argument about these radi-
cal ideas does not spoil the main bulk of your findings.
The outcome from counselling and consulting is the client’s understand-
ing of findings and recommendations, but it should not end there. It
must lead to actions. If the client takes no action as a result of your work,
then you have failed to add any value. This primarily relates to what the
client does next, but it relates also to what you do next with the client.
Summary
The deliver stage must start by looking ahead and planning what you will
do, but also include expecting and being flexible to needs to modify the
plan. As you progress through delivery always think from the client’s
perspective. Is what you are discovering innovative, implementable and
acceptable to the client? An engagement needs to be sufficiently wide
ranging, but clarity, coherence and usefulness are of far greater value than
absolute comprehensiveness. The best consulting ideas meet three criteria:
they are innovative, implementable and acceptable to the client.
At the end of the engagement you will produce deliverables or achieve a client
outcome. You need to be absolutely clear about whether your client is expecting
deliverables or an outcome. Any deliverables must be usable by and credible to
the client. Any outcome must be in the form of a beneficial change to the client.
As a final tip, check your engagement plan and proposal regularly. It is easy
to gradually veer away from it, which is not a problem if agreed with the
client as the engagement progresses. But you don’t want to diverge away
from the original concept and at the end be surprised when the client checks
off what you have done against the proposal.
Finally, the deliver phase is summarised in Figure 6.4.
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1316 � Delivering consulting engagements and satisfying clients
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M06_NEWT0873_01_SE_C06.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:11 Page 131

The alternative approach – process
consulting and facilitation
When many professionals imagine a good consultant, they oftenpicture someone who is an expert in a field and who can adviseclients on all the important aspects of a particular subject. Thus
they may conceive of an IT consultant who knows all about technology
and the latest trends and advances, a strategy consultant who understands
everything about a competitive market and how to help a client redirect
their business, or a manufacturing consultant who is aware of all the ins
and outs of designing a factory floor and running efficient production
lines. Such consulting is called expert consulting. Expert consulting is
hugely valuable to clients and is the basis of much of the success of the
management consulting industry. The big consultancy firms advertise
their expertise in all sorts of areas. The many small consulting companies
and thousands of individual consultants can provide in-depth know-how
in almost every niche of business and management.
Helping clients by providing them with access to deep subject matter
expertise is not the only value-adding way of consulting. Many consult-
ants use another method to assist clients that is radically different, and
does not require them to position themselves as subject matter experts.
This is process consulting.
The term process consulting may be unfamiliar to some readers.
Throughout this chapter I use both the terms facilitation and process
consulting largely interchangeably. Facilitation is a term usually preferred
chapter
7
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by clients as they are familiar with the word, whereas process consulting
is a phrase or jargon more commonly used by consultants themselves. I
tend to use the term process consulting, as I think it is a more precise def-
inition, it derived from the pioneering and still valuable work of Edgar
Schein (see page 280). Whilst I have been influenced by the writings of
Schein and others, this chapter contains my own interpretation of
process consulting. Clients may also think of process consulting as
coaching, as the experience of process consulting is more akin to being
coached than receiving expert advice.
Not all consultants understand, are comfortable with or proficient in
process consulting. It is an approach that focuses more on a client’s own
willingness and ability to define solutions, to learn and to grow, whilst
working with consultants, than on the direct subject matter expertise of
the consultant. It is often seen as an easy way to consult, but in reality
true process consulting is hard, and can be extremely demanding on
clients and consultants alike.
The implicit bias so far in this book has been towards expert consulting,
and this chapter seeks to redress the balance by discussing process con-
sulting as a fundamentally different way of consulting. It is a complex
topic that cannot be fully encapsulated in one chapter. Process consult-
ing is a practical skill and is best learnt by doing it
and receiving feedback rather than by thinking
and reading about it. In this chapter I provide an
overall description of my perspective on process
consulting to give a general understanding of the approach. I describe
the advantages, I compare and contrast it with expert consulting and
explain which method is better in which situations.
Managing process instead of content
Every activity can be split into two parts – the content of the activity and
the process of the activity. The content is the what, and the process is the
how. Usually with consulting the activity is to resolve some kind of prob-
lem or issue. An expert consultant is focused on the content and
sometimes the process of solving problems. The expert helps describe
how to resolve a problem and usually advises what the best solution is. A
process consultant looks exclusively at the process. Scoping and solving
problems is the responsibility of the client, with the guidance of the
process consultant.
1337 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
“process consultingis a practical skill”
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What is meant by ‘process’ in this context? This can be shown by exam-
ples, starting with a business meeting. It has some content – that is the
subject that the meeting is about, the various information and arguments
that are made at the meeting, and the conclusion or outcome that is
reached. The meeting also has a process, for example, the process might be:
� Meet at 10:00 a.m.
� Chairperson will define the meeting objectives.
� Attendees will discuss what the objective means for 15 minutes to
ensure there is a common understanding of it and an agreed scope.
� The attendees will then discuss how to achieve the objective for
30 minutes.
� The chairperson will select the best ideas to achieve the objective.
� The meeting will then work together to achieve the objective.
� After three hours the objective will be achieved, with consensus agreed,
or if not achieved the chairperson will retire to decide the outcome and
determine the next steps based on the contents of the meeting.
None of these points reflects the nature or content of the meeting, they
are all about the process by which it is managed. This meeting could be
concerned with any topic. In this example, the chairperson is managing
the process, but is not acting purely in a process consulting style. As well
as managing the process, the list above indicates that the chairperson
will make decisions about the content of the meeting.
Let’s consider a more complex task: creating a requirements specification
for a new IT application in a business. An expert consultant would
approach this by listing what they felt were the relevant requirements for
this type of application, or even by telling the client what was the best
software package for the situation. A process consultant would help the
client to define the requirements themselves, by going through a process
like the one below:
� Identify who may place requirements on the new system
(requirement’s owners).
� Interview identified requirement’s owners and agree document
requirements.
� Consolidate requirements into a single list.
� Remove duplicate requirements.
� Identify conflicting requirements.
� Bring requirement’s owners together to resolve conflicts.
Consulting engagements134
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� Agree prioritisation criteria with the team.
� Prioritise requirements according to the team’s criteria.
Again, none of these steps is about what the requirements are, they are
all about helping a client by giving them structure to achieve the objec-
tive of defining the requirements. Whilst this can appear simple, there is
a lot of complexity below these individual tasks. For example, a nomi-
nally simple task like ‘agree prioritisation criteria with the team’ may
require great skills to clarify and combine different people’s views and
achieve consensus on them.
In a way, the title process consultant is unfortunate, as it can be confused
with a process designer, business process re-engineering or an expert in one
process or another. It has nothing to do with these. But I prefer it to the
term facilitator, because the latter is often misused and misunderstood.
Facilitation and facilitator are often synonymous with help and helper
respectively. Facilitators are much more than people who help in solving a
problem. A facilitator has a specialist skill and applies facilitation tech-
niques. These techniques focus on helping a client by managing the
process. I tend to use the term facilitation when I am discussing a tech-
nique I might use in an individual meeting, workshop or set of workshops.
Process consulting is the phrase I am apt to use when approaching a com-
plete consulting engagement or a significant part of an engagement.
One way to understand the role of the process consultant is to compare it
to the role of an expert consultant. Typically, an expert consultant tells
(or, more politely, advises) a client what to do, or shows them how to do
it. A process consultant helps clients to work it out for themselves. This is
summarised in Table 7.1.
1357 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
Table 7.1 Process and expert consulting compared
Process consultant Expert consultant
Style of interaction Encouraging Enquiring
Facilitating Analysing
Supporting Instructing
Coaching Advising
Exploring Showing
Involving Recommending
The consultant’s client I will help you to solve your I will recommend what is best
proposition own problems and show you how to do it
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Process consultants and facilitators provide structure and focus to the
process of discussion and problem resolution. They are responsible for
achieving an outcome, but the client, or more usually a team of client
staff, maintain ownership of the outcome that is achieved. Hence effec-
tive facilitation requires an understanding of the objective or outcome
desired, a process to manage the discussion and communication skills, as
well as flexibility, responsiveness and insight into group dynamics.
Workshops are usually an important part of a process consulting engage-
ment. A typical objective is to determine how to overcome a problem or
issue that a client wants to resolve. Often the
objective is defined in terms of scoping a problem.
Most of the work will be done with the client or
client team in workshops. But there is some prepa-
ration work for the consultant in terms of
designing a process to manage a workshop, and there are usually some
post-workshop tasks such as writing up the outcome and making notes.
Workshops can produce a massive amount of unstructured material. One
of the skills of the facilitator is to structure and summarise this material
as the workshop progresses, but also to consolidate and write it up fol-
lowing the workshop. The structuring of workshop materials, which are
often in the form of flipcharts and rough notes, is a crucial stage in
process consulting. Process consultants must remain aware that they are
facilitating and not leading. It is very easy when summarising informa-
tion to put your own spin on it when you select what you think is most
important and leave out what you feel is less critical.
The process consultant uses a range of approaches, tools and techniques.
The first technique is to define a process to scope or resolve the client’s
problem that is appropriate to the situation. The approach could be to
run a series of workshops, each of which moves the client progressively
closer to the objective desired. The process consultant also needs to plan
how each workshop will run and who should attend. Once the workshop
is running the consultant should be skilled in identifying and resolving
conflict, as well as developing consensus in a group. The process consult-
ant must be observant of the group and group dynamics. Judgement is
also important: for example, if consensus is not going to be achieved,
deciding when it is a sensible time to let the team take a break from a
workshop versus making them continue to reach a conclusion. The
process consultant must be able to structure information from many
members of the team, and help them to see patterns in it.
Consulting engagements136
“often the objectiveis defined in terms of
scoping a problem”
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Most of all, the process consultant has to have excellent communication
skills, especially those related to listening and questioning. A large part of
the success of a process consultant is asking the right question at the
right time to encourage thinking, debate and sharing of ideas. The sort of
questions a process consultant asks can be exploratory, diagnostic or
action orientated. Irrespective of the style of question, they should be
aimed at helping the team to explore, to think and to understand.
Questions of the form ‘why do you ….’, ‘how will you ….’, ‘ exactly what
will you …’, ‘what is the situation in which …’, ‘what assumptions under-
lie …’, ‘does everyone understand …’, ‘do we have consensus …’, are
common. The process consultant should avoid confrontational or lead-
ing questions (see Chapter 11). Using leading questions is not process
consulting, but is really covert expert consulting. Leading questions can
be hard to avoid, and often consultants ask them without realising that
they are doing so. In asking questions, process consultants should
observe as well as listen, looking for any indications that people are not
being open or are not involving themselves in the discussions.
In managing workshops, the process consultant manages time and the
environment the workshop takes place in. Workshops can easily fail
because they run out of time to reach conclusions, and it takes skill to
encourage a debate to progress, without controlling or steering the con-
tent of the group’s discussions. Correctly deciding when it is appropriate
to take a break, and when it is not, has a significant impact on workshop
outcomes. Similarly, the way meeting rooms are laid out, and the exis-
tence or absence of distractions, make a huge difference to the success of
a workshop.
Process consultants must try to be impartial, and keep the client team
focused on the objectives. Process consultants must build trust with the
team, so that team members will allow themselves to be guided by con-
sultant. The process consultant treats all members of a team equally and
should ensure that all members are involved in discussion and reaching
conclusions. Conclusions are ideally reached by consensus with the
team, although in practice consensus is not always possible to achieve for
some contentious issues.
The consultant is primarily concerned with ensuring that the client
achieves an effective solution that is acceptable to them, but what the
solution is and what the criteria for acceptability are, are completely up
to the client. A process consultant should avoid assumptions or precon-
ceptions about the situation. In contrast, expert consultants are
1377 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
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independent in the sense that the recommendations they give are meant
to be what the consultant determines are best for the client, irrespective
of the client’s own viewpoint. An expert consultant must have precon-
ceptions – that is the basis of their expertise. The word recommendation
can be seen to encapsulate the difference, as recommendations lie at the
heart of an expert consultant’s work, while they are the antithesis of a
process consultant’s support for a client.
Table 7.2 summarises the main points in this section by comparing the
role of a manager solving their own problems, to the roles of a process
and an expert consultant in resolving a problem.
The advantages and disadvantages of process consulting
Some problems are obviously best resolved by process consulting. For
instance, if there is a lack of consensus within a team, an expert giving
their opinion on a solution may help with making a decision but is
unlikely to help in achieving consensus. On the other hand, a process
consultant is well skilled in helping to bring a team together and achiev-
ing consensus within the team. Many tasks can be supported by a
consultant working in either a process consulting style or an expert con-
sulting style. Hence the relevant question is: what are the relative
advantages and disadvantages of the two styles?
There are some important reasons to select a process consulting as
opposed to an expert consulting approach in some situations. Process
consulting can be beneficial for the client on a personal level. It can
result in greater acceptance of the outcome from an engagement, prima-
rily because the outcome is the client’s. Process consulting can help the
Consulting engagements138
Table 7.2 Managing versus consulting
Who defines Who owns the Who defines What is the typical
the problem? problem resolution? the solution? style of interaction?
Manager Manager Manager Manager Measuring, reviewing
and directing
Expert Client Consultant or client Consultant Information gathering,
consultant analysing and advising
Process Client Client Client Questioning,
consultant structuring and
consensus building
M07_NEWT0873_01_SE_C07.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:12 Page 138

client to learn and understand more about an
issue. The nature of process consulting is that a
client or client team goes through the process of
scoping and solving a problem, and is the primary
participant in the consulting engagement. In con-
trast, in an expert consulting situation the client can choose to be an
observer and simply read the recommendations at the end of the engage-
ment. The level of a client’s personal involvement and development can
be much higher during a well-run process consulting engagement than
an expert consulting engagement.
Clients expect consultants to have expertise, and have often employed
consultants to advise them. But it is not always appropriate to give
advice. Sometimes a better solution is for clients to solve problems them-
selves. The problem with the external expert is that clients may reject
advice or may not learn from the experience of working with an expert.
A process consulting style is extremely powerful in getting clients to buy
in to solutions – because the clients developed the solution themselves,
and in doing so, the clients learn. Think back to your own childhood
when you were learning. You can teach your children by telling them
facts and giving them the answer to every question they ask. But teachers
and parents know that a far better way to assist children to learn is to
help them to understand and to think for themselves. Instead of simply
telling children the answer to a problem, you can help them by respond-
ing to their request for help with questions like: ‘can you remember
anything this is similar to …?’, ‘do you remember how you did this last
time …?’, ‘what can you tell me about the problem …?’, ‘which parts do
you understand …?’ By solving the problem themselves, children learn
better. This advantage of self-discovery and understanding over being
told answers does not stop in childhood.
Clients and client staff are often the best people to analyse problems and
come up with solutions, as they are closest to them and understand them
best. An external expert, unless they have spent extensive time working
with a client, will always have an incomplete understanding of the con-
text and culture of the client organisation, and of the details of how a
client precisely does various tasks. Additionally, when clients have
designed a solution themselves it is often easier and faster to implement.
There can be advantages to using process consulting from a consultant’s
point of view, irrespective of the client’s needs. Process consulting skills
can provide a way to help a client in situations in which you are not a
1397 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
“process consultingcan be beneficial for
the client on a
personal level”
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subject matter expert, but still want to contribute value. It is common on
many consulting engagements to find yourself in unfamiliar situations.
For example, you may be invited to a meeting and find the topic is one
you know nothing about. You can choose to stay uninvolved in the
meeting and simply listen, but this is rarely acceptable behaviour for a
consultant. You can bluff, but this should be avoided as it does not add
value to the client and is risky to your reputation. A better solution is to
accept you know nothing about the subject and to use a process consult-
ing style. Sometimes asking questions as simple as: ‘are we all clear what
the objective of this meeting is …?’, ‘how are we going to work together
…?’, ‘do we need consensus or is a majority decision good enough …?’,
can be extremely helpful to clients. In this way, you can still help the
client, whilst your own understanding of the situation and content
develops. If you do this well, clients will value your input and often will
not even realise that you did not add any content to the meeting.
However, process consulting is not a solution to all consulting chal-
lenges, or one that will enable consultants to manoeuvre through any
situation. For instance, it can be tempting to involve a junior consultant,
with limited subject matter knowledge, in an expert consulting team and
let them muddle through by relying on process consulting skills. This
should be done with care. New consultants often have less deep expert
knowledge, but they may also have no process consulting skills.
None of this section should be used to imply that process consulting is
always the preferred style. There are many advantages of being an expert
consultant. An expert consultant can bring an independent and unbiased
view. Although the process consultant is unbiased and wants to achieve
consensus, the solution is the client’s and may therefore suffer from any
limitations in client thinking. An expert can help to break group-think.
Critically, an expert can provide speed in identifying a solution. Process
consulting, especially if it is used to achieve full consensus, can be very
powerful, but it is not always quick. An expert can often immediately tell
the client the solution to a problem. Clients also often want expert con-
sulting. Whether it is right for them in the longer run or not, there can
be an attitude with some clients of ‘just tell me the answer’. It may be
appropriate to try and persuade them otherwise, but, in the end, if that is
what clients demand, then as consultants our task must be just to tell
them the answer. Finally, there are many situations in which an expert
consultant is the only appropriate approach. For instance, if a client
needs to understand the ideal way to overcome a technical or specialist
Consulting engagements140
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1417 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
problem they have no experience of, then no amount of facilitation will
produce the optimal answer, whereas a skilled consultant who has seen
this problem many times before will be able to identify the optimal solu-
tion easily.
There was a joke going the rounds when I first did a process consulting
course that it was ‘content-free consulting’. In a way this is true, but not
in a negative sense at all. It is content free, because it is meant to be, and
whilst it sounds counter-intuitive to an expert consultant, the absence of
content is the source of its value. A process consultant has a mature rela-
tionship with the client, in which the client is understood to be perfectly
capable of understanding and resolving their own problems, but some-
times just needs a little help to be able to do this.
Expert and process consultants are sometimes presented as either/or
ways to support a client, but in reality they are both valid and valuable
ways to consult. The challenge for the skilled consultant is not to choose
one or the other, but to be able to do both and to determine which
approach is best in which situation.
When to be a process consultant, when to be the expert
A consultant who can switch between a process and expert consulting
style needs to consider which approach to use in which situations. The
choice should be determined by what is most in the client’s interest. For
either approach, you need to start with an understanding of what the
client’s issue is, and what are the client’s capabilities and needs to get to a
solution. If the fundamental issue is that the client does not know what
is wrong or how to define the issue, both process and expert consultants
can define the issue. An expert consultant, based on previous experience,
will tell the client what the likely issue is. A process consultant will work
with the client to develop clarity in the client’s own thinking.
There are several factors to consider before deciding which style of con-
sulting is best. Does the environment or culture of the client suit process
or expert consulting? Some clients respond very badly to attempts to
facilitate them, and do not employ consultants for these reasons. Other
clients are passionate about facilitation and see it
as an important aspect of a consultant’s role.
Trying to use process consulting with a client who
is not open to the approach is rarely successful.
Conversely, always acting the expert when the
“does the culturesuit process or expert
consulting?”
M07_NEWT0873_01_SE_C07.QXD:Layout 1 21/1/10 09:12 Page 141

client wants a deeper participation in the engagement and shaping the
outcome is inappropriate.
Other factors to consider include the speed of resolution required by the
client, the level of input and involvement a client can give to an engage-
ment, and the level of consensus around the issue. When a client wants
greater involvement, when the issue is contentious and consensus build-
ing is required, and when there is time, then process consulting is often
preferable. However, if an issue is well accepted and a client wants a con-
sultant to just get on and resolve it, expert consulting is usually better.
There may be several opportunities to include facilitation and expertise
within an engagement. It could be that the whole engagement is about
process consulting or it may be that a part of the engagement is done as
an expert consultant – either can be used at different times, and each
style of consulting can be used by different members of a consulting
engagement team.
Theorists, especially those with a bias towards coaching and facilitating,
can stress the criticality of not mixing an expert with a process consult-
ing mode. It is true that if you want an individual to learn and develop it
can be crucial to maintain a consistent process consulting approach and
to avoid ‘giving them your answer’ by switching into an expert mode.
But within a consulting engagement life is rarely so clear cut. As
described above there are many advantages of a process consulting style,
and rarely is the client worried (and sometimes not explicitly conscious)
about whether you are using a process or expert mode. You must make a
judgement as to which approach to use on a regular basis. Even when
facilitating workshops I sometimes switch into expert mode, although if I
do this I make it explicit to my clients. Hence I may say something like: ‘I
am going to be a little more directive now, is that OK?’ or ‘I would like to
give some direct advice on the issue.’ This has to be handled with care as
you can easily undermine your position as a facilitator. A solution is to
use two consultants: one works as part of the client team as an expert
member, and another retains the role of a facilitator.
Sometimes process consulting is used for whole engagements, but more
often it is more powerful to use it in parts of an engagement. For exam-
ple, I may facilitate a client to explain their requirements, to scope an
issue and gain consensus in a client team about a way forward. But I may
then act as an expert when it comes to advising the client on how to
meet those requirements. Typical situations in which process consulting
is frequently successful include:
Consulting engagements142
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� scoping unclear issues and engagements
� identifying client requirements or decision-making criteria
� prioritising between tasks
� developing shared understanding and consensus
� working on an activity as part of a team-building stage of an
engagement.
Process consulting is more appropriate in some stages of the client’s
change process than others (see Chapter 4). You can develop ideas and
even help a client to develop plans via facilitation, but you cannot easily
implement change or review operations as a process consultant.
Similarly, different stages of the engagement process are more easily
delivered as a process consultant than others. Process consulting skills
can be especially useful as part of the exploratory dialogue in the propose
stage of the engagement process, when an understanding of the client
issue is required. If you choose to perform the deliver stage as a process
consultant, it may require modification from that described in Chapter 6.
For example, for a process consultant the consider and create steps of the
deliver stage are not concerned with developing their own thinking and
final reports, but with structuring and making sense of the client’s ideas
and helping them to draw their own conclusions.
Another factor to consider in selecting the preferred consulting approach
is your capabilities. Not all consultants are great process consultants, and
not all need to be. But some level of facilitation skills are a strength for
all consultants. An ability to differentiate between
helping a client with the content of a problem
and assisting them by managing the process is
important. However, it is very irritating when you
are advised that you will be attending a workshop
run by a facilitator but the facilitator tries to stay
in an expert mode and is really telling the attendees what to do and
think. If you really cannot facilitate or process consult, then do not try.
Some situations require exceptional facilitation skills, especially when
developing consensus around highly contentious issues. Expert facilita-
tion is a specialisation in its own right. If a consultant is not a natural or
talented facilitator, they should understand the situations in which a
client needs an exceptional facilitator and, rather than doing the work
personally, assist the client in locating such a highly skilled facilitator.
1437 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
“if you really cannotfacilitate or process
consult, then do not
try”
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Consulting engagements144
One thing a client is often looking for from a consultant is creativity and
innovation in ideas. The approaches to creativity from a process and
expert consultant are quite different, and in determining which approach
to use it is important to understand what the client wants and needs.
Consider the following examples of how an expert and process consult-
ant will approach such a situation:
� Expert consultant: ‘Have you tried this … I have seen this work well
in other situations?’
� Process consultant: ‘Here is a creative process, I will help you to
understand and to use it. With my help you will go through it to
generate your own new ideas.’
These are fundamentally different approaches to coming up with new
ideas. A client may be open to both, or may be explicit in what style of
help they require. If a consultant is going to use a combination of expert
and process consulting, the decision of which approach to use and when
can usually be determined as the engagement progresses. If the consult-
ant will only use one approach, this is best agreed with the client before
the engagement starts.
The issue of collusion
Both process and expert consultants should be independent of the client,
and avoid colluding with the client. Collusion happens when a consult-
ant gives a client precisely what the client wants, irrespective of what is
right for the client organisation. Sometimes collusion is deliberate by the
consultant, on other occasions it is unintentional and results from too
close a working relationship between the consultant and the client. The
way collusion occurs is different in process and expert consulting.
Colluding with the client as an expert is telling them what you think
they want to hear. Collusion as a process consultant is reflecting what the
client has said without worrying about consensus or involvement of the
rest of the client team. You can also collude with the client by posing as a
process consultant, but then telling them the answer because they do not
want the bother of being involved in workshops.
A related situation to collusion is when clients wash their hands of
responsibility for an issue by handing it over to a consultant. This is
more of a problem for expert than process consultants. Generally, con-
sultants should not take full ownership of a problem; the client manager
in the end must always retain ownership. When a client hires an expert
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consultant, the client can sometimes effectively delegate ownership to
the consultant. This is when clients think, ‘it’s not my problem anymore
because I have hired a consultant’. Clients cannot abrogate responsibility
to the consultant in a similar way when using process consulting. Hence
process consulting is not an easy option for clients. If it is done well, it
can be enjoyable and exciting, but it does require the client to participate
100 per cent in the process.
Many consultants struggle with process consulting. They are often
seduced by the content. The content may be interesting and also holding
on to the content can seem comfortable. Positioning yourself as an
expert clearly establishes your relationship and role with the client.
Moving to a process consulting mode can feel risky, and you may get the
impression of exposure at times, since the value you are adding is less
clear cut. However, many clients deeply value good process consulting. It
is not uncommon for a client to appreciate more highly the member of
the consulting team who facilitates the client’s own thinking, rather than
an expert consultant in the same team.
Summary
This chapter provides an overview of process consulting in contrast to expert
consulting. Key points to remember are:
� Process consulting provides an alternative approach to consulting
compared with expert consulting. Instead of advising clients of what the
solution to a problem is, the process consultant helps clients to develop
the solution themselves.
� Process consulting is powerful in situations when it is important to help
clients to understand, learn, develop their own solutions and achieve
consensus. It is very useful when it is necessary to explore ideas, opinions
or scope issues, but is less helpful in direct implementation or operational
performance review engagements.
� Process consulting can be used in combination with an expert consulting
style, and for experienced consultants the question is less ‘should I be a
process or expert consultant?’ and more ‘in this specific situation, which
approach is better?’ Even in a single conversation, a skilful consultant
can switch between expert and process consulting.
Process and expert consulting are summarised and contrasted in Table 7.3.
1457 � The alternative approach – process consulting and facilitation
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Consulting engagements146
Table 7.3 Comparing expert and process consulting
Process consultant Expert consultant
Approach
Facilitate and structure
Provide a path (or process) for the client
to get to an answer
Work with clients to help them understand
their own needs, ideas and vision
Core skills/competencies
Developing client rapport
Listening and questioning
Facilitation and workshops
Ability to restructure complex information
from multiple sources into a coherent whole
Conflict resolution and consensus building
The consultant’s contract with the client
� I am going to help you to help yourself.
� You will determine the most important
problem, the symptoms and the solution
yourself.
� Your role is to scope and solve the problem.
� I will provide a process to help you in
doing this.
� The outcome will be whatever you come
up with, but I will help to structure
coherently the outcome and help you
decide what to do next.
Analyse, advise and recommend
Define the answers
Provide client insights based on expertise and
knowledge
Developing client credibility
Deep, relevant and current knowledge of
subject matter
Analysis, explanation and clarification
Ability to make advice relevant to the client’s
specific business context
� I will review your situation.
� I will determine what the relevant problem
and symptoms are.
� I will then tell you what the problem and
solution is.
� Your role is to give me relevant information
and to answer my questions.
� The outcome will be my recommendations,
which you will have to deal with. However,
if you want I can then further develop
implementation plans for you.
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Closing engagements and
sustaining results
In the last chapter we looked at the activities involved in running alive consulting engagement. Those delivery activities are the breadand butter work of the consultant, but every individual consulting
engagement is of limited duration. All engagements end. How this
ending is handled is important both to the client and the consultant.
The client wants a smooth and seamless transition when the consultant
exits the client organisation. A consultant is judged as much on closing
an engagement and bringing it to a satisfactory conclusion, as on the
delivery of the engagement. A good ending is a planned and deliberately
managed event. It should never just be the uncontrolled and inexorable
reaching of a certain time or date.
One feature of consulting engagements, which may surprise novice consult-
ants, is that the activities in delivery tend to be the domain of the junior
and middle-ranking consultants. The more senior consultants, directors and
partners tend to spend more of their time involved in the activities at either
end of the delivery stage – that is, in the propose and close stages of the
engagement process. In some ways this reflects the difficulty, the opportu-
nity, and – especially – the potential risks of those stages of an engagement.
Ending an engagement well is a science and an art. The science comes in
the standard repeatable items to check off when an engagement closes.
Some of these activities are for the client’s benefit, but many are for the
ongoing advantage of the consultancy (e.g. updating the consultant’s CVs
following an engagement). The art of closing an engagement derives from
chapter
8
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the less definite and less precise aspects of finishing a piece of work. For
example, if you have done a really good job then clients are often disap-
pointed when you leave. This feeling of disappointment can turn a great
result into an unhappy client if it is not handled with sensitivity. Therefore
much of the close stage is concerned with doing whatever is required to
leave the client with a good feeling about you. The section in this chapter
on closing engagements looks at both this science and art.
Even though the engagement ends, the consultant should not think
purely of reaching that point and ignore anything that may happen to
the client afterwards. The consultant not only can try, but must, peer into
the future after the end of the engagement. The obvious considerations
are that there may be sell-on, and there will be a client relationship to be
managed in the longer run. More importantly, the real value from a con-
sulting engagement is received by a client after the consultant has gone. It
is how the consultant influences and improves the operations or direction
of a business in the long run that is the true meas-
ure of excellent consulting. Providing advice and
assistance that is forgotten as soon as the consult-
ant exits the client’s organisation is of limited or
even zero value. Of course, consultants cannot
control what happens after they have left, but they
can influence it. Hence as well as describing how to end an engagement,
this chapter also explains how the consultant can increase the likelihood
of long-term success by ensuring the consulting results are sustained.
There are two criticisms repeatedly made of consultants. The first is the
lack of added value by telling the client what they already know. This is
the ‘borrow your watch to tell you the time’ account of consulting. The
other criticism is that consultants run away just when the going gets
tough. Consultants write reports, give presentations and make recom-
mendations, but leave it up to the client to do the hard bit –
implementing the change. This is the ‘consultants don’t implement’ ver-
sion of consulting. Both these criticisms tend to arise at the end of
engagements and have an element of truth and a degree of unfair stereo-
typing. Both criticisms are sometimes right because it was precisely what
the client asked for. Clients may use consultants to survey the thinking
of the organisation, to make recommendations, and may not want any
ongoing involvement from the consultant. However, in many situations,
the criticisms point to poor consulting. The former criticism is the one
that is heard more often, but it is the ‘consultants don’t implement’ com-
ment that is more problematical both for consultants and clients. If we
Consulting engagements148
“the real value isreceived by a client
after the consultant
has gone”
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1498 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
take a client-centric view of consulting, then consultants who do not
care about how the client handles any recommendations are shirking
their responsibility to their client.
Even if a consultant has no implementation skills and is never involved
in implementation they must consider what the client does with their
recommendations. Hence this chapter is relevant to all consultants of
whatever specialisation. The precise responsibilities you have in an
engagement depend on the type of engagement and your client needs.
But it is wrong to conclude that change is the exclusive preserve of con-
sultants involved in implementation engagements. For instance, even
the purest of strategy consultants or specialist advisors must consider
what the client does with the advice given, once a report is handed over.
If not, there is a risk that the client ignores or cannot implement the
advice. Unimplementable or ignored advice is as worthless as no advice
at all, but considerably more expensive.
In many ways the role of the consultant is less than that of a manager. A
consultant analyses, identifies and advises, but the decision to imple-
ment and to live with the consequences of the changes is a manager’s.
This should not be seen as a weakness: it is inherent in the definition of
consultant as opposed to manager. The role of the advisor, even the most
brilliant and gifted advisor, is always subordinate to that of the person
being advised. Consultants must never forget this. But there is one
important respect in which the role of the consultant is more difficult
than that of the manager. The manager is responsible whilst they are in
post. The challenge for consultants is to influence an organisation to be
different and remain different when the consultant is gone. This is the
primary, exciting and most valuable aim of consulting, which is
explained at the end of this chapter.
The flow of this chapter is shown in Figure 8.1.
Close
Close
Post-engagement
(client operations/next steps)
Figure 8.1 The close stage and afterwards
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The end of a consulting engagement
When an engagement finishes should be a time for reflection on what
you have achieved and what you have learnt for future engagements. In
the stress of a busy consultancy there is often pressure to get on to the
next engagement and to forget important activities that seem like
niceties, such as engagement reviews. This is a mistake. Like all busi-
nesses, the consultancies that are most successful are the ones that learn
from their mistakes and build on their successes.
The true judge of the success of an engagement must be the client, and
each client’s views and considerations are unique. If you want to learn
and improve, it is always worth seeking feedback from the client on what
they liked and disliked about the engagement. Typical client considera-
tions will include:
� Did you do everything that was agreed?
� Was the work performed to an appropriate level of quality?
� Did the work add value in the client’s view?
Many of the factors that clients consider will be less precise:
� Did you meet or exceed the client’s expectations?
� Did you behave in a way that fitted with the client’s culture?
� Were you flexible and responsive to the client’s changing needs as the
engagement progressed?
In the longer run, value to a client is not about what happens whilst the
engagement is running, or even on the day it finishes, but is accrued over
time. You should ask yourself:
� Over time, is the client making better decisions?
� Does the client have a better strategy?
� Has the risk of the client’s business been reduced?
� Are the client’s operations faster, cheaper, better?
The precise questions will depend on the nature of the consulting
engagement, but it should be possible to pose questions of this form
about the outcome of the engagement. Some of outcomes can be meas-
ured, some not. Where they can, it should be possible to link back to the
original value proposition in your proposal and see if the measurements
testify to the right outcome.
Consulting engagements150
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1518 � Closing engagements and sustaining results 1518 � Closing engagements and substaining results
A consultancy does not exist just for the clients but is a business in its own
right, and therefore you have your own commercial factors that can judge
the success of the engagement. Most obviously: was it profitable and did
you sell any additional work? From a longer-term perspective, the success of
an engagement comes down to factors like whether you improved relation-
ships and extended your network, and whether you learnt anything on the
engagement that can be used in future engagements.
However, before you can make such a review of the success of an engage-
ment, the first question is the rather obvious, but often difficult one to
answer: when is the engagement over? The initial consideration is
whether you have done what you agreed to do in the proposal, and cre-
ated the deliverables or the outcome that were
contracted. These may be reports, findings, analy-
sis, benchmarks, presentations, processes, tools,
training courses, skills transfers, etc. There is also
a more subtle measure by which a client may
measure you. Any deliverables are based on find-
ings, assumptions and hypotheses you made.
Does the client accept these, and the process by which they were discov-
ered or developed? Many clients will not be interested in the consulting
process as long as they are happy with the outcome, but some clients will
want proof of thoroughness and intellectual rigour within the work you
performed in the commence, collect, consider and create steps. It is
worth thinking about how you will convince clients that your consulting
approach is sound and comprehensive.
There are several reasons why it can be difficult to be precise about when
an engagement is complete. Engagement deliverables can always be
improved a little more – both in terms of content and presentational
format. You can probably go on forever making minor enhancements.
Deliverables are usually not unambiguously defined in the original pro-
posal, and only when they are presented may you find that the client has
different expectations. Even minor differences in expectations can lead to
rework and extending an engagement. There may be little peripheral prom-
ises made to client staff throughout the engagement. Such promises can be
as simple as printing off an article you think might be relevant to them, or
offering to introduce them to someone in your network. These all need to
be fulfilled. The engagement ends when there are no such loose ends left.
Whilst there may be some clear-cut criteria, usually determining that a
consulting engagement is finished is a judgement. It is a judgement
made by both the client and the consultant, and ideally one which you
“any deliverablesare based on findings,
assumptions and
hypotheses you
made”
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Consulting engagements152
have consensus on. A successful end is one in which both the client and
the consultant are happy and agree that the engagement is complete.
Even a pre-agreed date can only be accepted as the real end of an engage-
ment if you have produced what is required, and the client has not asked
for any changes to scope or deliverables. It is easy to irritate and disap-
point a client by ending prematurely from their perspective. Conversely,
it is easy to convert a profitable engagement into a loss-making one by
constantly tweaking and improving deliverables to a client’s requests.
Both of these risks can be avoided by a well-managed close stage.
The art and science of the close stage
The basis for a good engagement close is defined in the original proposal.
The clearer the scope, deliverables and outcome from an engagement,
the easier it is to be precise about when the engagement is finished. In
reality, for many engagements the precise shape and scope of deliverables
can only be defined as the engagement progresses and may be evolving
until the last day. In such a situation, it is essential to have ongoing dia-
logue with the client about what the final outcome will be, and to
modify the client’s expectations every time the final outcome changes. If
you are unclear, or think the client is unclear, pursue a dialogue until
clarification and consensus is achieved.
Flexibility in consulting engagements is usually good. Clients do not want
to work with consultants who constantly turn around and say: ‘I am not
doing X, because in our original proposal you agreed to pay for Y.’ But flex-
ibility needs to be managed and aligned to the fees you are charging and
the time the engagement takes. Do not ask for more money every time the
client asks for something that will take you an extra 30 minutes to do.
However, in general terms, if the client wants more than was originally
specified, then that is additional chargeable work. Similarly, if a client
decides part way through development of a deliverable that they do not
want it anymore, the work to date needs to be paid for. The final invoice
should reflect such factors, but should also be what the client expects.
The next factor in a good engagement close is that you are prepared for
closedown. You should never reach the end of an engagement by sur-
prise, as from day one you knew you would get there. Yet it is common
for consultants to end engagements in a state of barely controlled chaos,
as all sorts of activities need to be finalised. In most cases, these activities
were predictable. What needs to be done at the end of the engagement
should be part of the engagement plan. Activities such as reviews of
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1538 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
deliverables by senior consultants in your firm, or client review work-
shops, should be set up in advance. You know they will always be
required, so running out of time to do them is a sign of poor planning
and sloppy engagement management.
Identify what will be handed over to whom from your engagement, and
make sure they are prepared for this. You may hand everything to a
single client, but it is not unusual to be producing several deliverables;
for example, a report to a real client, a training pack to HR and some
revised job descriptions to a line manager. Consulting deliverables are
rarely just handed over, they usually need to be explained and may
require a degree of client education. This all takes time. Try to predict
potential blockages to accepting your findings, and resolve them whilst
you still have time and resources to do so. The blockages can be simple
logistical issues, for example you cannot hand over to a client who is
away on two weeks holiday. Therefore, check in advance that the staff
you will be handing over to are available on the dates required.
If it is a large engagement with several consultants, as you hand over
aspects of the engagement you can decrease the size of the consulting
team. Not all the consultants need to be with the client until the very
last day. Unless there is a specific advantage to doing so, let individual
consultants leave the engagement team once their part of the work is
complete and handed over to the client.
Before you end a consulting engagement you should make sure the client
knows what happens next. Partially this is good business sense, as it is a
point of opportunity for on-sell. But even if there is no possible on-sell,
and all the next steps are to be performed by the
client with no consultant input, you never want to
leave with the client thinking, ‘What do I do now?’
An assertive client will not let you finish, and prob-
ably will not pay your invoice if they do not know
what to do next. A less assertive client may let you get away with leaving
them in the dark, but it is hardly good consulting. Some form of next-steps
plan should be included in every set of engagement deliverables.
There is a balance to be found, as a complete detailed client action plan
may be a major piece of work that deserves to be charged for as for any
other part of your work to a client. Such a plan may not be what the
client has asked for, or is willing to pay for. However, the next-steps plan
does not need to be detailed. Often it will be a short list of actions. It
is always possible to provide a simple and concise indication of the
“some form of next-steps plan should be
included”
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direction the client should go in, even if one of the next steps is ‘develop
a detailed plan’. The test of your next-steps plan should be that it is
enough for the client to read it in conjunction with your recommenda-
tions and does not think ‘so what?’ nor ‘what do I do now?’.
Similarly, you should make sure your consulting managers and consult-
ing partners know what happens next. Should you, or anyone else in the
consultancy, be doing any specific action with the client? Are there any
unfulfilled commitments or any opportunities for further work that must
be seized? Be clear as possible about who needs to do what, whether it is
simply a follow-up phone call or if it is a specific client meeting that
needs to be planned and arranged. Plan the next steps in your relation-
ship with the client with care.
There is always a set of activities required for the good management of
the consulting business at the end of an engagement. Timesheets and
expenses for the engagement need to be finalised, so you know precisely
what should be billed. Final billing and invoicing should be done. Try to
ensure the final bill really is the final bill. Consultants have a habit of
finding old expenses receipts weeks after an engagement is complete and
the last invoice was raised – or identifying a few days of another consul-
tant’s time that should have been billed to the engagement. Clients hate
it when you raise a ‘final’ bill and then several weeks later send them
another one saying you missed out some time or expenses. Think from
the client’s perspective – an extra bill makes their own budget manage-
ment difficult. This is especially problematic if you raise an additional
bill in another financial year – they may have no budget for your bill.
A well-organised consultant or consultancy business will automatically
complete housekeeping tasks like updating CVs, and client case studies
when an engagement is complete. Copies of client deliverables should be
filed for easy future reference. All other papers and files should be
archived or, if appropriate, destroyed. Staff performance reviews should
be carried out and client feedback sought. You may have picked up some
client assets whilst on the engagement, for example building passes and
laptops. These should be returned. Records should be updated, especially
information that is critical for the efficient future operations of the con-
sulting business, such as contacts logs or relationship records.
Every engagement provides an opportunity to learn. Learning will
happen informally for all members of an engagement team. Every con-
sultant’s experience grows on each engagement. But at the end of an
Consulting engagements154
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engagement consultants should consider the formal capture and logging
of good ideas, improved processes and tools, or anything else that will
make future engagements better, or which can be used with future
clients. However, there is a big difference between individual consultants
learning on engagements, and the formal documentation of knowledge
for reuse on future engagements. Well run consultancies willingly invest
time in the latter. (There is an ethical issue in selling something to one
client that another client has paid for – see Chapter 10. However, as long
as it is done sensitively, does not breach any client confidentiality or con-
tractual terms; consultants thrive on building specialist understanding by
performing similar work in multiple clients.)
Ending a consulting engagement is a great skill and needs preparation. A
poor ending will leave a client with a bad taste in their mouth and will
limit the chance of further sales. A well-managed ending is good for your
business and your clients. Ensure you are ready to finish, and the client is
ready for your departure. An engagement close checklist is shown in
Table 8.1 below.
1558 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
Table 8.1 Engagement close checklist
Yes No
Internal consulting business management
All timesheets and expenses collated? � �
Final invoice sent to client accounting for all time and expenses? � �
Consultant CVs updated? � �
Case study developed? � �
Engagement reviewed and lessons learnt for future engagements? � �
Intellectual capital/reusable deliverables converted into appropriate format? � �
All paperwork/files stored appropriately? � �
Contact logs and relationship records updated? � �
External client relationship management
All deliverables provided to client in agreed format? � �
Final handover meeting with client held? � �
Client feedback collected? � �
Next steps agreed with client and aligned with next-steps plan? � �
If selling on, next engagement prepared and ready to start? � �
All client assets returned? � �
Date of next contact or talk to the client agreed? � �
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The engagement end and the client’s next steps
If an engagement is ended well, the client may be as enthusiastic and
excited about the next steps as they were at the beginning of your
involvement. If not, the next steps may never happen or at least be slow
in starting. Ending well is important in giving the client an ongoing
impetus, but it is not enough. From a consultant’s perspective an engage-
ment will often end with recommendations, but someone has to
implement them. A document listing good ideas is not enough, as it is
only through the resulting change that a client achieves lasting value. If
you are not involved in implementation, you may conclude this is not
your problem. You have handed over your recommendations and been
paid, it’s now up to the client. This is a bad conclusion to reach, as it is
by client’s achieving lasting value that your reputation and business as a
consultant will grow.
The next steps for a client after an engagement ends depend on the type
of engagement and what the client has asked. For example:
� Strategy, advice, or recommendation engagements: Next step is
planning change.
� Planning engagements: Next step is implementation of change.
� Implementation engagements: Next step is a review of
implementation.
� Review engagements: Next step is to recommend improvements.
As described in Chapter 4, there is the possibility of continuous sell-on as
the consultant helps with the logical follow-on to every engagement.
However, this is not the point of this chapter. You may continue to be
involved with a client, but that does not remove the need to prepare the
client for change. There are two key reasons for this.
Firstly, at some point your role will end. It is perfectly valid for a client to
decide at any stage that they can continue by themselves, and irrespective
of when your role ends, you should consider the client’s subsequent
change. Secondly, consultants must understand their limitations – you
cannot make client change happen. This is not
simply an issue of power; it is because you are not
changing, but the client and the client organisa-
tion are. Only the client can be responsible for
making change happen in a client organisation. If
you do sell on and remain helping the client, then
that is good for your business, and hopefully the
Consulting engagements156
“consultants mustunderstand their
limitations – you
cannot make client
change happen”
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1578 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
client, but even so you can only go so far. You will not be spending your
future working life dealing with the change, only the client will. The con-
sultant is there to help understand why to change, to show what to
change, to facilitate the how to change – but not to change.
In reality, the degree of change required will vary enormously, from the
alteration in thinking in an individual client when providing one-to-one
advice to a single manager, through to the major restructuring and alter-
ation in a business that can result from a novel and radical strategy. The
rest of this chapter is written as if the change is significant, but the under-
lying principles are applicable even if the change is relatively minor.
Great consulting requires a strong sense of partnership between a con-
sultant and a client. Yet, however strong the partnership between
consultant and client, the fundamental truth is that the consultant and
client are taking different journeys. For the life of an engagement their
journeys run alongside each other. Afterwards, when they are driving in
different directions, the most a consultant can do is to try to have a last-
ing influence on how the client steers. There is only so much the
consultant can do to help a client. But a consultant should never finish
an engagement with an attitude of ‘oh well, it’s all the client’s problem
now’. The role of the consultant is to build, with the client, the environ-
ment such that any recommendations made by, or change implemented
with, the consultant will be sustained.
One implication of the limits to a consultant’s powers is that whilst con-
sultants may be able to guarantee making valuable recommendations
and providing great advice, consultants cannot guarantee benefits
because consultants cannot guarantee change. If there is no change,
there can be no benefits. Achieving change is up to the client. When a
consultancy does confirm benefits, it is only ever based on a long list of
conditions that the client must fulfil, which effectively means ceding
some management control to the consultant. Without this, the most a
consultant can do is to describe how in a certain situation, when specific
conditions are met, the client will get one positive outcome or another.
Yet although the consultant cannot guarantee successful change, change
is the test for all consultancy advice. If an engagement does not lead to
change then it has not added value. It is in considering the sustainability
of consulting results where the partnership between client and consult-
ant must be at its strongest. If, as a consultant, you do not influence the
client to make sustained change, you either have defined the wrong solu-
tion to the client’s problems, or you have not convinced the client to
accept your ideas.
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Consulting engagements158
Making the change sustainable
The ability to implement a change in any situation depends on a number
of factors including: capacity for change, capability to change, openness to
change, urgency for change (real and perceived), and the level of power
and support for the change. Many of these factors are outside a consultant’s
ability to influence. However, there are critical factors for change that con-
sultants can and should help with. The most important factors are:
� giving the client confidence in the consultant’s recommendations
� ensuring the client understands the case for change
� ensuring there is a coherent and complete set of prerequisites for the
change, or a plan to develop them
� providing a clear understanding of the next steps
� understanding and preparing for resistance to the change.
I am not saying do any of this as a matter of kind-heartedness, but of
professional comprehensiveness. These critical parts of your work should
be accounted for in your fees. With the exception of the first bullet
point, they are each potentially individually chargeable engagements.
How you fulfil them depends on the situation, and in the end depends
on what the client wants and is willing to pay for. If a client decides to
limit or exclude any of these items then of course they can, but you need
to ensure they understand the implications.
Let’s look at each one of these in turn briefly.
Confidence in the consultant’s recommendations
For a client to adopt recommendations made by a consultant, the client
must have confidence in them. Confidence has to be at its highest when
it comes to making change, as this is the point at which the client is risk-
ing most. Until that point the only thing that could go wrong was
wasting the investment in a consultant’s fees. It is one thing for a client
to risk some budget on a consultant that they do not have 100 per cent
confidence in, it is quite another to adopt the recommendations of that
consultant, especially if the recommendations will result either in highly
visible or fundamental changes.
How does a consultant provide confidence to the client? This is the
domain of human psychology and each client will have a unique set
of criteria which will determine if and how much a client trusts a
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1598 � Closing engagements and sustaining results 1598 � Closing engagements and substaining results
consultant and has confidence in their recommendations. Factors to
consider include:
� strength of personal relationship between consultant and client
� clear and understood process by which the recommendations were
derived: sometimes an established expert reputation and close
relationship can replace the need for an explicitly demonstrated
reliable consulting process
� recommendations based on reasonable and agreed assumptions
� recommendations based on a sufficient data sample, a variety of
sources of data and sufficiently detailed data
� consistency in communications from the consultant: as an
engagement progresses and a consultant discovers more, the
hypothesis made may be disproved and positions changed, but a
client is more likely to trust someone who presents a reasonably
consistent line of argument throughout an engagement
� logical coherence in how recommendations are presented.
In addition to these factors, how the engagement progressed and the
nature and style of interaction between the consultant or consulting
team and the client or client staff will have a significant impact on the
confidence in the consultant’s findings. For example, a consultant who is
perceived as arrogant and who does not listen is less likely to deliver
accepted recommendations than one who works well with the client staff
and listens attentively.
A final factor will also be how radical the consultant’s findings are. Radical
findings may be of more value to the client, but clients will
naturally find it more difficult to accept recom-
mendations which challenge well-established ways
of working and basic business principles and
assumptions. If your recommendations will be rad-
ical, it is worth starting to set the client’s
expectations early in the engagement. Surprising a
client with radical recommendations at the end of an engagement rarely
leads to a happy outcome, even if the findings are completely valid.
Case for change
The aim of consultancy is not to give ‘take it or leave it’ advice but to
convince a client to accept findings and using them to make change.
“a final factor willalso be how radical the
consultant’s findings
are”
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This is not achieved just at the point of handover, but comes about by
building commitment to the change throughout the life of the engage-
ment. Clients will not accept findings only on their intellectual integrity
or intuitive appeal alone, there needs to be a case for change. The client
needs to be able to answer the question: ‘If I accept these findings and
make the subsequent change, what will be the benefit to the organisation?’
A critical role for any consultant is to sell the recommendations to the
client. The way selling is done will depend on the client. Some clients
will respond to logical argument, some to an emotional appeal, others to
a documented business case with scaled metrics. In selling the story, the
consultant not only has to convince the client, but has to help to edu-
cate them. Once recommendations are adopted by the client, they may
need to build a further case to convince other people in the organisation
to accept the recommendations.
One informal test of whether a client has accepted the consultant’s rec-
ommendations is to listen to what the client is talking about. If the
client’s business conversations modify and start to incorporate the lan-
guage and ideas of the consultant then the client has probably adopted
the consultant’s recommendations and their thinking is becoming
aligned with the consultant’s. A further test is how the client prioritises
their time – if the client will not allocate any time to a consultant it
means that the engagement is not sufficiently important to the client. If
the client starts to allocate more and more time to the consultant, then
you have caught their attention and are influencing their priorities.
On ending an engagement it is important for the client, and any critical
stakeholders who are party to accepting consulting deliverables, to
understand the case for change. This is something you should try and
persuade a client to be personally involved in. Ideally, the client will not
delegate responsibility for understanding the case for change to a more
junior manager. If it is delegated, it will be the junior manager who has
to sell your recommendations to the real client. This is not an insur-
mountable problem, but, depending on the skills of the junior manager,
it may increase the risk that your recommendations are not accepted.
Coherent and complete change prerequisites
For a client to embark on change, they require all the prerequisites needed
to successfully implement the change, or at least a plan to develop them.
By prerequisites for change, I mean all the materials, ideas, plans, power,
Consulting engagements160
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1618 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
skills and resources required for change. There may be a significant range
of prerequisites.
Consultants often forget many of the softer requirements for change.
Change prerequisites usually consists of a combination of tangible physi-
cal deliverables (recommendations, process designs, plans, business cases,
etc.), and supporting intangible deliverables (knowledge, culture, enthu-
siasm, drive, etc.). Consultants tend to focus on the tangible, but usually
the intangible are more important to the long-term sustainability of the
change. A good consultant will at least advise the client manager on the
intangible deliverables they need to think about. Few consulting prob-
lems are purely technical; most have a human dimension. Implementing
change always has a human dimension, and it is the intangible deliver-
ables that most strongly influence this human dimension.
One of the crucial intangible factors in change is the style of manage-
ment adopted by the client. This may need to be adapted according to
the context and nature of the change. For example, there is a significant
difference between managing a change based on the implementation of a
new IT system or a process change, and managing a change trying to
alter the culture of an organisation.
The client must have the capability to perform the change. There is little
point producing recommendations a client does not or cannot under-
stand, or does not accept. The deliverables produced for a client must be
appropriate and usable by the client. Engagement deliverables need to be
matched to the level of skills and maturity of the client, or the client’s
skills must be improved as part of the engagement. If you are training or
transferring skills as part of the engagement, you can’t just transfer the
ability to do, you must also transfer the skills for ongoing management,
measurement and development of these skills.
The ability for the consultant to produce a complete set of prerequisites
starts with the proposal and the engagement plan. Critically, the engage-
ment needs to be scoped broadly enough. To produce a complete set of
deliverables as inputs to a change the consultant needs to consider root
causes of problems, not just symptoms. The consultant also needs to
have considered systems issues – that is, how one part of a client’s busi-
ness system affects another. Ideally, the engagement is scoped broadly
enough with sufficient time and resource to do all this. One way to do
this is to scope an engagement around an outcome, and not simply the
production of one or two documents. If the consultant is focused on an
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Consulting engagements162
outcome, and if a client is willing to pay to achieve this outcome, then
the engagement has to contain all the prerequisites for change.
Finally, the change needs to work when the consultant has gone, so sus-
taining it must not be dependent on the consultant, unless the client
specifically chooses to involve you on a longer-term basis.
Next-steps plan
There is one effective and often valid way a consultant can sidestep the
production of all the prerequisites to implement a set of recommenda-
tions, and that is in the production of a next-steps plan. The consultant
must fulfil the conditions of any proposal, contract or other agreement
with the client, but rarely does this entail producing every single pre-
requisite to implement change. Where the consultant is not responsible
for producing the prerequisites, they can be listed in a next-steps plan.
There are many advantages to developing a next-steps plan for both the
client and the consultant. Having some form of plan means the client
knows what to do next, and is not left at the end of the engagement with a
sense of ‘what do I do now?’ A next-steps plan is
useful for the consultant as it can help with selling
on, but it can also help to close an engagement
neatly. Earlier in this chapter I talked about the
consultant needing to tie up all the loose ends, but
avoiding constantly refining deliverables and
making an engagement unprofitable. One tool in
achieving this is the next-steps plan, as it is often possible to tidy up some
loose ends simply by listing them as actions to complete in a next-steps
plan. Of course, a client will only let a consultant go so far in doing this.
There is a balance to be found in terms of the detail in the next-steps
plan. At its simplest, the most all-encompassing next-steps plan can be
written simply as one action for any set of recommendations. That one
action is ‘develop a plan for implementing the recommendations’. At the
other extreme, a fully detailed plan for a significant change could be
months of work for several consultants. Usually, unless the next-steps
plan is an explicit deliverable agreed with the client which the client is
paying for, it is best to veer towards a simple list of the most important
following actions. This avoids the consultant engaging in excessive work,
but also ensures the client is not left without an understanding of what to
do next.
“a next-steps plancan help with selling
on, but it can also help
to close an engagement
neatly”
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1638 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
There is an art to producing a good next-steps plan. The consultant must
avoid unethical urges to simply list actions that ensure the client has to
buy more consulting services, but it is often reasonable to include some
actions that may result in reusing the consultant. The plan has to be
comprehensive and understandable, but unless the client has engaged
you explicitly to produce it, it cannot be lengthy or overly detailed. In
practice this is usually achievable, and it is possible to produce a next-
steps plan that is not overly onerous for the consultant, but which adds
significant value to the client on any engagement. If done well, the client
and the consultant’s commercial interests can be aligned.
Identify and help overcome resistance
Any recommendations which provide a challenge to a client, because
they come up with novel ideas or concepts, question current strategy or
ways or operating, or query basic business principles or assumptions, are
almost always going to face some resistance. Resistance comes in many
forms. At one level it is a positive sign. Great consulting is challenging,
and if there is no resistance then there is probably not enough challenge.
But resistance must be managed because it will get in the way of accept-
ing findings and implementing advice. It also must be listened to as
sometimes it derives from sensible roots.
To help clients optimally, consultants must think in terms of two types of
resistance. There will be resistance at the point at which consultants give
their findings, but also there may be resistance later on when the client
comes to implementing those same findings with or without the consult-
ant. Even if consultants are not involved in the implementation, they
can advise the client about possible resistance. A consultant should try to
help the client understand why resistance is important, identify what
resistance exists, learn from the resistance (as some may be well
founded), and finally help the client to deal with it.
If a consultant’s recommendations are to result in real change there will
be resistance. Change cannot be undertaken without some shift in the
power balance in an organisation. This may be a significant loss of power
for some individuals, or may be modest and sometimes only perceived by
some people (e.g. if job titles are realigned there may be no power shift,
but people can perceive it negatively). The client must accept this and be
willing to deal with the resistance or else the change will not occur. A
client who wants to upset no one in an organisation when implementing
change will never do anything significant.
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Consulting engagements164
Change is not done to people, it is participated in and either accepted or
rejected. Rarely does it fail because the wrong order was given, but
because people have chosen to ignore the orders. Staff will accept change
if they are engaged and want to or need to accept it. To make this choice,
people have to feel comfortable making the change work, and that
includes everyone, not just the senior managers. So, one of the building
blocks of avoiding resistance is spending time explaining what a change
is to people, why it is being pursued and how it will work. Contrary to
popular wisdom, people are usually willing to change. People change all
the time, sometimes in imperceptible ways, but over time it adds up.
What people mostly resist is being forced to change.
Change means doing something differently. Change is not hard because
designing a new way is hard, but because it entails unlearning and giving
up existing ways. It is often easy to design a better process, organisation
structure, IT system, strategy, or operational metrics. What is far harder is
to make them work. Giving up a habit is far harder than making a new
one. This is especially true when the change may be perceived to be asso-
ciated with a loss of face. Implicit in adopting any
new ways of work is a criticism that the old ways
must have been wrong if they are being replaced.
This feeling of criticism can generate a powerful
emotional resistance to change. If consultants are
involved in change they must manage this process. Partially this must be
by creating an incentive for the client staff to change and creating dis-
comfort with the existing status quo. The more urgent and powerful the
feeling of discomfort is, the easier it will be to overcome the status quo.
Resistance does not only occur because of actual or perceived power
shifts. Acceptance or rejection of a consultant or a consultant’s findings
is also related to perceived competence, and trust and relationship. This
is one of the reasons for stressing the need for a client to have confidence
in a consultant’s recommendations. The more a consultant is trusted, the
easier it is for a client to accept even the most difficult of recommenda-
tions. The less a consultant is trusted, the more likely even the best of
recommendations will be ignored.
If there is resistance to your work, try to find the underlying reason.
Resistance is better dealt with by removing the underlying cause than by
treating the symptoms. If you just fight it or ignore it, resistance can get
worse. Always try to determine what is causing it, and, based on this,
determine what you will do about it. Identify it, listen to it, be willing to
“giving up a habitis far harder than
making a new one”
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change your views if you find the resistance is based on sensible think-
ing, and then deal with what resistance remains.
It is important to identify what resistance really is, as opposed to what just
feels like resistance. Do not confuse resistance with a lack of understanding
and vice versa. Either may show as the other. Similarly, do not confuse
rejecting your work because it is flawed with real resistance, or vice versa. If
you mistake resistance for flaws, you will rework and expend effort unnec-
essarily because you will not do anything about the resistance. If you
mistake flaws for resistance, you will do a poor quality job.
Try to acknowledge alternative views, and give the important stakeholders a
forum to discuss their view with you. For the people who resist you, spend
time bringing them on board, go round them and let them adopt change at
their own pace, reduce their ability to affect the change, or remove them (a
valid choice – but not the consultant’s). The options depend on the pace of
change required and their individual criticality to the organisation. It also
depends on the amount of consultant time a client wants to pay for. Dealing
properly with resistance can conflict with consulting timelines as it is
resource-intensive and can be prolonged. However, if a client really wants to
make substantial change, the resistance must be handled.
Try to help with emotional responses, listen and explore logical
responses, but don’t get lost in them. If your recommendations affect
many people, you cannot talk to each and every individual, and some-
times resistance must be conquered with robust and directive client
management. Such directive management makes people choose to
change simply because the penalties of not changing are too great.
However, it does not always work.
One critical place to identify and resolve any resistance is with your real
client. It can be surprising, but one of the hardest sources of resistance
may be the person who engages you and is paying your consulting fees.
The first question to analyse is: ‘Does the client really have the desire for
this change to be sustained and accept the associated level of pain?’
Often clients say they want, for example, better customer service,
whereas what they really want is an irritating problem to disappear pain-
lessly. The client may not be able to improve customer service without
some pain, and if they will not accept the pain then the change will
never happen. Also you must consider your client’s own personality and
management style. The underlying issues that caused a client to require
your help in the first place may get in the way of accepting or imple-
menting your advice. For example, an indecisive client will respond
1658 � Closing engagements and sustaining results
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indecisively and a disorganised client will be disorganised in implement-
ing. Although it requires great sensitivity, helping a client to understand
their own weaknesses or styles, and how they affect their ability to
progress with a change, is huge added value.
Summary
If you have read the book in chapter order you have now completed the
second section of the book made up of Chapters 5 to 8. In these chapters I
have explained the steps in the consulting engagement process. Consultants’
work revolves around the steps of winning, delivering and closing
engagements. An ability to perform the tasks in Chapters 5 to 8 is essential
to working as a consultant. Perform them well and you are likely to be a
successful consultant. However, there is more to consulting than the
engagement process, and the remaining chapters in this book describe some
of the more advance concepts in consulting.
The main points from this chapter are summarised in Figure 8.2.
Consulting engagements166
Close
Close
Post-engagement
(client operations/next steps)
� Hand over
deliverables
� Agree next steps
� Finalise
close-down
activites
� Internal
consulting
business
management
actions
� Review and
learning
Prepare client for post engagement by:
� giving the client confidence in the
consultant’s recommendations
� ensuring the client understands the
case for change
� ensuring there is a coherent and
complete set of prerequisites for the
change, or a plan to develop them
� providing a clear understanding of
the next steps
� understanding and preparing for
resistance to the change
Figure 8.2 Closing engagements and sustaining results
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High-performance
consulting
part
three
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Developing long-term client relationships
In Chapter 4 I introduced the consultants’ engagement process. Thisprocess focuses on an individual engagement – that is, a single con-sulting project with a start and an end. There is another way to look
at consulting, and that is from the viewpoint of the relationships
between consultants and their clients. Engagements come and go,
whereas a relationship can continue for the whole of a consultant’s
career. Relationships are essential to client-centric consulting, as without
a relationship you will not understand the client’s issues and needs.
Many people entering the consulting profession are surprised about quite
how much consultants talk about and apparently value relationships. Yet
consultants rarely discuss why relationships are valuable to them, which
relationships should be developed and how relationships should be
developed. It is taken for granted that this is understood. This chapter
provides an introduction to this critical part of the consultants’ world.
Having a wide set of relationships is essential to your success as a consult-
ant. Consulting is reliant on relationships. It is great to develop powerful
insights, tools and methods, as these encapsulate your expertise, but
without relationships you will never be accepted or engaged with as a
consultant. Occasionally, a major consultancy will look to recruit a spe-
cialist or a guru in some field or another who can raise the consultancy’s
capabilities in that specific field, but consultancies only need a small
pool of gurus. What consultancies really value, and what they have a
much bigger appetite for, are people with broad networks of productive
and reliable business relationships.
chapter
9
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The value of relationships to consultants
Relationships are the fuel that nourishes a consulting business.
Experienced consultants understand the value of relationships, and at
times can seem obsessive about them. This fervent attention is not
overkill, and in this section I describe the value of strong personal con-
nections in order to encourage all consultants to invest time in
developing a broad and productive network of relationships.
In the boom times, relationships assist consultants and consultancies to
maximise their revenues. In the difficult periods, relationships are central
to keeping consultants busy. Relationships help in identifying opportuni-
ties, selling engagements, maximising fees,
reducing the cost of sales, as well as the efficient
management of and reducing the risk from live
engagements. If there is a magic potion that
makes consulting work, it is relationships. I advise
most new consultants to worry more about their
relationships than their service lines. Service lines can be enhanced over
time, relationships are essential to getting going as a consultant.
The starting point for all consulting engagements is the identification of
possible consulting opportunities. As discussed in Chapter 2, the oppor-
tunity derives from an unfulfilled customer need. To know that a
customer has an unfulfilled need usually requires you to be in dialogue
with a customer, and you are much more likely to be in dialogue with a
customer you have a relationship with. You avoid all the problems of
cold selling when you have a positive relationship with a client, as you
can ring them up anytime and simply ask how things are and if there is
anything to discuss. There are different ways of phrasing these questions
depending on the nature and depth of the relationship, but however you
ask, one of the primary advantages of existing relationships is the ability
to develop and maintain awareness of client opportunities. Better still,
when you have really good relationships, some clients will actively come
and find you to discuss potential engagements.
Consulting opportunities do not often arise as an immediate urgent
request. It does happen, but in my experience only a small minority of
engagements start this way. Few clients wake up in the morning with a
sudden desperate need for a consultant. Opportunities develop over time.
Relationships enable you to maintain an ongoing dialogue with clients,
so you can be involved as opportunities unfold and consolidate from
vague ideas into clear concepts.
High-performance consulting170
“if there is a magicpotion that makes
consulting work, it is
relationships”
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You can find work without established relationships, but it is much
harder. It is possible to predict and recognise some needs by general
observation or knowledge of a market. For instance, a financial compli-
ance consultant will know that banks have new compliance needs every
time there are changes in the financial regulations. But even so, a general
understanding of a need is not the same as knowing if an individual cus-
tomer has a specific requirement for assistance, and it still leaves the
challenge of making a cold call to a client.
Positive relationships significantly ease selling. When you have a strong
relationship you are more likely to understand a client better. Even in
what are meant to be open competitive situations, such as tenders, the
consulting organisation with a better client relationship has a significant
advantage over a company with no relationship. The established consult-
ant has access to hints and peripheral pieces of information, which when
combined enable a proposal to be better targeted at client needs. When
an established consultancy loses a tender to a competitor without an
existing relationship, it is usually because the established consultancy has
either previously delivered a suboptimal engagement or, more often, has
become complacent.
Relationships do not ease sales just because a client is more likely to buy
from and support someone they like, but also because the client wants to
minimise risk. Consultancy is inherently ambiguous and subject to elab-
oration as an engagement progresses. Until the end of the engagement, a
client is not precisely sure of what they will get and how good it will be.
This is a situation in which trust is critically important. It is far more
comfortable for a client to agree to purchase imprecisely specified service
from someone they know rather than from a stranger.
Relationships can assist in approaching a client with a cold sale, which
the client has not directly sought, or may not initially even realise they
want. Cold selling in consultancy is problematic, and the usual response
to an attempt to cold sell consultancy is complete client rejection, or pos-
sibly no response at all! If you have a good relationship, a client will at
least listen to alternative consulting services they may not have previ-
ously thought about. In other words, a long-term relationship can give
you the ability to sell the services you have, rather than what a client ini-
tially may be considering. This could include creating demand for
innovative service lines. However, care is needed as this risks veering
away from client-centric consulting and should only be pursued if it is
appropriate for the client.
1719 � Developing long-term client relationships
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A client is significantly more likely to be willing to take a risk with a con-
sultant with whom they have a good relationship, based on previous
positive consulting interactions. In these situations, the client is more
likely to be willing to try out new service lines which have no track
record, and is more likely to be open to radical advice. Such openness
does not only affect the ability to sell to a client, but will affect the whole
engagement process.
Greater familiarity between a client and a consultant can enable the
more rapid delivery of value-adding advice, and can ease change and
implementation of consulting recommendations. A consultant with an
established relationship in a client organisation will find it easier to gain
consensus and acceptance of their findings. The consultant is more likely
to have open access to information and data – especially less tangible
information like feelings and emotions, which may be withheld from
someone with a lesser relationship. The consultant will find it easier to
engage with the client and gain access to resources, and the client will
feel more relaxed in arranging meetings with more senior managers and
executives. Generally, the consultant is more likely to be listened to and
to be trusted.
Strong relationships are also beneficial for the consultant’s risk reduction.
The consultant is more likely to have better information with which to
avoid problems. Also a client is less likely to become annoyed if an
engagement does not meet their expectations and more likely to resolve
issues by open dialogue with the consultant.
Having a set of deep relationships is a valuable asset for a consultant.
Without any relationships a consultant will struggle to win or deliver any
consulting engagements. However, I want to end
this section by mentioning a few relationship traps
to avoid. The first risk is that if relationships are
very strong and long lasting, there is a hazard that
consultants can take a client for granted, become
complacent and even lazy. We all make assump-
tions about people with whom we have strong relationships and this can
lead us to lose our client-centric viewpoint and simply assume the client
will continue to deliver opportunities to us. New consultancies often are
brought into a client, when the client becomes fed up with a deteriorating
level of service from an existing consultant. A common situation is when
a consultant who has regularly worked with a client, rather than seeking
to add value, starts to milk the client for as much as possible.
High-performance consulting172
“there is a hazardthat consultants can
take a client for
granted”
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1739 � Developing long-term client relationships
Additionally, it can be increasingly hard to take a truly independent and
impartial line of advice with a client with whom you have a very strong
relationship. Becoming too close to a client can start to bias advice in
favour of the individual client manager, rather than for the benefit of the
whole client organisation.
A consultant who develops a very strong relationship with a client can
find that they are working with the client for an extended period of time.
This tendency needs to be avoided. Working only with one client tends to
blunt your consulting edge, but also it is a commercial risk for your con-
sulting business. All clients eventually terminate consultants, and if you
have only worked with one client for years and years your ability to find
other work and the freshness and usefulness of your network of relation-
ships outside this client is limited. As a consultant you do not need to, or
probably want to, work with every possible client, but you need more
than one. A handful of clients or more, as opposed to a single client, will
keep your skills more current and reduce your commercial risk.
Developing networks
The general principle that good relationships, if appropriately used, are
of enormous value to a consultant is easy to accept. Look at any of the
major consultancy companies and the best paid and most senior staff are
often the ones with the most productive relationships. However, the gen-
eral idea is harder to put in practice than it may initially appear. It is one
thing to want a great network, it is quite another to have a set of truly
productive relationships. It is not enough to know people, you must con-
vert a personal connection into useful information and opportunities.
A consultant should seek a wide network of relationships. The ideal rela-
tionship is strong enough for a client to trust you and share information
and problems openly with you, but even relatively shallow associations
can be helpful. I have been involved in many pieces of work that have
started with a fairly tenuous link with the client: it was sufficient for the
client to know about me and to start a conversation with me about
whether I could help them. Irrespective of how deep the relationship is,
it must be made to work. A productive relationship is not a passive con-
nection between people – it is an active communications channel.
Relationships form networks, and generally the larger the network the
better – that is assuming the relationships are positive! The advantage
of a large network is that you do not only have access to your own
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relationships, but many people will allow you to access their relation-
ships as well. There are online tools, social networking sites and so on,
which allow you to see how big your network is and to expand it
actively. However, whilst such online tools can be useful in creating
links, having a link with someone you have never communicated with
may be a potential relationship, but it is not yet a relationship.
A network of relationships will develop automatically as you go through
your working life. The successful consultant does not just let relation-
ships occur, but actively seeks and manages relationships. The consultant
should identify people who could be valuable to have relationships with
and targets them. Sometimes this requires the deliberate engineering of
situations in which you can introduce yourself and talk to potential
clients, which can seem initially awkward, but most professional people
accept that everyone needs to build a network. The aim of every conver-
sation with someone in your network should be to ensure the door is
open to future conversations.
Having started a relationship the consultant manages and maintains it.
Managing a network can be as simple as maintaining a list of people you
have relationships with and periodically contacting them. There are
some old friends who you may not speak to for 20 years, but when you
meet them you will carry on as if there was no break. But your network
of professional relationships is not like this. It needs active engagement
with people for connections to be kept fresh. Stale relationships with
individuals you have had no interaction with for many years are much
less powerful. It is easy to forget to keep in touch with some people you
should have maintained a relationship with and regret it.
Potential clients are an important aspect of any network of relationships,
but you should not just focus on clients and potential clients. Firstly,
there are other consultants. Of course, at one level other consultants are
competitors, but for every time I have lost a piece of work to another
consultant in my personal network I have probably won several.
Consultants need other consultants and can help each other out all the
time. As well as sharing opportunities, consultants are a great source of
information and advice. Secondly, there are people who may never be
clients, but have an influence on clients. There are managers and staff
who do not control consulting budgets, but are respected by and influen-
tial with clients. The classic person who is underestimated, but hugely
valuable, is a senior manager’s PA or secretary. The PA never buys consul-
tancy, but whether or not you get a meeting with a manager, and
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1759 � Developing long-term client relationships 1759 � Developing long-term client relationships
whether it is soon or in the distant future, is often at the discretion of a
PA. Treat them with the respect they deserve. Thirdly, there may be
people who can be sources of useful information. For example, if you
consult in a specific sector it is helpful to know people you can discuss
trends and issues with in the sector. They may never directly gain you
any work, but your up-to-date pertinent knowledge will be an asset.
Although you have to target your efforts on to the most valuable parts of
your network, as no one can meaningfully keep in touch with everyone,
essentially all contacts are good contacts.
However, do not confuse a large contacts list of
people with whom you have a tenuous link with a
set of powerful relationships. Having someone’s
business card can be useful, but it is not the same
as being able to call someone whenever you want to discuss something
or to propose engagements. My belief is that a relatively compact set of
strong relationships is more valuable to a consultant than hundreds of
vague contacts.
Consulting companies often value the large network of relationships
they have. However, relationships are not owned or controlled by the
company directly, but by individuals in the company. No amount of con-
tact databases, business management or customer relationship
management systems is going to change the fact that relationships are
owned by individual consultants. If those consultants leave, at least part
of the relationship leaves as well.
Brand specialists will talk about a consumer’s relationship with a brand,
and it is possible to think in terms of a client’s relationship with a con-
sulting brand. However, I do not think clients have deep relationships
with professional brands such as consultancies – unless the client is a
former employee of the consultancy. Clients have an experience of a con-
sultancy, which if positive will influence them to buy again, but this is
different from a relationship between individuals. As there are many con-
sultancy companies with strong brands, relying on the brand to sell is
risky. A competing consultant with a strong personal relationship is
always going to win over a competitor relying on a relationship purely
with a brand.
A strong relationship can give you access to all sorts of useful informa-
tion and opportunities, but do not take relationships for granted. No one
has exclusive ownership of a relationship. Some people have better rela-
tionships than others at a particular point in time, but that is only true
“essentially allcontacts are good
contacts”
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High-performance consulting176
for that moment. Relationships are not static and they change with expe-
rience, all the time.
Clients usually have multiple relationships with different people in a
consultancy. This should be encouraged, as different types and styles of
relationship suit different situations. A client may enjoy the interaction
with the business development or sales manager, but the client usually
knows when it comes to added value they need to be talking to the
expert and not the salesperson. The salesperson is an important door-
keeper and a route to the right experts at the right time. If a consultancy
allows an individual manager to ‘own’ a relationship completely, then if
that manager leaves the firm, the relationship goes with them.
Developing long-term relationships
How do you develop productive relationships? Just being known about is
better than being anonymous, but it is not the same as having a relation-
ship. Every time you interact with someone, you modify your
relationship. Productive relationships are not given away and nor are
they a gift, they are something you develop and earn. Relationships are
created by your behaviour and the perceptions of this behaviour of the
person you are interacting with. A relationship builds from the way you
communicate and your client’s experience of interacting with you. Let’s
consider the way you should interact with a potential client you are
meeting for the first time, and then how this should be managed in the
longer term.
The starting point for a relationship is the first impression. First impres-
sion count and the very initial interaction will colour your relationship
with clients. You can overcome a poor first impression, but it is hard work.
It is much easier to start with a great first impression. This first impression
will develop before you have even opened your mouth, and will be influ-
enced by factors like how you enter the room and how you look. If your
first interaction is not face-to-face, you will make an impression by how
you sound on the phone or how your email or letter looks. If you are
meeting a potential new client for the first time, it is worth considering
what first impression you want to give and how you will give it.
Relationships are affected significantly by how you communicate.
Communication is a two-way process, and as important as what you say
is how you are perceived by the other party. You are much more likely to
develop a positive relationship with someone you show attention to and
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listen to, and someone to whom you give the impression of warmth,
friendliness and positivity. Do not be in a rush to impress new clients
with what you know, but help them to warm to you by giving them
attention and listening to what they say. You need both to care about
what they say, but also to appear as if you care. Showing respect and
that you value the other person’s words are essential for good relation-
ship building.
You want to appear sincere and genuine to a potential client. You are trying
to create a level of trust. One approach that can help to do this is what com-
munication specialists call self-disclosure. Self-disclosure is telling the other
party something about yourself of a personal nature. It does not have to be
deep or secret, but by sharing aspects of our lives we grow relationships.
There are many social and cultural norms to be adhered to, but sharing and
showing a little vulnerability helps people to warm to each other. Watch a
great salesperson and often they exhibit self-disclosure. An example may be
saying something like, ‘Oh well, I am worried about my children’s exam
results.’ Don’t go too far, as revealing too much inappropriate personal
information is unsettling and off-putting.
You must adapt to the situation and judge what is appropriate to which
occasion. If a client has asked you in for a general conversation for the
first time, a little social chit chat is helpful to break down any barriers. If
a client has an urgent pressing issue and is under significant pressure,
then avoid the chit chat and move straight into listening to their busi-
ness problems.
Once you have met a client, communication still plays a critical role in
developing relationships. As a relationship deepens you should find that
your conversations are becoming more varied and covering a wider range
of topics, including personal topics. Generally if your conversations are
not becoming more varied, you are probably not developing a good rela-
tionship. Similarly, the frequency of interaction should increase. This
seems obvious when considering a simple example. You probably have a
weaker relationship with someone you discuss printer toner cartridges
with every six months, than with someone you discuss all your sta-
tionery requirements with every month but with whom you also chat
about family, sport and the weather. As a relationship develops, so should
the content and frequency of your conversations.
There are social rules we all adhere to in having any form of interaction.
These are culturally specific and will vary depending on the depth and
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High-performance consulting178
length of your association. Relationships are
greatly affected by the way the parties understand
and share the same conventions and follow the
rules. If, as a consultant, you are going to work in
different cultures, one valuable skill is observing
and adopting the local rules of interaction.
Another factor that will influence your relationships with clients over
time is the consistency of your communications. There must be a degree
of stability in the way you communicate and the content of your com-
munications. Communications can change over time, but the change
needs to be gradual. There must also be consistency between what you
say and what you do. People are expert at noticing differences between
our pronouncements and our actions. As well as consistency, a client
needs to feel you have some commitment to a relationship and that what
you say will be backed up by experience. Inconsistency and a perceived
lack of commitment to your words will result in clients feeling you are
inauthentic and untrustworthy. Sincerity and trustworthiness are impor-
tant for consultants.
So far, I have focused on communication aspects of a relationship, and these
are crucial to developing and maintaining relationships. To some extent rela-
tionships are about communication, but they are also about experience.
Your relationships will be influenced significantly by your client’s experience
of working with you and their expectations of future engagements. If you
consistently deliver great work and are enjoyable to work with, your rela-
tionship will tend to deepen. You must seek to inspire confidence and build
trust in your work. This can be achieved by consistency, appropriate levels of
openness and your responsiveness to your client needs.
One challenge with relationships is that it is difficult to maintain the
same standards all the time. Everyone sometimes lets their quality level
deteriorate a little, or lets their guard down and says something that
should not have been said. You must minimise these situations. It is an
unfortunate aspect of human beings that we are more intolerant of a few
mistakes than ready to give credit for positive interactions. It is extremely
easy to make one minor mistake, such as an inappropriate comment in a
staff canteen that is overheard by a client or member of client staff. Such
mistakes can cause tremendous collateral damage. Relationships are not
constant – ideally they get better, but they can get worse!
Do not despair if something goes wrong and damages your relationship,
because relationships are malleable. If you do make a mistake and it will
“one valuable skill isobserving and
adopting the local rules
of interaction”
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be found out, then you must be the first person to admit it. It is a funny
thing, but being open about mistakes quickly can actually improve rela-
tionships. No one is perfect, and everyone knows this. Admitting to
mistakes can be a painful process, but if it is done well it can, in the
longer run, improve the situation. Most people respond well to a full
apology and open admission of a mistake, as long as it is not repeated.
Your aim should be to develop a relationship which increases your credibil-
ity and trust with the client over time. Every time you do something that
enhances these, you are strengthening your relationship. Every time you
do something that reduces these, you are weakening your relationship.
Selecting the clients to have relationships with
The fundamental reason why long-term relationships are possible is
because as a consultant you are providing what the client perceives as a
valuable service. But consulting is not a service that can be provided
without the involvement of the client – it is a highly interactive service.
Therefore to have a long-term relationship not only requires activity
from your side, but also that the client behaves in an appropriate fashion
and actively engages with you. You should seek out clients who are will-
ing to develop a relationship with you, and avoid those who will not.
There are many characteristics of a good client. Obviously a good client
must be willing and able to buy your service. They also have to need your
services. There is little point investing effort in developing a deep relation-
ship with someone who will never have any need for your services.
Similarly, there are practical reasons which make some clients better than
others. This includes providing the necessary resources, giving access to
the right data, and making any decisions quickly and on time. Good
clients are responsive to invoices and pay them within agreed payment
schedules. Good clients also make appropriate demands upon consultants.
Such demands can be high, given the level of consulting fees and the
often lofty promises made by consultants, but in the end they need to be
realistic and achievable. Good clients limit changes or additions to the
engagement. Consulting engagements are often unclear at the start, and it
is inherent that as the engagement progresses and understanding
increases then areas where misunderstanding existed are found, or new
issues arise. The client does need to be reasonable about how much modi-
fication can be absorbed in an existing engagement’s scope. A good client
organisation has a degree of consensus about your work, and you do not
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High-performance consulting180
find yourself constantly given contradictory instructions by different
members of client staff. These factors are looked at again in Chapter 12.
Beyond these practical characteristics, good clients are people you can
have productive relationships with. It is useful to remember that a rela-
tionship is a two-way association. Although as a consultant you are the
person selling the service, and therefore you are
the person who needs the relationship more,
clients need and want relationships with people
who can assist them productively and add value
to them. By developing a relationship with a
client, and giving a client access to your network,
you are not only increasing your opportunity of future revenue streams –
you are also adding value to the client.
In your work as a consultant there will be times when you have to work
with clients you do not develop a long-term bond with. But over your
career the most useful clients will typically be the ones who you develop
a strong relationship with. Such clients do not develop a relationship
because you choose to develop one with them, but because they simulta-
neously choose to develop a relationship with you. Seek out a variety of
relationships and do not expect every productive interaction to lead to
you gaining a new friend. Some doors are open, some can be opened,
and some stay closed. Choose the clients who open their door and allow
you to develop a productive relationship with them.
Summary
Productive relationships are central to success as a consultant. They help in
finding, winning and delivering work, and without such a network of
relationships you will struggle as a consultant.
� You should seek out the relationships you want, and once achieved
actively manage them.
� The client relationships you develop are a result of how you communicate
with a client, and what the client’s experiences and expectations of
working with you are.
� Seek out clients who are willing to develop a relationship with you, and
avoid those who will not.
“it is useful toremember that a
relationship is a two-
way association”
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The ethical dimension
Until comparatively recently, few people regularly used the phrasebusiness ethics and few worried about managing a business ethi-cally. This is not to deny that individuals in business had ethics or
that some commercial enterprises have a long history of shaping their
work based on clear moral stances. But this was usually about individual
views and not a universally shared acceptance of the need for ethical busi-
ness practices. This has changed. Study for any MBA, and sooner or later
you will find yourself considering business ethics. In any modern com-
pany today it is ethics as well as commercialism that influences decisions
and actions. The management consulting industry is no exception.
Of course, there has always been a foundation of rules defined in the law.
Further rules exist in commercial regulations, which have become gener-
ally more specific and onerous over time. Remaining compliant with the
law can be considered as an ethical issue, but this is not the concern of
this chapter. With the number of consultants there are in the world, no
doubt some are charlatans who take a relaxed attitude to adhering to leg-
islation, but I think these are a small minority. Legal and regulatory
compliance are not trivial issues, but I am going to assume that if you
know the law you want to remain compliant with it. But is that suffi-
cient? The answer is easy and simple: no. Ethics goes beyond legal issues.
It is not difficult to imagine many scenarios which are legal, but which
most people agree are unethical.
Thinking about ethics opens many complex debates – for instance,
absolute moral principles versus relative and culturally specific values.
chapter
10
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There are deeply conflicting views on whether an action is ethically
sound simply because it adheres to some fundamental principle; or if
actions should be judged on their intentions or on their consequences,
irrespective of underlying moral principles. No matter how clear you feel
you are on ethical principles (e.g. ‘stealing is always wrong’), you can
very soon find yourself challenged in valid ways (e.g. ‘Ah, but what about
the pen you are writing with – didn’t you take that from the office sta-
tionery cupboard? Isn’t that stealing?’). These are deep waters and areas
where there is definitely no universal consensus. Other than acknowledg-
ing the complexity of ethical considerations, it is significantly outside
the scope of a book like this to even discuss issues of this complexity. My
aims are much more modest. I want to raise the issue of ethics so that it
is a conscious part of your consulting perspective.
Ethics can be trivialised or on the contrary made overly complex. In this
chapter I will show that ethics should not be a trivial concern for the
consultant, but neither should ethics be an intensely complex piece of
analysis. Commonsense, pragmatism and reasoned judgement lie at the
heart of most good ethical decisions. I have split this chapter into three
sections reflecting these introductory thoughts:
� Ethical basics: What are the basic guidelines we should try to adhere
to as consultants?
� Application of ethics: Having ethical concepts is one thing, applying
them is another. This section considers two specific aspects of
consulting – the privileged position of the consultant, and the
relationship between the consultant and client.
� Ethics and dilemmas in consulting: If all we needed to do was list
some ethical rules and adhere to them, life might be comparatively
simple. The real challenge is when different ethical guidelines or
other objectives conflict, and deciding how to deal with this.
Irrespective of what you take from this chapter and how much considera-
tion you choose to give to ethical issues, there is a simple practical stance
to take. You always have a choice as to what work you do and how you
interact with a client. Part of this is an ethical choice. Engagements can
usually be shaped in different ways and ethics taken into account during
this shaping. In the rare case that the engagement cannot be shaped
appropriately, never forget that you can always say no to any engage-
ment you feel ethically compromised on.
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18310 � The ethical dimension
Ethical basics
A simple way to think of ethics is to look at the concepts which enable
you to decide how to do good and, as important, how to avoid doing
harm. Considering the consultancy context, what does this mean in
practice? I have chosen seven examples which reflect a simple set of ethi-
cal guidelines or can be seen as areas of temptation for consultants:
1 Ensuring fair fees for the engagement.
2 Performing only appropriate engagements relative to skills and
experience.
3 Only performing work that the client needs and is in the client’s
interest.
4 Avoiding building a dependency of the client upon the consultant.
5 Respecting client information.
6 Using fair contracts.
7 Avoiding conflicts of interest arising from simultaneous commercial
involvement in a consulting and client business.
Let’s explore each one of these in a little more detail.
Fair fees
The fees a consultant charges are part of a commercial relationship
between the client and consultant. We should not confuse what is com-
mercially reasonable with ethical fairness. If you have a particularly rare
and valuable skill that you have developed over
years of consulting, it is perfectly reasonable for
you to charge a fee rate in line with what the
market will bear. If you are lucky enough for this
to be 10 times what your less skilful competitors
can charge, this is purely a commercial issue.
Fairness is concerned with how the fees are presented and handled. The
client should have an understanding of what the fee rates will be at the
start of the engagement, what any extras that will be charged for are, and
what the total level of fees for the engagement are likely to be. If the
engagement changes, then there is time for debate on the fees again. If
the client wants to enter an uncapped time and materials engagement,
then again there is nothing unethical in charging the client for every
second you have worked, as long as the client appreciates what they are
“fairness isconcerned with how
the fees are presented
and handled”
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committing to. Similarly, you should not be charging clients for any time
on an engagement where you are developing your company’s intellectual
property and not directly adding value to the client.
One particular issue associated with fees is the charging for time working
in a client office or on work related to a client engagement, when the
consultant is not actually progressing the engagement but is engaged in
business development. Your sales activities should be at your cost, not
charged as hours to the client. Of course, you will recoup this one way or
another from the client, otherwise you would not stay in business, but
that should be recouped from the margin you make on your legitimate
chargeable hours.
An area that often causes tension between clients and consultants is the
recharge of expenses. Part of this comes down to the apparently lavish
lifestyle of some consultants. This is not an ethical issue. What your
expenses policy is remains an issue for you and your company. A client
has the option when signing up to your services to negotiate what are
acceptable levels of expenses to them. You may damage your relationship
with your client by having an overly lavish expenses policy, but that is
your choice. However, where it becomes an ethical issue is when
expenses recharged to a client were not actually accrued related to the
engagement. Typical examples are:
� Charging all expenses for travel and accommodation to a certain
geographic region to one client who is currently being billed for a live
engagement, when one of the reasons for travel was to visit other
clients for sales meetings, without the opportunity to recharge travel
costs to the latter group.
� Inviting clients out for drinks or dinner, and then recharging them
for the privilege.
Performing appropriate work
The second ethical issue involves performing only appropriate work. But
what is appropriate work? All consulting engagements require competen-
cies and knowledge. These include any combination of functional, sector,
geographic, and service line skills and experience. Loosely defined,
appropriate work is engagements that you have the correct skills and
experience for. What skills are appropriate depends significantly on the
role you are taking on in an engagement. If you are selling yourself as an
expert then it is not unreasonable for the client to expect you to have
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in-depth expertise in a specific area or business. On the other hand, if
you are putting yourself forward as a process consultant or facilitator,
then whilst you must have process consulting and facilitation skills, spe-
cific functional or industry knowledge is less relevant.
It is relatively easy to convince some clients that you have skills which
you do not, and unfortunately there are many consultants who seem to
just about get away with this. I call this type of consultants chancers.
They will win the work and take the chance that they will get away with
it, irrespective of real competence. These chancers may not sell on very
often, but survive on the basis that the pool of clients with problems is
very big and they may never need to work with the same people twice.
Such chancers are more common in certain parts of the world, where
clients have less experience of working with consultants.
What actually is an appropriate level of skill or experience is clearly a
judgement. No engagement is a copy of a previous one. Even if it could
be, the client situation will vary in some ways, so there are elements of
unpredictability, exploration and learning on each engagement. There
will be clear-cut cases when you are confident your skills are sufficient
and there will be situations which you walk away from because you are
not the right person. But there are many ambiguous situations when it is
not certain, and in my experience this constitutes a large proportion of
engagements. There is a fine difference between a legitimate stretch in
your skills and a leap into the unknown. If you are even the slightest bit
unsure, the most ethical position is to explain to your client what you do
and do not have experience of, and how confident you are of being able
to stretch this to meet the situation. Then leave the choice to the client.
Clients will usually respond positively to consultants who are open
enough to admit their limitations as well as their expertise. Such open-
ness can be the basis of a long-term trusting relationship.
A related but slightly different issue is using the client as an experimental
testing ground for a new service line, or using the client engagement as
service line development. Consultancies do need to develop service lines,
and client experience forms the base of such service line development.
This is reasonable. It is even reasonable to develop the service line as part
of the work, if this is agreed with the client. It becomes unethical when:
� As part of the engagement’s sale it was claimed that there was a
service line when it does not exist, and it is developed ‘on the hoof’
while on the engagement: in this situation, the client is subject to risk
and being charged for the service line development.
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High-performance consulting186
� You claim that a service line provides proven value, when in fact if it
is a new service line and so effectively an experimental product whose
value has no evidential base.
� You claim you have a service line, when in reality you have minimal
understanding of a topic but have read an article or two and sound
convincing to the client.
An appropriate service is also one in which the consultant has access to
sufficient data and information to draw the right conclusions from. If
you do not have or cannot find the skills to analyse the situation, then
you are not offering an appropriate service. Without the right data, no
matter what skills or experience you have, the results of your engage-
ment are unlikely to be correct.
Consulting services are appropriate only if they are based on an under-
standing of the specific, unique situation of the client. Of course a
consultant brings experience from other situations, but simply giving
exactly the same advice or the same plan in every
situation is not appropriate. Value-adding consult-
ing is always bespoke. Providing a ‘cookie cutter’
approach is not adding value. There is nothing
wrong with a company that sells a standard serv-
ice to a client which is not tailored to the individual situation. But it is
not management consulting – the very word consulting implies consulta-
tion and hence dialogue and interaction. If you are selling a plain vanilla
service then good luck, but do not call it management consulting.
Only doing necessary work
The third issue for ethical consideration relates to only doing work that a
client needs and is in the client’s interest. One situation in which this
matters is with follow-on work, when you have been fortunate enough to
complete an engagement successfully and part of the recommendations
are for subsequent work using your skills. There is an obvious moral
hazard when the person with an interest in future work is also the person
advising a client as to what the future work should be. I do not see any
problem with advising follow-on work that requires your skills, or win-
ning it. The problem comes only if the advice you gave has been
deliberately skewed to favour the sell-on. The easiest answer is to point
out your inherent conflict to the client. Most clients see the conflict of
interest, and pointing it out does not change anything other than
making it clear that you are being open and honest.
“value-addingconsulting is always
bespoke”
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There are some situations in which the bias is more covert. A classic
example is that some consultants design engagements to overcome client
issues by starting with the generation of hypotheses. The hypotheses are
used as a starting point to explore what the client issues and solutions
might be. The engagement then seeks data to prove or disapprove the
hypotheses. This is common practice, especially amongst the more strate-
gic consultancies. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with it, as long as
the selection of hypotheses and the search for data is not biased to come
out with a result that is in the consultant’s commercial interest.
Unfortunately, sometimes the selection of hypotheses is biased. This
problem can run very deep. Some consultants so strongly believe their
own skills, service lines and views on management that the bias is
unconscious. Unproven assumptions are made about how a business
should and should not be run, and these are reflected into the hypothe-
ses and data collection approach selected. There is then an inherent bias
which results in recommendations that unsurprisingly(!) match other
services the consultancy can offer. This problem can be compounded by
some consultants’ lack of understanding of the difference between a
hypothesis, a conviction, an evidence-based conjecture and a fact.
Another problem can arise when the strength of a consulting company’s
brand is used to pressurise a client to undertake work. When a partner or
other senior member of a major consultancy looks a manager in the eye
and says ‘we are advising you to do this’, this can be the quality advice of
a good consultancy sticking to its guns, but it can easily veer into an
implicit threat. The unspoken statement is really: ‘Follow our advice and
the risk is not yours, go against it and everyone will know it was your
choice – if it goes wrong you will pay the penalty.’ Great care is needed
here, because in some situations this is a legitimate position to take. To
me, the difference between an unethical threat and a reasonable state-
ment comes down to intentions. If it is given as a valid warning to the
client, then it is ethical. If the threat is given purely to bully the client
into purchasing your services, it is not.
Often consultants remain working with a client well after an engagement
has really finished. Sometimes they stay beyond the time they are
required, without adding value that is commensurate with their fees,
simply because the client has not got round to terminating the engage-
ment. If you keep on working beyond the natural end point, you should
question whether you are still really offering sufficient value to the
client. If you aren’t, then move on.
18710 � The ethical dimension
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Avoiding client dependency
My fourth ethical concern is client dependency on the consultant. It is
quite easy, with some clients, to develop a dependency on your skills. It
may be accidental, but it can also be engineered. There is a point on any
engagement, whether it is an engagement delivering recommendations, a
plan or implemented change, when the question to answer is ‘so what
should the client do next?’ Answering this question is the source of
many ethical challenges. A dependency on the consultant can be devel-
oped by not providing all the information to enable a client to progress
work, so they have to keep coming back to you for more. It can also be
through inappropriate advice, for example selling proposals or ideas that
are unnecessarily complex relative the client’s level of skill and which
you know they will need your help to implement.
As so often with ethical issues, there is balance required. A client may
legitimately want to retain your skills for a period of time because they
continue to add value in various ways. This is the basis of long-term
consultant–client relationships. But, this is quite different from the delib-
erate manipulation of recommendations or plans relative to the client’s
skills so that they need to retain you – either to interpret the recommen-
dations to plans, or simply because they are written in such a way that
you are the only person who can fulfil them.
Handling confidential information
The fifth point on my ethical list relates to the correct use, and avoiding
the misuse, of client confidential information. This must be based on a
general respect for the confidentiality of data you collect as part of the
engagement. This is another complex issue, as clients have to have sensi-
ble expectations with respect to information as
well. Of course, you cannot take specific data and
sell it to your client’s competitors. Also consult-
ants should not be secretly collecting data on
client sites which then will form part of their con-
sultancy’s benchmarking database. But your client
hired you because of some specific expertise –
expertise you developed at other clients. It is inherent in hiring a con-
sultant that they will learn whilst working for a client, and what they
learn will be used on future clients. Consultants should not be embar-
rassed about this. It is effectively part of the definition of the profession
of consultancy. If a client does not like this aspect of consultants, then
High-performance consulting188
“clients have tohave sensible
expectations with
respect to
information”
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18910 � The ethical dimension
they have a simple commercial decision – there is no compulsion to
engage consultants. But there is a significant difference between learning
on a client’s site and actually walking off with specific client ideas and
business information which you use to support selling to or delivering
engagements for other clients.
Using fair contracts
The sixth ethical issue boils down to the consulting contract. Clients
should know better, but it is easy to fill contracts with all sorts of inap-
propriate small print. Of course, a client should really have the contract
checked (see next page). But the fact that important clauses are hidden in
the small print and not explicit in the proposal reflects the suspicion that
some consultancies are trying to pull the wool over their client’s eyes. I
have noticed two areas where I think some consultancies push the
boundaries of ethics:
1 Ownership of intellectual property (IP): Many consultancies,
including some of the blue chip names, have contractual clauses
stating that they own the IP from any consulting engagement. What
grates with many clients is that the IP (if there is any) was developed
when working with client staff. Ask anyone if they think it is ethical
that person A owns the IP for a piece of work they developed in
conjunction with person B, when person B paid for all the work. Most
people will say no! Yet this is precisely what giving ownership of IP to
the consultant means. Of course, consultants may bring IP on to the
client site which they should retain ownership of, so it can be
difficult to disentangle really original IP arising from an engagement
with what the consultant owned before. However, whenever I am
employed to choose and manage consultants, I insist that any clause
giving the consultant full ownership of IP is taken out or at least
renegotiated for shared IP.
2 Recharging for expenses and supporting activities: The actual amount
charged to a client may significantly exceed the pure consultant time
costs. There are expenses on top, sometimes administration fees and
all sorts of other fees. Often these fees are reasonable, but sometimes
they are completely unreasonable. I have heard of partners in some
firms recharging proportions of their club fees to clients. Also some
simple administrative support can be very profitable for consultants –
for example, photocopying at massively inflated rates, well above the
usual commercial rate. I have seen six-figure charges for photocopying.
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Conflicts of interest
The final ethical concern relates to conflicts of commercial interest. This
is almost turning the ethical problem around, as its root lies with the
client. I have come across situations where company directors are simul-
taneously directors of consultancy companies and lobbying for the use of
the consultancy in the business they are a director of. I have come across
a senior IT manager pushing the services of an IT consultancy that he
had a direct shareholding in. These are clear ethical breaches, and proba-
bly fall foul of most organisations’ corporate governance regulations.
Requiring staff to register such commercial conflicts of interest and
penalising rapidly and heavily for breaches is usually sufficient to remove
most of these temptations. One possible solution that clients and con-
sultants can adopt is to simply rule that any company the individual
works for cannot be provided services by the consultancy they also have
a commercial interest in.
I want to end this section on ethical guidelines by looking at it from the
opposite perspective. Whilst you have an ethical responsibility as a con-
sultant, the client also has a responsibility to behave in a sensible and
competent manner. Clients have lawyers who should read the small print
and accept the contract, modify it or suggest a completely different con-
tract. Managers should only ask for appropriate services for their
business, and in the end it’s their job to buy what their business needs –
not only yours to ensure it is right. Managers should review findings, rec-
ommendations and plans and ensure they are fit for purpose for their
organisation. You are not selling door-to-door products to vulnerable
groups. You are selling a professional service to a commercial enterprise,
and the working principle of caveat emptor (buyer beware) must to some
extent hold. (This point is revisited, from the client perspective, in
Chapter 14.) However, ethics cannot be shrugged off with the view that
the clients are ‘big boys’ who should know better than to accept unethi-
cal practice. As a consultant, you have a clear ethical responsibility to
your client.
Application of ethics
Ethics is interesting as a theoretical subject and one for debate with
friends over dinner. But what makes ethics real is its impact on the deci-
sions we make and the actions we take. There are two factors which can
make the applications of ethics in consulting quite complex:
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19110 � The ethical dimension
1 the privileged position of the consultant
2 the lack of clarity over who the client is.
As a consultant you operate in a privileged position of trust. Imagine the
scenario of a client you have worked with on and off for many years. A
client who values your skills and the way you execute engagements. You
are regularly advising the client. You are a trusted advisor. As a trusted
advisor to the client you face one of the classic moral hazards in busi-
ness. It is your advice that often leads to you
gaining more work. You will know when you are
selling on if it is right for your client, and if it is
right for you. That is the opportunity to make the
right ethical choice. If you do not know, you are
not thinking clearly enough, as it is usually obvi-
ous. When you legitimately sell on, your interests and those of your
client align, and this is a good outcome for both of you. When your
interests are not aligned, don’t try to sell on.
The privileged position can run deeper than this. We now enter distinctly
muddy waters – and that is whether as a trusted consultant you have a
duty of care to your client. Technically, duty of care is a legal term refer-
ring to the need for professionals to conform to a reasonable standard of
care when executing their profession. I do not literally mean a legal duty
of care, but the ethical duty of care a consultant has to their client. What
is the difference between a commercial duty and a duty of care? To me,
your commercial duty is to fulfil the terms of your contract and proposal.
A duty of care goes beyond this and means upholding the standards
expected of a profession. By duty of care I mean a responsibility actively
to ensure your client gets the best advice, irrespective of the precise
boundaries of your engagement, and to execute all your work to a high-
quality standard. If you have a duty of care you cannot turn a blind eye
to anything you think is substandard or inappropriate, irrespective of the
scope of your consulting engagement.
There are several dangers once a consultant reasons they have a duty of
care. The first is simply that you can get lost flagging a myriad of prob-
lems to a client. No business is perfect and there are always hundreds of
substandard ways of working. If not, there would never be the possibility
of any business improvement. Additionally, the label ‘duty of care’ is
often used spuriously by consultants to barge into all sorts of areas of the
business that really have nothing to do with their work. Therefore con-
sider seriously whether you have a duty of care to your client or not. If
“when yourinterests are not
aligned, don’t try to
sell on”
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High-performance consulting192
you do, it is not a stick to beat the client into doing work they would not
otherwise accept, but it is a responsibility to work professionally and
advise on related matters that you are competent to advise them on.
What about the lack of clarity over who the client is? Throughout this
chapter I have considered the client as the focus of our ethical considera-
tions. But as I described in earlier chapters, the identification of the client
is not a trivial matter. Consultants tend to think of the client as an
organisation, but an organisation is an abstract entity. On the other
hand, consultants may think of the client as an individual, but the inter-
ests of no one individual in an organisation may actually align perfectly
with all the interests of the organisation. So, there is the odd situation
that an organisation is made up of people, you can only interact with
people and judge the organisation’s interest from those people, but the
organisation’s interest may not completely align with any of those
people’s interest.
Of course, for many engagements we can, in practice, say that there is no
ethical dilemma. The scope of the engagement is such that the interest
we should consider as described by individuals in the organisation is to
all practical purposes the interest of the organisation. But this will not
always be true. Consider the following questions:
� If your work leads to someone being made redundant, have you
harmed the client? Usually consultants answer no. Often this is right
– but thinking about the grounds on which this judgement is made is
often not as clear cut as it should be and can be suspiciously abstract.
� Should you go above the individual who engaged you to their boss
without their knowledge, to comment on the individual’s skills and
ability? This sometimes is legitimate and sometimes unethical. Which
it is must be determined by assessing the reasons you have for going
to the boss and what alternatives are available to you. Generally, it is
best to avoid such action except as a last resort.
� Does the engagement you are working on help a senior but
incompetent manager to keep their job? At one level, if managers had
all the skills required, consultants would not be needed. But if the
primary reason for the engagement is to support a person who should
not have a job, then this must be regarded as unethical.
� Are you providing advice for the benefit of an individual client
manager over the organisation as a whole? This is veering not only
into ethical issues, but potentially into straightforward corruption.
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19310 � The ethical dimension 19310 � The ethical dimension
� If the engagement results in recommendations on redundancy or job
changes, are you giving unbiased advice, ignoring your commercial
interest? You can envisage consultant’s advice being biased against
staff who oppose or inhibit the consultant’s work or ability to win
further work. Sometimes, as part of a change activity, people do need
to be moved into different roles or removed from an organisation, but
this must only be because it is in the organisation’s interest. Doing it
for the commercial interest of the consultancy is never ethical. I am
sure this practice is rare: it is completely unacceptable.
Some consultants avoid the issue of conflicting client interests by saying
that they are working for a higher authority; no, not God, but the share-
holders’ interests. This is just dodging the issue, and is one of the great
intellectual evasions of consulting. Generally, a consultant is not engaged
by the shareholders. The consultant has probably never spoken to the
shareholders and does not understand their interests other than some
vague and generic need to increase value in some way or another.
Thinking that you are working for the interests of a group of people you
have never spoken to, never specifically analysed, and whom you have
no relationship with, has to be considered as highly dubious.
So what classifies an engagement as in the interests of the organisation?
The answer can only be for you to make a judgement of the situation
based on the information that is available to you. Moreover, if you
assume that you have a duty of care to the client, you should not only
consider the information that is available to you, but also actively seek
out the information you require to make the ethical choice.
Ethics can seem a burden, yet can also be an advantage or selling point
for consultants. As always with consulting, for every problem there is
also a commercial opportunity. Understand the ethical issues and how to
make balanced ethical decisions well, and there is
an opportunity for ethical consulting as a service
in its own right. Many clients face a range of ethi-
cal issues which they are not equipped to handle
and benefit from consultants to help them along.
Ethics and dilemmas in consulting
So far in this chapter I have described basic ethical guidelines for consult-
ants and considered aspects of being a consultant that must be taken
into account when making ethical judgements. This final section goes
“for every problemthere is also a
commercial
opportunity”
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beyond and looks at situations in which different ethical guidelines are
conflicting, or when the consultant faces a conflict between ethics and
other considerations.
There are many ambiguous situations when it comes to ethical decisions,
where clear thinking and sharp judgement is required. With some dilem-
mas there may never be a truly satisfactory answer, only the least wrong
one. But the ability to make a balanced decision in such situations,
whilst not unique to consulting, is a regular part of the challenge of
being a successful consultant.
There are three common situations where dilemmas involving ethics
arise:
1 balancing the interests of different stakeholders
2 constraints the client puts on the engagement
3 the conflict between commercial interest and ethical guidelines.
Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Balancing the interests of different stakeholders
Balancing the interests of different stakeholders, both within the client
and also within the consulting organisation, is a very common challenge.
We have already discussed the concept of a client as being complex, and
that there may be more than one client. When the role of the client is
made up of different people, they will often have different interests and
hence there is a risk of conflict. Examples where this can cause dilemmas
for the consultant are:
� When two (or more) client representatives want different and
incompatible things covered in an engagement. Often, different client
needs can be catered for in a single engagement, but it is possible that
they can conflict irreconcilably.
� If an individual member of a client organisation, who is paying for
your work, wants you to do something that is not in their business’s
interest.
There is no single solution to these sorts of issues, but the answer is to be
found by a combination of the following:
� Having a clear primary client who arbitrates and makes decisions
when there is a conflict of interest.
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19510 � The ethical dimension
� Not hiding or ignoring the issue of conflict. Be explicit with your
client: it is the client’s problem and although you can help they must
in the end fix it. If you try and ignore or hide a conflict, this may
often lead to greater problems, which you are then party to.
� Negotiating a solution that is acceptable to all parties, involving the
different clients in the negotiation. A single meeting bringing the
interested parties together is usually the best way to do this.
Finally, if nothing else works and you are left with either an impossible
engagement, one in which you will not be perceived to deliver value, or
one in which you feel unacceptably ethically compromised, walk away.
This may not be easy to do, and I do not underestimate how difficult
some clients can be if you say you do not want the work. But you should
uphold your own standards.
Constraints the client puts on the engagement
The second type of dilemma which faces consultants is connected to the
constraints clients put on engagements. As part of scoping an engage-
ment, or during carrying it out, the client may specify a range of factors
which constrain the consultant’s freedom to decide how to pursue the
engagement. Many of these requirements will be perfectly reasonable.
For example, the client may need the work completed within a certain
timeframe. Clients will usually have a limited budget and the engage-
ment must be performed for whatever the client can afford. The client
may be a busy manager and so may want to limit how much time the
consultant can have to work with them. Similarly, clients have limits as
to how many people they can allocate to work with consultants. These
types of constraints are all part of a normal consulting engagement.
Most clients are reasonable and will negotiate on such constraints and
listen to reasoned argument from the consultant. But in the haste to earn
money or for an easy life, consultants can sometimes agree to all sorts of
conditions which, in reality, are unworkable. Generally, this is a mistake.
From a commercial perspective the consultant needs to think through
any constraints and decide if it is still possible to complete an engage-
ment and be paid for it profitably. The ethical perspective is different.
Even if you can complete the engagement and are paid for it, you must
decide at what point is the engagement so constrained that it will add no
value to the client? A sensible consultant is only interested in commer-
cially viable engagements. An ethical consultant is only interested in
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High-performance consulting196
engagements that are of value to the client. It is possible, if sometimes
difficult, to be both sensible and ethical.
Experienced consultants can think of many examples of client behaviours
which reduce the value the consultant may give. Some clients regularly
engage consultants, never listen to the consultant’s advice, but still pay
the bill. I have no problem with clients who engage, debate and disagree
with the consultant’s findings – but if the client simply ignores the advice
all the time, you are taking money from an organisation for nothing.
Another example is that it is not unusual for clients to want findings
without giving you enough time to do proper research or analysis. Of
course, it is always possible to give some advice on even minimal informa-
tion. But its validity and value are questionable. Consultants can be
tempted to take the risk and provide advice without sufficient informa-
tion, when in reality the answer should be to decline the work unless
sufficient time is allowed for data collection and analysis.
Conflict between commercial interest and ethical guidelines
Throughout this chapter I have looked at examples of the possible con-
flict between commercial and ethical interests. I would like to complete
the chapter by looking at two further conflicts of this kind in a little
more detail. The first concerns the sustainability of consulting advice,
and the second the application of knowledge from one client to another.
To add value to a client, a consultant must not only create whatever the
agreed deliverables are – reports, plans, recommendations and imple-
mented change – but also needs to ensure that the result is helpful to the
client. For something to be helpful, it must be
usable and appropriate to the client. Additionally,
recommendations must be practical and workable
in the client’s environment. There is no point
giving advice which you know will not be possi-
ble for the client to achieve. Your aim should not
merely be to fulfil the letter of the proposal and deliver whatever you
agreed to deliver, but the contents of the deliverables must have a lasting
impact on the client.
Effective consultants base their knowledge on the experience they have
gained working in many businesses and many different situations. That
is often the reason for engaging a consultant. The client starts by think-
ing, ‘I have a problem of type X, which I do not know how to handle.’
“for something tobe helpful, it must be
usable and appropriate
to the client”
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The client then goes on to think, ‘I will get help from a consultant who
has dealt with problems of type X in many situations.’ The ethical prob-
lem arises from the issue of understanding when it is appropriate to take
knowledge and experience from one client and apply it to another. If you
are a public sector consultant, there is probably no ethical issue, but as a
consultant advising clients in the commercial field, there is. Is it ethical
to help multiple clients by taking the knowledge from one business and
selling it to their competitors? Even if we exclude directly sharing current
business data, the consultant still has an ethical dilemma. Management
approaches, business processes and other intangibles are the source of
most competitive edge in business, but these things are the very currency
of consulting.
One possible ethical line to take is to avoid working with direct competi-
tors, at least in areas of the business that provide competitive
differentiation. If you work for company A, you will not work for their
main competitor, company B. This may be fine if you are a sole trader
who has a much larger list of possible clients than capacity to do work,
but this is impractical for a major consulting firm with tens of thousands
of staff. The big firms, simply because of their scale, must at times work
for direct competitors. In some industries there are fewer and fewer major
players. To survive as a specialist consultant, you are bound at times to
provide services to competing organisations.
An answer may be to challenge the validity of massive consultancies pro-
viding services to competing businesses. If you are so big that you must
provide services to competitors, perhaps you really are too big to main-
tain a clean bill of ethical health. I think this is a valid challenge, but I
know it is impractical. The huge services firms are here to stay. A more
realistic answer is the concept of a Chinese wall. A Chinese wall is the
term used for an internal division within a business in which certain
information may not pass. Individuals working on one side of the
Chinese wall may not work on the other. Companies such as financial
services and auditors, where information from competitors or informa-
tion about possible market sensitive changes are handled, use Chinese
walls all the time. I applaud the concept. In practice, I am cynical about
how strong such walls really are.
I think the solution must lie in an open dialogue with the client. If the
client challenges you, you should commit to keeping their real secrets
secret, but you must also be open to the fact that sometime you are likely
to work for a competitor. That is just the way the world is and the nature
19710 � The ethical dimension
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of consulting. If the client expects you to bring direct experience of com-
petitors, then they have no ethical grounds for complaining if you share
your ever-growing experience with their competitors as well. If a client
wants you to guarantee your experience is never used elsewhere, you
need some guarantee from them as to an ongoing income stream!
Summary
Ethics provides you with an understanding of what you should and should
not do, and how you can achieve good and avoid harm.
� There are a range of situations in which consultants have the opportunity
to do good, and conversely there are situations in which consultants can
be strongly tempted to undertake activities which are in their interests
but which do harm to their clients.
� Each situation is unique and a range of factors must be considered
before deciding what the most ethical approach to take is. However,
making ethical decisions is a central part of being a good and client-
centric consultant.
� Ethics is a complex matter for consultants because of the privileged
position they occupy with a client, but also because the needs of
different stakeholders may be very varied and yet must be addressed.
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The language of consulting
Language is the main tool of the consultant. Quite simply, the wayyou talk, present and write will determine how successful you are asa consultant. The language you choose tells a listener a lot about
you and indicates how client-centric you are. Great consulting communi-
cation is all about clarity of thought and an ability to express things in
ways that are meaningful to your clients.
Everyone wants to and must communicate, as it is an integral part of
everyday life. We use language all the time, often without thinking about
it. Language is the mechanism for interaction between people, and con-
sultancy is concerned primarily with interaction. Some professions can
get away without needing to worry too much about the finer points of
communication. If you are making a physical product, it is the product
that matters, not how you talk when you are doing your work on a pro-
duction line. Consultancy is different. The product is often just words, in
the form of reports and presentations. Even when a consultant is
employed to manage change, a significant part of the management of
change is how you influence and direct people using language.
Great communication skills will enhance any consultancy. Although it
should not be encouraged, even relatively weak sets of recommendations
or engagement proposals can convince clients if they are well presented.
Conversely, poor use of language can destroy the best consulting oppor-
tunities. It is of no use at all being the world’s greatest subject matter
expert, if you cannot share and explain what you know. The most suc-
cessful consultants are not necessarily the best experts, but they are the
chapter
11
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most capable of effectively imparting what expertise they have and influ-
encing others.
Communication is central to everything the consultant does. Whether it
is understanding a client’s issues, collecting information, developing
reports or feeding back to a client, these are all activities which are based
on communicating. Consultancy is a business that is dependent on rela-
tionships, and what and how you communicate will determine the
relationships you build. Communication is vital to sharing ideas, devel-
oping consensus, challenging assumptions and influencing people – all
tasks essential to consulting.
Obviously, a consultant must be able to write and to present. The funda-
mental capability to put pen to paper or use a word processor is rarely a
problem for consultants. But consultants suffer from the same issues that
dog many aspects of business communications. Unfortunately, whilst
there are some exceptions, business speakers and business writers on the
whole are not models of brilliant communication. Business language can
be dull, it often utilises clichés and relies on jargon. It suffers from too
much output and not enough listening, and it regularly results in mis-
communication and ambiguity.
Not everyone is a natural orator or a gifted writer, but whilst those talents
will undoubtedly help, they are not necessary. Speaking, writing, presenting
and listening skills can be learnt and improved, and
a few simple concepts can help to enhance the capa-
bilities of most consultants. This chapter provides
some pointers to improving your communication
skills. It describes what communication is, and sug-
gests a simple way for you to plan and execute your communication. It also
discusses one of the central but underestimated language tools of the con-
sultant – asking questions. Finally, the chapter looks at some of the traps in
using language that consultants should avoid.
Communication
What is communication? This is a surprisingly hard question to answer in
a way that everyone will agree to. Communication is one of those concepts
that we all intuitively grasp, but struggle to give succinct and meaningful
definitions of. The problem this poses is that if we cannot easily define the
concept, we cannot be sure we all share the same meaning.
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“not everyone is anatural orator or a
gifted writer”
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20111 � The language of consulting
Essentially, communication is the transmission of information from one
person to another. This definition is typical, reasonable and technically
correct, but it is not enlightening and I think it misses two of the most
important points. The first is that communication is a goal-directed
activity. We communicate for a reason. When you think about this, it is
obvious. But it is a point often forgotten. One of the reasons communica-
tions fail is because the speaker or writer is not clearly conscious of or
focused enough on the desired goal. Secondly, communications should
be something you take pleasure in. What makes the great speakers and
authors great is that they enjoy using language. Yes, they are adept with
all the tools of communication, and, yes, they are aware of the goal they
are trying to achieve, but at the same time they delight in the act of com-
munication. This seems all too often to be forgotten in business.
There are a host of different ways to communicate. Most obviously there
are the written and spoken word, but within these categories there are a
range of communication skills to be applied. Ways of using language
include: asserting, explaining, recommending, questioning, answering,
reinforcing, summarising and reflecting. Communication has specialised
techniques, such as negotiating, persuading, asserting, confronting and
developing relationships. Some activities, like training, facilitating and
interviewing, are essentially applications of communication. Critically,
communication is a two-way process, and a key part of all interaction is
listening, which is especially important to consultants. Although this
chapter focuses on language, communication is not just about words –
body language, gestures, tone, pace and so on are all essential components
of how well you communicate. Individuals tend to have biases to some
forms of communication rather than others. As a consultant, it is helpful
to develop the ability to use the full range of communication skills.
Each of these aspects of communication is the subject of many books.
Consultants tend to be practical people and focus on improved commu-
nication via presentation or writing skills courses. It is worth making the
effort to understand even a modicum of the academic theory of commu-
nication (e.g. Hargie, see page 279), as this can be enlightening and give
many ideas on how to improve your communication skills.
A consultant working in a professional domain is primarily interested in
being effective. Hence, if you understand what communication is, the
next helpful question is: what is effective professional communication?
When asked to describe what makes good communication, it is common
to use criteria, usually expressed as adjectives, such as clear, lucid,
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intelligible, absorbing, accurate, coherent, informative or enjoyable. It is
certainly worth thinking about such criteria, but I believe that effective
professional communication can be defined in terms of two statements.
Effective communication:
� is carried out to meet understood objective(s)
� achieves its objective(s).
As consultants our most important goal is to communicate effectively
and this is the emphasis of this chapter. However, it is worth bearing in
mind what the difference between effective and excellent communica-
tion is. Being effective is good enough, but understanding what excellent
communications are gives you something to aspire to. What I think sepa-
rates excellent from merely effective communication, is that excellent
communication:
� is pleasurable or engaging for both the speaker (writer) and listener
(reader).
Not everyone is or will become excellent at communication, but irrespec-
tive of how well you use language, you can improve your speaking and
writing skills. Improving communication skills requires that you actively
seek feedback, which at times can be painful, and that you learn from the
feedback. My first consulting report was thrown back to me across a desk
by a partner in Coopers & Lybrand, covered in a mess of red ink and
exasperated comments. Excruciating as that experience and others were,
the feedback was valuable and worked. I now have several books pub-
lished, each of which has sold thousands of copies, and have been
translated into multiple languages. Yet I am still aware of how much I
have to learn and I seek feedback on written materials and presentations
all the time. Partially this is to improve the individual document or pres-
entation, but more importantly it is to continue to improve the
effectiveness of all my communications.
Planning and executing communications
To explain how to improve your communication skills I am going to use
a simple model of communication. There are many more complex
models, which are useful for discussing specific aspects of communica-
tion or understanding detailed mechanics. But I want to use a model
which is easy to understand, practical and useful to consultants. The
model I am going to use is the communication wheel. This is a model I
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20311 � The language of consulting 20311 � The language of consulting
developed some years ago when working with
groups of experts to help them think about and
achieve better communications, and to help them
avoid some communications blunders typical of
their professions. As with all simplifications, the
model has some flaws, and needs to be interpreted flexibly and with the
application of a little common sense. But I have found it a very effective
way to help people improve their communications.
This model is shown in Figure 11.1. In this section, I will briefly explain
each part of the model, to enable you to identify any areas of weakness
and to focus on enhancing them.
The model has several features. Firstly it is shown as a circle (or wheel),
which represents the fact that any single act of communication may result
in further communications. Communication is an ongoing process, each
interaction can encourage further interactions, and this is the basis of dia-
logue. The model has an outer wheel and a central hub. The outer wheel
is concerned with transmitting information, but communication is a two-
way process: as well as transmitting you receive or listen. The importance
of listening is indicated by its position as the hub of the communication
wheel. The outer wheel has six steps, each of which I will briefly discuss
“the model needs tobe interpreted
flexibly”
Listen
1
Why?
4
How?
2
Who?
Key
Transmit
6
Feedback
PLAN
EXECUTE
5
Deliver
3
What?
Figure 11.1 The communication wheel
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High-performance consulting204
below. The first four steps are about planning communication, and the
last two are about executing communication. The model can be applied to
all sorts of communications that consultants are involved in, whether pre-
senting, speaking in a meeting or writing a report. This model can be used
to help improve formal communications, but it can also help with the
most informal of conversations.
Let’s briefly explore each of the steps.
1 Why?
The first step in communicating is to be clear about why you are doing it.
Communication is a goal-directed activity, and unless you are clear about
the goal you will not successfully communicate. Yet all too often we start
conversations, write documents or develop presentations without being
absolutely clear about why we are doing this. In the process of consulting
there are often many goals that each communication must achieve and
this can result in messy and confusing interactions with clients.
Occasionally, the goal of communication is to share some information,
but more often as a consultant it is more complex than this. You commu-
nicate to persuade a client to take action, to have decisions made, to gain
support or consensus, or perhaps to impress a client. Providing informa-
tion when, for example, your goal is to influence a client to take an
action, may not be enough. Unless your design your communication
around your goal, it is unlikely to succeed.
With the spoken word, goals are dynamic and can change as a dialogue
unfolds. A skilled speaker is adept at modifying goals as a conversation
continues. However, it is best to be consciously monitoring where a con-
versation is going compared to the initial goals. Sometimes a change in
goals is a correct response to additional information that becomes appar-
ent during a conversation. Often, especially in intense or heated
conversations, we accidentally lose sight of our initial goal and start just
responding to each individual part of a dialogue. Everyone finds that
sometimes they start a discussion and part way through think ‘where is
this going?’, having lost track of what it is all about and what outcome
they want. Journalists and politicians are adept at deliberately making
their interlocutors lose track of the objective of the dialogue.
The starting point for all communications should be to understand what
the goal is. You can understand this by asking yourself questions, such as:
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20511 � The language of consulting
� What are you trying to achieve?
� What do you want to be different when you have communicated?
� How will you know this has been achieved?
� What next steps do you want to get from this interaction?
� If there are several goals, are they compatible and are any more
important than others?
If you cannot answer these sorts of questions, do not be surprised if your
communication is ineffective.
2 Who?
Communications must be appropriate to the person or group being com-
municated to and in the style they prefer. This person or group is your
audience. Effective communication is meaningful and appealing, from
the audience’s viewpoint. Client-centric consultants always seek to com-
municate in the most appropriate way for a specific audience. This means
that you must be prepared to tailor whatever you
want to say to the audience, and the same point
may need to be said in different ways to different
audiences. It is important to remember always
that you are not communicating to yourself. Fine
words that you like are worthless unless your audi-
ence likes them too. You must use terminology
that is meaningful and appealing to your audience, as it is only what
makes sense to your audience that matters.
There are many factors that need to be considered when thinking about
audiences. What are their media preferences:
� Do they prefer the spoken or written word?
� Is there any specific terminology that should be used or avoided?
� What style of communication do they like?
� Do they prefer the big picture or details?
� Do they respond best to facts or emotions?
� Do they like ideas that are action-orientated, or do they favour more
conceptual information that makes them think?
The better you understand your client’s communication preferences, the
more likely you will be able to influence them.
“it is only whatmakes sense to your
audience that
matters”
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However, as you tailor your approach to your audience don’t lose sight of
why you are communicating. There is a risk that you can forget what you
want to achieve, in delving too deeply into how people like to be com-
municated with.
Many people wanting to improve their communication skills will focus
on their language and use of words. For a consultant, a far better and
often simpler way to improve communication skills is to think more
clearly about these first two steps of the communication wheel. Simply
by having clarity over why you are communicating, and by understand-
ing who your audience is and what their communication preferences
are, you will significantly improve the effectiveness of your communica-
tions. If you focus on these two points alone you may never become a
great or memorable speaker, but you will be effective and sufficiently
influential for consultancy needs. Everything else is finesse, these are
the fundamentals.
3 What?
The next stage of the communication wheel is about developing the spe-
cific messages you want to communicate. What are the points you need
to get across that will help you to achieve your communication goal?
This is a step worth being patient about starting. We are all tempted to
jump into the action of writing documents or creating presentations. My
advice is to hesitate a little. Do not work out your messages before you
know why you are communicating and to whom. A message is only rele-
vant when you know who you are communicating with. If you do not
know what you want to achieve and who you will be influencing to
achieve this, then there is little point in working out messages.
Effective professional communication is simple and concise. What you
communicate should be made up of a central message, any supporting
messages that reinforce the central message, and key information that
verifies these messages or helps them to be understood. This information
should be at an appropriate level of detail for the intended audience.
There can be a temptation to write lots to try and impress. In reality, the
most powerful information is concise. Everything that does not con-
tribute to the central message of a report or presentation should be
discarded. A well-written and concise document is of far greater value to
your clients than an elongated and rambling tome.
However, whilst brevity is to be preferred, a coherent communication is
more than a set of messages strung together. Any communication must
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include appropriate levels of context and scene setting. This depends on
the audience and their familiarity with the subject. Critically, any com-
munication, whether it is spoken or written, needs to have a logical and
understandable structure to aid comprehension. This means some of the
words in any communication are not about transmitting the messages
you want transmitted, but will be information related to the process of
communication and understanding. This includes explanations of what
is being communicated, such as ‘I am now going to talk about …’, or
signposts to the structure of communication, such as ‘once I have com-
pleted the introduction I will …’.
The ordering of messages is important to enhance impact and influence
your client’s reactions. To improve the structuring of your messages you
can use the classic consulting approach of Minto’s pyramid principle. It is
an excellent way of structuring your thinking, and if you are unfamiliar
with it I recommend investing some time in reading up on it. I am also a
great fan of mind maps, which can help in structuring very diverse infor-
mation. (For both topics, see the references on page 280.) It is interesting
to note that both the pyramid principle and mind maps are primarily
about structuring thinking, which can then be applied to how you write
or present. They are not purely writing techniques. This point underlies
the principle that it is clarity of thought that makes great professional
communication, not a huge vocabulary, understanding of grammar and
syntax, or ability to drone on and on.
Finally, words are not the only form of communication. When speaking
you must consider your body language, as well as your dress and appear-
ance. There are also factors like pitch, tone, speed, volume, pauses and so
on to get right. For the written word, characteristics like document
format, layout, font, colour, tone, style, as well as the use of visual aids,
all have a direct influence on the effectiveness of your communication.
4 How?
The final part of planning your communication is to determine how you
will communicate. What media will you use? Will you communicate for-
mally or informally? There are many factors to consider, including
audience preferences, but also what is most appropriate for the situation.
For instance, very sensitive information must be transmitted in a different
way than general information relevant to all members of an organisation.
An important consideration is the timing and level of repetition of com-
munications. Timing is crucial to effective communication. Simply, there
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High-performance consulting208
are good and bad times to communicate. You should also bear in mind
that messages, especially if they are complex or radical, can take several
attempts to be heard and understood. What this
means is that important messages should be
repeated consistently and often in different
media. Anyone who has worked with clients on
change programmes knows the importance of fre-
quent, repetitive and consistent communication.
Communicating once is never enough for any
important messages in an organisation. If you ever feel tempted to say
‘but I told you that’, then probably you have not communicated a mes-
sage enough times.
Some messages take time to sink in and people need the opportunity to dis-
cuss and challenge. Without the ability to explore and challenge
information, people are less likely to understand or accept it. Hence, when
planning how you will communicate, make sure there is an opportunity for
your clients to question and discuss anything you propose or recommend.
Having thought about why, what and how, a good test of any communi-
cation materials you have developed or conversations you have planned
is to ask yourself ‘so what?’ If you communicate what you plan to com-
municate in the way you plan to do it, what will it achieve? If you
cannot answer the question ‘so what?’, then it is likely that the commu-
nication will be ineffective.
5 Deliver!
If you are clear about why you are communicating, and who you are
communicating with, have designed a concise and effective set of mes-
sages, and have developed appropriate materials to be delivered at the
appropriate times – you will effectively communicate. You never know
how your audience will respond until you have communicated, but the
better prepared you are, the more likely you are to succeed.
In reality, you do not always have time to think through every aspect of
every communication. Some client conversations just happen without
time to think through how you should respond. There is no easy answer
to this, other than the points that I have described will work for all types
of professional communication. If you practise them, they will become
automatic, subconscious and fast enough to use in the most unexpected
of situations.
“importantmessages should be
repeated consistently
and often in different
media”
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6 Feedback
You never know if you have successfully communicated until you have
feedback from your audience. The more prepared, the greater the likeli-
hood of success, but you must not assume you have achieved your
communication objectives until you have a definite response from your
audience.
Ideally, this response is formal feedback or directly checking your audience’s
understanding of what you have said. Often this is not possible or appropri-
ate and you have to look for more subtle clues, such as body language and
behaviour following your communication. What you are seeking is to deter-
mine whether your messages were understood and whether they were
accepted. Most of all you should be seeking to determine if you will achieve
the goal that your communication originally set out to achieve. Client
behaviour is the most important element of feedback. Normally, you com-
municate to generate some form of response in your client – if you do not
get this response then the communication has failed.
Feedback is also essential for improving your own communication skills.
If you never get any feedback, all you have is your own opinion on how
well you communicate, which is liable to be wrong. It is amazing how
many people assume they are good speakers or writers, but do not seek
feedback. Without feedback, an assessment of how well you communi-
cate is just that – an assumption.
7 Listening
As a consultant you will have a significant amount of information to dis-
seminate. You will want to share ideas, explore concepts, influence and
guide clients. To achieve these you will be writing and speaking, but to
be able to transmit relevant information you must start by gathering
information. This is done by listening. Listening is one of the most
underestimated skills, and one we generally spend least effort to improve,
and yet people who listen well are at a significant advantage to those
who do not, especially in a profession like consulting. As an example of
this, often in client sales meetings we are so engrossed in making our sale
that we miss comments from the client which indicate what they really
want, and hence lose the sale. Always listen.
In terms of the communication wheel I use listening as a generic word
for all ways of receiving information, including hearing, reading and
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High-performance consulting210
observation. Irrespective of how you listen, having information enables
you to moderate your ideas and behaviour.
Listening is not only essential to gathering information. Listening is an
important part of developing relationships and of encouraging people to
listen to you. People rarely form relationships with other individuals who
do not listen to them. People are less inclined to listen to anyone who
will not listen to them.
It is common to assume that listening is automatic. It is not. Hearing
sounds and seeing writing on the page is automatic. Listening is not
merely the use of your senses, it is a mental activity. Your brain is not a
passive recipient of stimuli – it interprets and filters, often subcon-
sciously. Hence, listening is not foolproof – you
will filter out information, your concentration
will lapse and at times you will be distracted. Even
if you physically receive information, it does not
mean you have actually taken it in. This is one
reason why you should seek feedback and test understanding after com-
municating – to make sure the information was taken in, and was
interpreted in the way intended. If you are the listener, and it is impor-
tant that you understand, you can check your understanding by
summarising or reflecting back to speakers. A response in the form ‘let
me just summarise what I heard … is that correct’ is a powerful way to
check your listening.
The guidelines for listening are:
� concentrate on listening
� don’t listen by accident
� seek to improve your listening skills.
Whenever you need to take in information, be conscious of your physical
and mental state and try to overcome feelings or office environmental
factors which are stopping you listen. Never be afraid, for example, to
halt a meeting to resolve an irritating noise that is stopping people listen-
ing. Also, try to learn about your own listening biases. This can be hard,
but is very revealing. What sorts of information do you find easier to take
in and what do you struggle with? What are your limits? If you can only
read in 15-minute bursts, there is no point scanning your eyes across text
for hours at a time. What sort of information do you find easy to absorb,
and what takes more effort?
“your brain is not apassive recipient of
stimuli”
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21111 � The language of consulting
If you only listen to the words, you will only gain a partial understanding
of other people’s viewpoints. There are many important areas for observa-
tion in any conversation. What are the speaker’s eyes, body language and
gestures saying? Is there any fidgeting and activities not related to conver-
sation – do they indicate anything? When you are listening in a group,
observe the positioning or seating arrangements, and the level of interac-
tion between people in conversation. But don’t listen just to the content
or just interpret the body language! You need both. Also, whilst we all
have an innate capability to interpret body language to some extent, care
is needed with the interpretation: it is subjective and culturally specific.
Try to look for clues that information is or is not being accepted, and if it
is not obvious, seek feedback by asking questions like ‘does everyone
accept this …?’ or even better actually test understanding by asking more
specific questions. Unfortunately, this is not always possible.
All aspects of communication are interrelated. Every time you communi-
cate, you need a listener. Help them to listen by communicating in a way
that will make it easy for them to follow what you say. This is partially
about being clear and engaging, but it is also about removing any obsta-
cles that stop them listen. Conversely, every time you listen, your
response has an effect on the person you are listening to. If you really
want to understand what someone has to say, listen in a way that
encourages them to be open with you.
Questioning
There are many aspects of communications I could have written about in
this chapter, but there is one I am going to focus on a little more and
that is questioning. A consultant must be competent at writing reports,
developing and giving presentations, and in general conversation with
clients. If you are not, you need to develop those skills quickly, and there
are a myriad of books and courses on these topics. The precise communi-
cation needs will depend on the type of consulting you undertake and
the preferences of your client base – but you will always ask questions
whilst engaging with a client. However, questioning skills vary greatly
between consultants, and rarely is a competency in asking questions set
as a criterion for being a consultant. It should be.
Simplistically, you can think of a question as a request for information.
But questions perform a much wider role in our conversations than this.
Posing questions shows interest and is therefore important as part of
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High-performance consulting212
relationship building. The questions you ask reflect the way you think,
and hence will influence how clients judge you. There are usually multi-
ple ways of requesting information, and the precise way you do it, and
the clarity and style of question, mirrors your thinking. Questions can
also lead or influence another person’s thinking, although this also
depends on how the question is asked as well as the words used.
Depending on the tone and where the emphasis is placed, a simple ques-
tion like ‘why did you do that?’ can be interpreted as showing real
interest and request for information, as an indication of disagreement or
as a reprimand.
The precise wording of questions is important. Compare two similar ques-
tions, such as ‘do you like working in this department?’ versus ‘what do
you like about working in this department?’ It is easy to mean to ask one of
these, but actually to ask the other. The type of response and the informa-
tion it contains may be very different.
There are many types of questions, and as a consultant you should consider
the best way to find out whatever it is you are seeking out to find out.
Common types of questions are:
� Closed questions: These are used when you want simple yes/no
answers or factual information. Examples include: ‘have you
finished?’ or ‘how long have you been on the project team?’ Such
questions do not encourage the speaker to open up, merely to answer
the question. If you are struggling to get a dialogue going with a
client, it may be that you are asking too many closed questions.
� Fact finding: These are more detailed closed questions. You may get a
longer answer, but you still are trying to find out facts. For example:
‘what is your exact role in the department?’
� Open or exploratory questions: These are used to encourage dialogue
and to find out opinions. For instance: ‘how do you see the strategy
progressing?’ Open questions are powerful and helpful for
relationship building. However, they are less useful if what you really
want are specific facts or you want to end a conversation.
� Follow-up questions: These are used to probe further once an initial
question has been asked. Consider: ‘how does that link to the other
team members?’
� Prompts: These are simple statement to encourage the speaker to
provide more information. A typical example is to ask something like
‘and then?’ They almost sound too simple, but can be very helpful in
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keeping a conversation going and continuing to show interest in the
speaker’s words. If a speaker clams up, a few friendly prompts can
encourage them to keep going.
� Leading or loaded questions: These are questions asked when the
questioner already has an opinion and is seeking to lead the person
being questioned to share the same opinion. They are not really
about gathering information at all. Examples might include: ‘don’t
you agree that the project is badly run?’ or ‘what do you think of
John, isn’t he a brilliant manager?’ Consultants should use such
questions sparingly, if at all. They will bias the information you
gather, and clients often see through them and may perceive you as
prejudiced if you use them too often. Inexperienced interviewers
often ask leading questions, and effectively tell the person they are
interviewing what they want to hear.
� Confrontational questions (as loved by journalists and sometimes
politicians): These are directed to gain an emotional response. For
instance: ‘why don’t you just fire him?’ or ‘why on earth did you do
that?’ As much as the wording, confrontational questions depend on
the tone they are asked in. Consultants should usually avoid
confrontational questions where possible, but it is easy to ask one
when you are surprised by a client’s response to a previous question.
Consultants should take care in phrasing questions, and in using the
most appropriate type of question. The tone, pace and speed of question-
ing are also critical. In the haste to get information, it is easy to start
firing off lots of questions without giving someone a chance to answer
them. If you want information, ask one question at a time and leave time
to listen to responses. On the other hand, firing lots of questions at once
can be used as a deliberate technique to confuse people. Stakeholders
who oppose your work or want to be difficult may sometimes use this
technique. As a consultant you should avoid it.
Consultants should base advice and decisions on facts and concrete obser-
vations, and a key source of this is questioning. In Chapter 6 I described
how you need both qualitative and quantitative data. Even with qualita-
tive data you should seek to be precise. Precision comes from the type of
questions you ask, and assessing whether the answers given are precise
enough. Probe with questions like ‘when?’, ‘who?’, ‘precisely in what situ-
ation?’ General statements, like ‘the culture is the problem’ or
‘department X does not help’, need to be turned into concrete specifics.
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High-performance consulting214
Questioning is such a standard part of everyday conversation that it is
taken for granted. Take the time to think about your questions, and if
you do not get the type of response or level of interaction you expected
then think about what in your question prompted the response you did
get. Improving questioning skills will pay dividends to all consultants.
The consultant’s traps: jargon, misuse of words and the
ambiguity of language
If you want to excel with communications as a consultant, there are
three traps to avoid. These hazards are not unique to consulting, but are
prevalent within the profession. They are all related, yet slightly different
aspects of using language. Each of them can be an accidental hazard, but
may sometimes be deliberately used by consultants. The three traps are:
� using jargon
� misusing common terminology
� miscommunicating as a result of the ambiguity and subjectivity
of language.
Jargon
Jargon pervades the business world, and consulting is a profession that
wallows in it. Consultants seem to love inventing and using jargon. It is
a habit that should be discouraged. There are a number of reasons con-
sultants use jargon. Four of the most common seem to be:
1 it is an efficient shorthand
2 a consultant is trying to impress a client with their cleverness
3 a consultancy is trying to give an impression of novelty or uniqueness
to a service line or intellectual capital by branding it with unusual
words
4 a consultant does not understand and is trying to cover up.
Jargon can be excused when it is used as an efficient shorthand that an
audience all understands and is comfortable with. Jargon often encapsu-
lates complex concepts within a single phrase, and hence provides an
efficient way to communicate. The problem is that not everyone under-
stands the phrase in its context as jargon, and so when it is used the
listener may be left in the dark or completely misunderstand. When a
consultant is talking with other consulting colleagues then arguably they
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can use whatever jargon they like. Generally, jargon is acceptable when it
is used between two people of equal technical expertise, or similar cul-
tural or organisational background. However, using jargon is a habit, and
the more it is used the more difficult it is to talk without using it or even
recognising the fact that your vocabulary is littered with jargon.
Consulting and business jargon are interwoven, and fads in business gen-
erally result in new jargon with consultants. Examples of some of the
more hideous pieces of consulting jargon I have come across include: par-
adigm shift, archaeology of data, control architecture and integrated talent
management. To the user, such phrases may be an important part of their
language and their way of thinking. But there are usually simpler alterna-
tives, and in using jargon a consultant fails to remember or consider the
client’s perspective. Some readers may not regard these phrases as bad
jargon, which stresses the point that what is and is not acceptable jargon
is in the mind of the listener. As a consultant, you want to speak in the
language that most appeals to your listener.
Even relatively common words from certain specialisations may appear as
jargon to clients. For example, consulting project managers regularly get
excited about the difference between project and programme managers and
may be upset if they are referred to by the wrong title. Clients rarely care
about the difference. Whilst clients are perfectly capable of understanding
these words, an obsession with precise terminology can be a barrier and
shows a lack of empathy with clients. IT consultants often talk about archi-
tectures, as in process architecture, systems architecture and data architecture.
These are helpful concepts in the context of a discussion between knowl-
edgeable participants, but can baffle the uninitiated, and even between
experts can mean different things. Likewise, common business terms such
as stakeholder may not be the everyday language of some clients.
Complex or obscure words are often used by some consultants as a way
to impress clients, or to give an impression of some new thinking. Often
this thinking is just the repackaging of old ideas. A classic example of this
is the word transformation instead of change. Initially, the word transfor-
mation was meant to indicate a particularly radical change, but
increasingly it is used by consultants to refer to almost any change.
In truth, few clients are impressed with ‘consult-
ing speak’. Clients may be frightened by jargon
into buying your services, but this will not be the
basis of a long-term relationship. Obscure jargon
may occasionally impress, but more often it puts
21511 � The language of consulting
“a real skill is toexplain complex ideas
in everyday
language”
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High-performance consulting216
people off and shows your inability to understand the client. A real skill
is to explain complex ideas in everyday language. It is always better to
explain complex issues in everyday language than to show off and use
words which other people do not understand. Jargon increases the risk of
misunderstanding and ambiguity, which may come back to bite you.
Jargon is especially unwelcome when it is used to hold clients deliber-
ately at a distance from a real understanding of advice being given, or to
exert power over the clients.
Sometimes clients become accomplices in this problem by accepting
jargon. It is the responsibility of everyone to question unknown termi-
nology – either to improve understanding or to expose nonsense. But
everyone has sometimes silently listened to unfamiliar jargon, perhaps
too embarrassed to raise the ‘what does that mean?’ question when
someone uses a term that is not understood by all. Jargon can enable an
authoritarian yet, in reality, vacuous speaker to get away with a lack of
content. Rather than seeing the speaker’s vacuousness, clients occasion-
ally end up impressed. The fact that this can work, does not mean it is an
approach you should follow. Client-centric consultants never want to
position themselves in this way.
A good test for someone who claims to be an expert is to ask them to
define a piece of terminology they use regularly. Even common business
phrases like change management will stump some people, and this is a sign
of a lack of real understanding.
Consulting jargon should be avoided with clients. Use clear and straight-
forward language in a client-friendly manner. A client-centric consultant
always avoids pointless jargon. All terminology should be meaningful to
the audience you are talking to. The only jargon a client-centric consult-
ant uses is the client’s own jargon. One sign of a strong affinity with a
client is when you adopt the client’s language. As a consultant you will
jump from business to business and each one has its own jargon. When
you first work in a new organisation, that organisation’s jargon may
inhibit your own understanding, but competent consultants are never
afraid to ask ‘what does that mean?’ and actively seek to pick up local
jargon and linguistically blend into the organisation.
As a consultant your role is to educate, improve, help, facilitate and make
change. Hence, obscure consulting jargon is particularly inexcusable for
the management consultant, as communication is your core tool in
achieving this role.
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Misuse of common terminology
Somewhat similar to jargon is the misuse of what are actually useful
words and phrases. I am not talking about the language pedants who will
decry someone who writes ‘practice’ or ‘stationary’ when they should
have written ‘practise’ or ‘stationery’. These may be mistakes, but they do
not seem to diminish communication. What I want to focus on is the
misuse of words and phrases that block communication and, worse still,
inhibit clear thinking.
This is best shown with a few examples.
21711 � The language of consulting
The words opinion and a finding are often confused. As a consultant, when you
say ‘in my opinion’, you are giving a personal opinion, which may or may not have
some basis in fact but will be supported generally by your expertise. On the other
hand, a finding is a conclusion drawn from a sufficiently relevant sample of data. If
you present opinions as findings you are misleading your client. A client has every
right to conclude that something which you present as a finding has an evidence
base and to ask to see the evidence.
Another classic example of misuse of language in my experience is the phrase best
practice. Consultants regularly claim to be presenting something as best practice.
Clients and other consultants often accept things as best practice. This should
always be questioned. Who has decided or determined it is best practice?
Occasionally it is best practice, but more often it is simply standard or accepted
practice that has become prevalent over time for lack of an obvious alternative.
Confusing best practice with standard practice is just lazy thinking. This is an
example where the misuse of the phrase not only miscommunicates to the listener,
but also often reflects weakness in the speaker’s thought. There is a risk that calling
something best practice is not based on an attempt to make an approach sound
good to a client, but is actually believed by the consultant to be best practice.
Similarly, when a consultant talks about helping a client with change this can
mean many different things. It could be about the identification of change, the
planning and preparation for change, the implementation of change, or making
the change sustained. If you use the term without specifying which you mean,
you and the client may form very different impressions, which will lead to
longer-term difficulties.
Examples
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I enjoy the flexibility of language, and understand that language is
dynamic and ever modifying. I accept that old familiar words will gain
new uses, which I may not like, and that new words, which I don’t
understand, will come into common usage. But as a consultant you need
to ensure that you are communicating what you seek to communicate.
Be precise in your terminology. When you use phrases which in them-
selves make claims, such as best practice, make sure you are using the
phrase when it is appropriate to do so.
Ambiguity of language
I want to end this section with a very short point about the inherent
ambiguity and indeterminacy of language. A language like English is
extremely powerful and flexible. However, language is inherently indeter-
minate, and its flexibility makes the indeterminacy greater. By
indeterminate I mean that there can never be absolute certainty that a
group of people sharing a conversation are talking about the same things.
To minimise problems with language, always strive for clarity. Unless you
are working with people of a very similar background, avoid jargon and
use words correctly. Challenge the word or phrase where you think its
application is inappropriate. But even when you have used the best
phrased wording, you must accept that your listener or reader may not
have understood you in the way you intended. You must always avoid
assuming that someone has understood you, or that you have under-
stood someone else.
Ideally, you should always check understanding. There are situations in
which you can only say something once, but as a consultant you gener-
ally have an opportunity to enter into dialogue with your clients. When
you have presented important findings or made key recommendations,
test that your client has understood. This should be part of your ongoing
discussions with them.
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Summary
Language is the central tool of the consultant, and the way you talk, present
and write will determine how successful you are as a consultant. The key
points to remember are:
� Communication is a goal-directed activity; therefore always start by
being clear about why you are communicating and what you want to
achieve. Effective communication:
– is carried out to meet understood objective(s)
– achieves its objective(s).
� Once you understand why you are communicating, think about who you
are communicating to. Messages must be said in the most appropriate
way for an individual audience, avoiding jargon and misuse of
terminology. This means the same message must be said in different
ways to different audiences.
� Having communicated, you should always seek feedback, even if it is
only observing the body language or behaviour of your audience.
Without feedback, you will not know if your communication has achieved
its goals.
� Listening and questioning are core skills for all consultants, and
consultants should seek to improve both the effectiveness of their
listening and their questioning skills.
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Knowing when to say no
In the preceding chapters I explored various ways to make consultancyan effective and commercially viable business. With the exception ofChapter 10, this has been a largely positive outlook on how to be a
successful consultant. But success does not only come down to executing
your work in the best way, it is also about choosing the right work, and
part of choosing the right work is understanding which engagements to
reject. This chapter explores when you should say no to an opportunity.
Delivering consultancy is a partnership with a client. A partnership is a
relationship both parties voluntarily select to enter. Clients do not just
choose us, we choose our clients. Of course, there is always a commercial
reality. Sometimes you can pick and choose, but everyone needs to earn
an income, and you cannot always be overly selective in your work.
However, you do not have to accept any work, and some engagements
you should not accept. Generally, you should be seeking to have a suffi-
cient pipeline of work that you can focus on the engagements you want,
rather than having to accept anything that comes your way. You should
target the most attractive engagements, and filter out the ones you do
not want. My experience is that consultants deliver the best quality
results when they feel they have a choice over what work they do.
This chapter firstly explores what opportunities you should reject as a
consultant, and why. Then it describes at which stage in an engagement
process you should say no to an opportunity, and looks at the tell-tale
signs that should ring alarm bells about an engagement. Finally, there are
a few pointers on how to say no to clients.
chapter
12
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What can you say no to?
It may seem that in rejecting a possible engagement all you are doing is
declining an individual piece of work and hence losing the opportunity
to earn the fees associated with the engagement. The truth is somewhat
more complex. For instance, it is usually not sensible to pursue engage-
ments which are not commercially viable for you, but, on the other
hand, consulting is a business based on relationships, and every time you
say no there is a risk you damage the relationships you have.
The best place to start is by considering what you are actually saying no
to when you say no. There are multiple reasons for saying no and multi-
ple things a consultant can say no to. There are many scenarios that can
be imagined, but the most common possibilities include:
� rejecting an individual engagement because you are unavailable, do
not have the right skills or the terms are unattractive
� rejecting an individual engagement because of the approach a client
insists on
� declining an opportunity for a subsequent engagement
� avoiding a client organisation totally
� choosing not to work with an individual manager within a client
organisation.
Let’s look briefly at each one of these, and the potential benefits and risks
associated with them. Later in the chapter I will look at how to diminish
the risks. In general terms, the risks are all avoidable if you position your
reason for rejecting the work well enough. However, clients’ responses
and interpretations of your actions are not always predictable and care is
needed to tailor your justifications to the situation.
Rejection owing to availability, etc.
In saying no to an individual engagement the consultant is effectively
saying: ‘I am happy to work for you, but I am not willing to do this spe-
cific piece of work.’ The benefits of this depend on why you chose to
reject the opportunity. However, in rejecting a
piece of work you are inadvertently exposing
yourself to certain risks. A client may well respect
your decision, but there is a real chance it will irri-
tate them. Think of your own likely response:
22112 � Knowing when to say no
“declining workmay be interpreted as
rejecting a client
altogether”
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what is your reaction when any business declines to provide you with a
product or service? Generally, it is negative. Even if we logically accept it,
emotionally we do not like it. Declining an individual piece of work may
be interpreted as rejecting a client altogether. Also, assuming the client
will progress with the engagement, they will use another consultancy. If
this consultancy performs well, you may be displaced in the client’s view
as a favoured partner for future engagements.
Rejection owing to approach
If you are rejecting an individual engagement because of the approach a
client insists on, the consultant is saying something along the lines of: ‘I
am happy to perform the engagement if I have the opportunity to shape
the approach. I do not think I can add value in the way you would like
me to work.’ Again, the benefits you achieve depend on your reasons for
being unhappy with the approach. The risk is that the client interprets
you as saying: ‘I don’t think your approach will work’, which of course,
may be true! The client approach may be unworkable or inappropriate,
but more often it is just unviable for the consultant. A more important
risk is that the client interprets your statement as meaning something
along the lines of, ‘I am much smarter than you and can see a way of
doing this which you are not clever enough to understand.’ This is
unlikely ever to be popular, and if a client gets it into their head that this
is what you are implying, you will significantly damage your relationship
with them.
Declining a subsequent engagement
Declining an opportunity for a subsequent engagement is also fraught
with risk. There are many perfectly valid reasons for rejecting a subse-
quent engagement – most obviously, you may not have the skills to do it.
If you are a strategy consultant you could have a brilliant strategic
insight which is of huge value to the client. You may not, however, have
the right skills to execute this strategy and so the follow-on is not the
type of work you should be doing. However, there is a major risk in
rejecting follow-on work. The client is quite likely to interpret your deci-
sion to decline the work as you saying: ‘I don’t have confidence that
what I am recommending will actually succeed and I do not want to be
around to see the mess.’ Declining follow-on work risks undermining the
client’s faith in your current engagement.
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22312 � Knowing when to say no
Totally avoiding a client organisation
Totally avoiding a client organisation is relatively straightforward. Whilst
the consultant may find a tactful way of saying it, the message is: ‘I do
not want to or cannot work for you.’ If you do not ever want to work
with this organisation, this is a fairly low-risk strategy to take. After all,
you do not really mind what the managers in that business think as you
do not plan to work with them. With the movement of people from one
organisation to another there is a risk that managers later turn up at one
of your key clients and may not respond too favourably to you. This is a
modest risk, and as long as you avoid the organisation rather than explic-
itly reject them, then the likelihood of detrimental effects elsewhere in
your business is minimal.
Choosing not to work with an individual
In contrast, choosing not to work with an individual manager within a
client organisation has some significant pitfalls. There may be many rea-
sons for not accepting a specific manager as a client. Some people are
simply nightmares to work with and take particular pleasure in making
consultants’ lives difficult! It may be due to some personal grudge against
consultants, a style taken with all suppliers, or a belief that this is in the
best interests of their organisation. Irrespectively, there are some man-
agers you do not want as clients. Tread carefully. If it becomes explicit
that you are avoiding an individual manager you can damage your wider
relationship with a client organisation. You definitely do not want to
convert the manager’s generic dislike of consultants into a targeted aver-
sion to you or your firm.
These are five examples of typical grounds for saying no to an opportu-
nity. There are many variants on these themes, such as ‘I am not willing
to work with this team on the engagement’, but the most significant risks
are similar.
Why should you say no?
There are many reasons why you may wish to say no to an opportunity to
earn fees. In Chapter 10 on consulting ethics, one solution to an ethical
dilemma was rejection of the work. But ethical reasons are neither the only
nor the most common reasons for rejecting work. At the forefront will be
commercial issues – there is little point performing commercially unviable
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work unless it has some longer-term benefit or fulfils a personal ambition
or desire. Even if it does, such commercially unviable work can only make
up a small part of your overall work or you will soon go out of business.
There are a few absolute justifications for rejecting client work which do
not need to be analysed or assessed in any great detail. If you are in one
of these situations, the first thought is to reject the work; the second is to
worry about any mitigating actions. I have never experienced it, but I can
imagine scenarios in which a client is asking for help to cover up deliber-
ate legal or regulatory breaches. There may be engagements or clients
whose business clashes clearly and significantly with your ethical guide-
lines or creates other conflicts of interest. If you are not willing to reject
an engagement in this situation then there really is little point in pre-
tending you have ethical guidelines. For instance, most of my colleagues
will happily provide consulting to defence companies, but I have some
who will not, because the nature of what the defence industries do
clashes with their ethics and beliefs.
You may also reject an engagement or a client because of agreements you
have made with other clients. These agreements are usually of the form:
‘Having done this work I will not work with any of your competitors for
a period of x months/years afterwards.’ I try to avoid such agreements
and generally they run counter to the ethos of being a consultant.
However, there are some situations in which the client may be fully justi-
fied in requesting an exclusivity agreement – for example, if you help
them launch a completely innovative new product. You would be sensi-
ble to agree to it, if such an engagement is commercially appealing.
The clear-cut cases may be easy to make a decision on, but in real life
decision making is often more ambiguous. Even when the nature of a sit-
uation should point towards rejecting an opportunity if you know all the
facts, the facts are not always apparent. For example, a client is unlikely
to say, ‘Oh, by the way I’m breaking the law – can you help me cover it
up?’ Usually, things are less black and white. Let’s therefore start to
explore some of the greyer reasons, beginning with those of the most
benign nature.
Non-contentious grounds for saying no
There are some quite non-contentious grounds for saying no to an
engagement. The most obvious is that you are not available or do not
have enough time to do the work. This may seem unproblematic, but
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22512 � Knowing when to say no
even this needs careful positioning as some clients may interpret it as:
‘I have another client who is more important than you.’ Be honest, say
you are busy, but put it positively: ‘I have made a
commitment to another client. I would like to
help you, but I cannot break a commitment once
I have made it. If you could delay my involve-
ment, I’d be very happy to help you.’ Another
reason for avoiding an engagement is that it is not the sort of work you
do, either because you do not have the skills to do it, or perhaps it is in
an industry or geographical area you do not work in. For instance, I like
foreign work, but I turn down a fair amount because the travel commit-
ment restricts my ability to do other things I want to do.
Commercial terms
A very common basis for declining an engagement is the commercial
terms. These may make the engagement commercially unviable or unac-
ceptable to you. Perhaps the client will not pay a competitive day rate, or
maybe will not cover expenses, which are high because of some feature
of the engagement. Another related reason for rejecting an engagement is
commercial risk. You may be unsure if the client will pay the fees.
Working for foreign companies is inherently no more risky than working
for ones in your own country, but if a foreign client does not pay, then
your ability to seek redress may be limited. Hence you may wish to avoid
unknown companies in far-off locations.
The risk–reward balance of the engagement may be wrong. This is often
true with fixed price engagements. On the surface such engagements can
look lucrative, but if you are unsure about how many requirements the
client may place on the engagement, and the client is completely unwill-
ing to flex the fees at all, there is a risk that you can end up working very
hard for no profit. There is a more straightforward commercial decision
as well. If you have a strong pipeline of work and have been earning
good fees recently, you may reject work simply because it does not inter-
est you and you have no need of it.
Avoiding certain clients or sectors, or nature of the work
I have never explicitly rejected a client totally, but like many of my col-
leagues I avoid certain clients or categories of clients. Some consultants
lack interest in certain sectors. For example, I have many colleagues who
“be honest, say youare busy, but put it
positively”
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avoid public sector work. Public sector work is important to consultants
and to society as a whole. However, some consultants just don’t enjoy
working for public sector clients because of the culture and working style,
and consequently avoid it. Consultants also keep away from some clients
because of the client’s reputation. It can surprise clients, but consultants
talk to each other and some clients are known to be hard work or slow
payers, and so on. I have a few clients I tend to avoid for these reasons. It is
not that I will not work for them, but I prioritise other clients above them.
You may also choose to decline work because of the nature of the specific
engagement. Although consultants have a reputation amongst some
clients of positioning themselves to do anything and everything, most
consultants are well aware that they have a limited area of specialisation.
There are many types of engagements I could not do, or could not add
sufficient value to, because I do not have the right skill set to do it. If I
am asked to do such work, I say no.
It’s not in the client’s interest
A more subtle reason, and one which client’s will find harder to accept, is
when you have the skills to do an engagement, but do not wish to do it
because it is not in the client organisation’s business interest. You can do
the work, but you do not think it will have any effect on the organisation
and hence the investment will be wasted, or worse you actually think it
will be detrimental for the organisation. The individual client may have a
grand vision of the future to which the engagement contributes. You
understand the engagement, but think the grand vision is unachievable
or not worth achieving. Various consultants will respond in different
ways to such a situation, but many will not accept the engagement.
How the engagement will be run
So far I have talked about reasons related to the client or the type of
engagement. There are also reasons for declining engagements because of
how the engagement will be run. As I have stressed many times in this
book, consulting is a partnership and, although you may be a brilliant
and resourceful consultant, in almost all engagements you need some
input from the client. You will need information, resources and some of
the client’s own time. As well as resources you may need decisions made,
and in the pressure of an engagement probably need them made
promptly. If you are not going to get the information, resources, client
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22712 � Knowing when to say no
time and decisions, you should reject the work. Unfortunately, this is dif-
ficult to ascertain up-front, and in most instances you won’t know that
the situation is like this until engagement has started.
The client’s responsibility
Sometimes you should say no, even to the best work, because it is in the
client’s interest for you to say no. There are some types of work that
clients need to do themselves. If they don’t do it they will not learn and
will not accept the results. There are many situations in which a client
wants us to tell them what to do, whereas they really must work it out
for themselves. A process consulting style of engagement may be appro-
priate, but an expert telling them what to do is not. There are also
activities which it is only appropriate for the client to do, and no matter
how much they may wish to abrogate responsibility to you, they cannot.
For example, consultants should never perform staff appraisals (unless
they are working in an interim management role).
When to say no
You know what to say no to, and why you should say no, but when
should you say no? There can be a temptation to wait to decline work for
as long as possible. You may delay because of the natural human ten-
dency to avoid a difficult conversation. There are some advantages in
delaying a decision to say no. The longer you
wait, the more you will understand about the
client and the engagement, and therefore the
better information and grounds you have for
rejecting an engagement. This is partially about
you not rejecting work prematurely that turns out
to be viable and acceptable, but also the better your understanding, the
better explanation you can give to your client as to why you are rejecting
an opportunity. However, generally I counsel that the earlier you decline
work the better.
From your commercial perspective you want to spend the minimum
amount of time in finding, focusing and framing an engagement you
will not pursue. Developing a proposal can take a significant amount of
time and if you are not going forward with the engagement, the earlier
you decide the better. It is also in the client’s interest that you decline
work early. The earlier a client knows, the better chance they have of
“there are someadvantages in
delaying a decision to
say no”
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finding an alternative consultant, and the less time they have wasted
briefing you on the work. Usually, it is far easier to minimise the damage
and risk by an early exit rather than a late one. Best of all is not to get
involved, and not to chase the opportunity in the first place.
Of course, there are situations in which everything about the engage-
ment looks wonderful and it is only part-way through that you realise it
is a disaster. Typically, the further you are in the delivery phase the more
difficult it is to extricate yourself and the less point there is to doing so.
Even if an engagement is commercially unviable, if you have done 90 per
cent of the work you might as well finish it. Just grin and bear it, and
learn for next time! When cases hit the press as examples of poor work
from a professional services firm, it is usually when the client and con-
sultant start arguing late in the delivery stage. This is best avoided.
Tell-tale signs of a poor opportunity
If you are going to say no, you want to do it as early as possible. But early
on in the initial interactions with a client it may not be apparent that the
engagement is not one you should be accepting. In the propose stage of
an engagement the information is never perfect. The work is charac-
terised by uncertainty and there are no foolproof ways of checking if a
client engagement will succeed or not. So, what indicates that you
should be saying no? There are some tell-tale signs to look out for.
Firstly, you should eliminate any work which, irrespective of other
engagement characteristics, you will reject. If you have absolute no-go
areas when it comes to working with clients, ask straightaway if these are
going to be a feature of the engagement. There is little point expending
any effort on work that you are not willing to do. Examples of this could
be an engagement which requires you to travel to places where you are
absolutely unwilling to go, or to work times when you are certain you are
unavailable. If you have any suspicion of this, just ask the client.
Clients with astronomical and ever-growing expectations are indicative
of problems ahead. There is nothing wrong with ambition, and if you are
charging premium rates a client has a right to expect good value in
return. But you are human, and if they want you to deliver a lot, the
client must also put in a lot. In the haste to sell, there can be a tempta-
tion to promise too much to clients. If client expectations are too high
you either need to bring them back down to earth or you should try and
sidestep the opportunity.
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Another bad sign is if clients repeatedly avoid providing information.
This may refer to money. For commercial reasons a client may not want
to tell you the precise budget they have, but they should be able to con-
firm that there is a budget, and you should at least be able to have a
broad conversation about the order of magnitude of their expectations.
Similarly, you may need information and resources from a client to
develop an effective proposal. If the client will not provide adequate
resources at this stage, it points to a risk that they will not do so during
the delivery phase either.
You can meet clients who have fixed ideas about how long an engage-
ment will take or how much it will cost. This is fine if the client accepts
you have to shape and scope the engagement to fit their budget, but if
they expect significant flexibility combined with a limited and fixed
budget then you should avoid the opportunity.
Some clients keep the conversation about potential engagements going on
and on, but never let you get to a sale. You may not be able to complete a
proposal as the grounds keep shifting and you are spending too much time
framing and focusing the work. Alternatively, you deliver a proposal but
never get a decision or approval to start, or the client questions anything
and everything. If a client is spending a lot of money on consulting sup-
port, it is fair for them to question the proposal and ask for refinements
and modifications. But there is a difference between improving an engage-
ment and unending alterations, which can become nit-picking.
At some point, cut your losses and run. There is a balance to be found, as
proposals do sometimes take a long time to come right, and if you stop
progressing the work too prematurely you may lose out. But don’t fall
into the trap of assuming it will come good at some point. You can burn
significant effort and some clients really are just:
� Fishing for information. The client is picking your brain for ideas. You
can give a client a lot of information and advice for free in shaping
proposals.
� Looking for a competitive quote to get a better deal from another,
preferred consultant.
� Incapable of making a decision in a fast enough time.
� Thinking that as you are a supplier, the cost of sales is your problem
not theirs. There is some truth in this, but like any business the cost
of sales has to be recouped and if you have a client from whom you
cannot recoup the cost of sales, then it is a client you do not want.
22912 � Knowing when to say no
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High-performance consulting230
� Appearing busy to appease some of their internal stakeholders
without any intention of ever committing.
You can turn some such clients to your advantage. For instance if a client
really cannot make up their mind as to what they want, offer to facilitate
the process of determining what is needed, as a paid-for engagement.
Another time to avoid an engagement is when the client wants, or is
hinting that they want, something unethical or illegal. This has never
happened to me, but I have heard of consultants being asked to help
with some dubious assignments.
The final sign of a poor opportunity is if you just don’t seem to be hitting
it off with your client. I do not mean that you and all your clients have
to be close friends. A consultant–client relation-
ship is a professional relationship and you should
be capable of working with people you would not
instinctively socialise with. But successful consul-
tancy does rely on a positive relationship, and if
you do not warm at all to each other then it is a
bad sign. If your client does not like you they are less likely to accept
your findings and may not trust you. If you do not trust your client it
can make your working life unpleasant.
The way to approach all opportunities is to be structured in your think-
ing, and to observe and listen to what is going on. In the propose stage,
your role is to seek as much information as you can to decide whether
you will proceed with an engagement. As you engage with the client,
manage their expectations about what you are and are not willing to do.
If there are any signs that cause you concern, probe and get more infor-
mation. How much risk you are willing to take is up to you personally. I
tend to be cautious, as a consulting reputation takes a while to build and
is easily damaged. If I cannot answer to my own satisfaction whether the
engagement is viable relative to my standards and my needs, I tend to
decline the opportunity.
How to say no
Saying no is surprisingly hard sometimes. Most consultants don’t like
hurting people, don’t like letting clients down and don’t want to damage
relationships. Each of these can result from saying no. (If you do like
doing these things, your career as a consultant may be short.) You
“if you do not warmat all to each other
then it is a bad
sign”
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definitely should say no if it is right for you to say no, but you must do
so in the right way.
How you say no depends on a number of factors. Important considera-
tions are your relationship and your past positioning with the client.
Generally, the better your relationship the more open you can be, and
the easier it is to discuss your reasons. A client you have a strong relation-
ship with will accept most reasons for declining work. How you have
historically positioned yourself is important both in terms of what you
have said generally about your services, but also what you have said
specifically about the current opportunity. Clients have a tendency to
remember what you have told them.
If you told a client from the start that you will not be available after June,
then even if there is a sell-on it is clear you cannot do it. Just remind
them: ‘As I said back last October, I am not available from June onwards,
so you need to find someone else to complete the follow-on work.’ If you
have regularly told a client you only ever do consulting of type X, and
the engagement is of type Y, it is easy to point out why you can’t do it.
But your historic positioning cuts both ways. If you have stressed you
will do anything for the client or you always have a pool of resource
available to perform engagements for them, don’t be surprised if they are
annoyed when you reject work for a reason that conflicts with your origi-
nal positioning. If you have chased a client very hard for work, and then
do not want it, you are likely to irritate them greatly!
The reason for saying no is important to the way that you decide to tell
the client. Some reasons are absolute, and irrespective of client impact
and response you will not do the work. Most are less clear cut. An engage-
ment may be commercially unviable, but if you do lots of engagements
with the client, and they are otherwise highly profitable, you may choose
to accept the work to maintain the relationship. In this case, you should
help the client to understand that what you are doing is an exception.
Once you have made a decision to decline some work, start immediately
to determine how you will tell the client. You are not only trying to
avoid the work, but trying to do so in a way that does not damage your
relationship with the client. Start by thinking from the client’s perspec-
tive. What is the impact on them of you rejecting the work? Will they
understand and accept your reasons?
The possible client effects from a consultant rejecting the opportunity of
work are varied. It may be embarrassing for the client if a consultant says
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High-performance consulting232
they do not want their business. It can cause difficulty for the client if
they need the work done and there is no viable alternative. It may simply
be annoying, as they have to go and find someone else. Try to:
� Avoid surprising a client. The more surprised they are, the more likely
they are to be annoyed. Occasionally, they may be pleasantly surprised,
but if so you should probably be worried about your services!
� Manage the client’s expectations. The more a client is prepared for
you saying no, the less likely there will be any damage to your
relationship.
� Help the client, if appropriate. For instance, try to find an alternative
consultant to work on the engagement. This is good for your client
and helps in your relationships with other consultants.
� Give the client a reason they can believe and can explain to anyone
else who asks why you will not do the work. The client may have to
talk to more senior managers, and you want them telling the senior
manager something positive. If you do this well, you can actually
enhance your reputation with the client.
Clients find some reasons valid and easy to understand: for example, ‘I
do not have the skills to do this work for you.’ You may not like admit-
ting skills gaps, but it is easy for a client to understand and accept. If you
present your reason badly, the client may perceive it as consulting non-
sense. For instance, in saying ‘the engagement
does not fit with my portfolio of services’, you
may actually be admitting you don’t have the
skills, or honestly pointing out that you want to
focus on particular types of work. Unfortunately, this does sound like a
made-up and feeble excuse. Stick to simple and direct language, as this is
less likely to leave a bad taste in a client’s mouth.
You may be tempted to lie about why you will not do an engagement.
Saying ‘I am too busy’ is more palatable than ‘I won’t work for you because
you are an irritating client’. Perhaps this is unethical, but it does little harm
and avoids a mutually embarrassing situation. But keep lies, even white
lies, to a minimum. It has the risk, as always with lying, that you may be
found out. If there is one thing that is likely to destroy your relationship
with a client permanently, it is being caught out lying to them.
What if it is too late to back out from the work? Imagine you are well
into an engagement and it is an unrecoverable disaster. In this situation,
you need to start a damage limitation exercise. You may not be able to
“stick to simple anddirect language”
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save your relationship with the client. Therefore, your main concern
should be to extricate yourself from the engagement in the best way pos-
sible for both yourself and the client, even if this is a situation of finding
the least-worst solution. In parallel with stopping work with this client,
you want to try to avoid knock-on impacts elsewhere. Ask yourself: what
is the likely response of other managers in the client organisation or in
other organisations? Be prepared for other clients asking questions about
why the engagement has stopped. Try to develop a clear and honest
description of what went wrong that does not affect your reputation or
your clients. It may be satisfying, but it is unprofessional and usually
counter-productive to bad-mouth clients in public. Therefore have a posi-
tive description ready if anyone asks. You will do yourself more good if
you can immediately give this clear description than if you are left fum-
bling for words.
Overall, as a consultant you may find that over the course of your career
you say no to a lot of possible work. If you are really successful you will
not be able to do all the work for all the clients who will want to work
with you. Always be prepared to say no. If you do it clearly and hon-
estly, avoiding jargon, and help the client to understand why you
cannot do it in the most positive way, then you are unlikely to have too
many problems.
Summary
� You do not have to accept any work, and some engagements you should
not accept. You should always be willing to say no to client engagements.
� If you decide to reject a client opportunity, it is important to work out
how you will reject it, as the rejection may damage your relationship with
the client. Sometimes, saying no can actually enhance your relationship.
� Choose the timing of saying no. Generally, if you are going to say no, say
it as early as possible.
23312 � Knowing when to say no
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Key consulting tips
With a complex topic like management consulting one of the chal-lenges for an author is deciding what to leave out. There arevarious topics I have rejected from this book because I think they
are of marginal relevance, critical only to a subset of consultants, or not
the sort of ideas that are best conveyed via the medium of a book. That left
me with a long list of thoughts or tips that will be useful to consultants but
which do not fit neatly into any of the preceding chapters. They are very
varied points but the features these tips have in common is that they are
either helpful, but not obvious, when you start consulting, or they present
useful but unusual ways to think about the world of consulting. The tips
are a direct result of my experience as a consultant and I hope you find
them useful.
It can seem a good idea, from a commercial perspective, to make yourself
indispensable to your client. If you do a great job, a client may welcome
your ongoing and continuous involvement with their business. This can
result in strong revenues from the client and it removes the need for
unprofitable and time-consuming business development. Unfortunately,
a permanent relationship has a number of drawbacks.
chapter
13
Don’t make yourself indispensable to a client.
Tip 1
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Before explaining the disadvantages, it is important to understand that in
giving this advice I want to differentiate here between the individual con-
sultant and a consulting company. A consulting company will benefit
from a permanent relationship with a client, but the interests of the indi-
vidual consultant are not the same as those of the whole company. I also
want to make a distinction between repeat business, where you periodi-
cally sell to and work for the same client, and continuously working with a
single client. The former is a sign of success, but the latter is problematic.
The first drawback is that if you personally work for only one client, you
are not only indispensable to them, you will become dependent on
them. All consulting engagements are eventually terminated, and if you
have a relationship with only one client you will find it more difficult to
find other work. When you want to leave, the client may not willingly
let you. If you work for a big consultancy and your client insists on your
continued presence, you may be left in a client organisation for a long
time to maximise revenues and to maintain a client relationship. This is
not good for your career prospects or your skills development as a con-
sultant. An engagement can start to feel like a prison sentence rather
than an opportunity for value-added consulting. If you do pull out, you
leave the client with a problem. How will they cope without you? The
client may end up feeling betrayed by you because of the challenges they
face operating without you. Even internal consultants need to try and
work across a business and not for a single client manager on a continu-
ous basis.
What is a reasonable length for an unbroken involvement with one
client? That is a ‘how long is a piece of string?’ type of question. My
guidance is that value-adding engagements often take several months,
but if a single engagement is stretching into years then you should ques-
tion whether you are still adding value and improving as a consultant.
Always think about your exit plan from an engagement: what will you
hand over to whom and who needs to have what skills transferred to
take over from you? A consulting company want-
ing to maintain the revenue stream should try to
rotate a different consultant into a client every
few months. Soon after you begin an engagement,
start sending those subtle messages that you will
not be around forever, as it can take several weeks or months to extricate
yourself smoothly from a client.
23513 � Key consulting tips
“always think aboutyour exit plan from an
engagement”
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High-performance consulting236
Your client runs a great business, otherwise they could not afford your
fees. As a consultant, it is easy to see all the things your client is doing
wrong, but if they did everything right they would probably never need
your help. Give them some credit, as without it you risk becoming arro-
gant. Arrogance in a consultant is unpleasant, and usually unwarranted.
Your client has probably achieved things you have not. When you are
speaking to the chief executive of a big firm, do not just think about the
mess they are making in some aspect of the business you are an expert
in. Think about how they manage tens of thousands of staff and budgets
of billions of dollars – something most consultants have never done.
There is a lot of things consultants don’t do and don’t have to worry
about that clients must do every day. Give great advice, be critical where
you need to be, but remember that a little humility never goes amiss.
Why does the client, personally, want the work done? As discussed in
Chapter 2, there are many different reasons why clients engage consult-
ants. Try to get below the superficial level and understand why the
particular client you are working for now wants the engagement done.
What is in it for them as an individual?
This tip is not concerned with determining whether the engagement is
for personal interest, as arguably in the end everything we do is for per-
sonal interest (even if that is limited to wanting to avoid a punishment).
Try to establish whether the personal interest of the client is aligned with
the rest of the organisation’s needs. If it is not, it is best to try and avoid
the engagement.
A related issue is to learn to differentiate between the issue a client wants
resolved and why they have chosen you. You may have been chosen for a
Give your clients the credit they deserve.
Understand the client’s personal interest.
Tip 3
Tip 2
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range of reasons beyond the current issue. You must primarily focus on the
issue the client wants resolved, but if you understand what it is about you
that made them choose you as the right person to work with, you have an
advantage. Leverage this understanding to enhance your relationship.
There is an image of the great consultant as vibrant and charismatic.
Forget charisma – think about trust. A client trusting you is always more
important than great charisma or personal confidence. Charisma and
confidence can help, but too much charisma can make some people
wary. A client is looking for someone they can happily work with day in,
day out, which does not necessarily mean the person with the most allur-
ing or magnetic personality.
Trust is the keystone that will enable you to develop productive client
relationships and overcome any lack of confidence or charisma.
Value is delivered to clients from all sorts of help provided by a consult-
ant. Much of the value of consultants does not come from the primary
work in delivering an engagement, but comes in peripheral activities.
These can be small tips, advice, pointing at useful articles or books, prob-
lem solving, simple tools or even just helpful chats now and again.
If you want to sell-on to a client, then delivering a great engagement to
the letter of the proposal is a good start, but clients like working with
people they know will willingly add that little bit extra. Of course, you
must avoid the scope of your work expanding too much, but willingness
to do that little bit more is a virtue. The trick is to find things that are
easy for you to give, which add value to your client and which you have
the opportunity to provide simply by being around. An old article from
23713 � Key consulting tips
Client trust is more important than charisma.
Tip 4
Add extra value.
Tip 5
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Harvard Business Review that is relevant to the client right now may add
significant value, but takes little effort on your part. Just because some-
thing is easy for you, does not mean it is not valuable to your client, and,
conversely, just because something is hard, does not mean it is.
Tip 5 is important, but needs to be balanced with the fact that you have
limited time on an engagement and already have lots to do. To consult
profitably requires that there is a limit to how much you deliver outside
the engagement brief.
Clients expect a degree of flexibility in consultants, and often this is
essential. At the point an engagement starts, you may have won a fee-
earning assignment, but its precise shape and content may not become
apparent until a few more days or even weeks of work. Whatever you do,
stay close to the original brief, unless you agree a defined and properly
priced modification to it. For example, don’t drift into promising a busi-
ness change, when what you are being paid to deliver is a report. It’s very
easy, in the pressure of trying to keep a client happy, to end up promising
all sorts of additional extras, which you will never manage to deliver
within the time or budget of your existing work.
Consultants regularly run out of time towards the end of engagements,
and end up working from early morning to late at night just to get the
final report completed. There are various reasons for this, and some con-
sultants seem to thrive on adrenaline and caffeine at the end of an
engagement. Generally, this is just bad planning and poor time manage-
ment. Most of the activities that delay you at the end of an engagement –
High-performance consulting238
Be flexible, but stick to the brief!
Tip 6
Manage your engagement timescale from day one.
Tip 7
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being asked to interview one more member of client staff, having to
rework a report following a review by a senior manager in your own firm,
or clients rejecting your findings – were predictable or at least clear risks
from the first day of the engagement.
As all good project managers know, slippage on engagements starts on
day one. It’s far easier to catch up on lost time at the beginning than the
end. Catching up on one lost day when you have 10 weeks to go is easy.
Catching up on one lost day when you have only one day to go is
a nightmare!
Keep the pressure up from day one. Predict the problems you may have
when finalising an engagement and leave time in your plan to resolve
them. It will make your life much less stressful and enjoyable, and usu-
ally it enables you to deliver a better quality result to your client.
Risk-reward engagements are a type of commercial arrangement in which
the consultant agrees to link their fees directly to the value delivered or
benefits received by the client. The consultant is therefore taking a risk
on the outcome of an engagement, and as a result is looking for the bal-
ancing opportunity for increased reward. A classic example is a
procurement project, where a consultant is engaged to reduce a client’s
procurement spend and, rather than being paid normal day rates, negoti-
ates to take a percentage of the procurement savings as a success fee. On
paper a risk-reward deal sounds fantastic. The client only pays for what
you deliver, and there is an opportunity for extra margin to be made if
you manage the engagement well. Risk-reward arrangements have been
shown to work in many situations, and as a result of them there are a
number of satisfied clients and profitable consultancies. It is a great value
proposition, but take care before you get involved in one.
The often unforeseen problems with risk-reward deals come down to dif-
ficulties with measuring the success of the engagement and how you
handle the situation in which you significantly over-deliver. There is also
the rather obvious risk that you may under-deliver and not get paid,
23913 � Key consulting tips
Take care with risk-reward engagements.
Tip 8
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which is inherent in the structure of a risk-reward contract, but I assume
you would not enter into one if you did not understand and assess this
specific risk!
Risk-reward deals can easily end in acrimony and argument. If you are
very successful you may earn a lot, but if you earn too much it can
damage your relationship with the client – even if it was the client who
suggested the deal and who benefits overall. For
example, if your work results in you being paid
several times what you would have earned if you
were paid your normal day rate, then clients can
end up resenting this. I have been involved in
projects where the consultant performed what
was according to normal fee rates hundreds of thousands of pounds of
work, to be paid in millions of pounds based on the risk-reward metrics.
Clients should not resent this, as they also benefit. You can argue it is in
both parties’ interest and you would be correct. However, there is little
point being correct if you irritate a client so much that they will not
work with you again.
Additionally, you will obviously focus on delivering the maximum
amount to achieve the maximum reward. The problem is that businesses
are multi-dimensional and too much change in one area, such as reduced
procurement costs, often has a detrimental effect elsewhere in a client’s
business. Clients often feel all you care about is the reward, which of
course is true, as that was the point of the deal!
Successful risk-reward engagements require a mature relationship with
clients, who will perceive the benefits to themselves if they end up
paying you more. If you do want to enter a risk-reward deal, make sure
the client understands the implications, there is a reliable measurement
process in place and the timing of measurement is agreed up-front.
Measurement must be in place at the start of the engagement, or else
there is no baseline for comparison. The timing of measurement is cru-
cial. Any change takes time to bed in and problems may not be initially
apparent. Collecting data on success at the wrong time may present an
overly optimistic or pessimistic picture of engagement success. Avoid this
problem by agreeing at the start when and what you will measure as the
basis of payment.
High-performance consulting240
“risk-reward dealscan easily end in
acrimony and
argument”
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When you talk about engagement risk there are two separate aspects of
risk: client risk that you will not deliver or will give suboptimal advice,
and consultant risk that you will not deliver in the client’s eyes or will
lose money on the engagement. You must clearly differentiate between
the two. The implications of the two types of risk are different, and the
way each type of risk is communicated, managed and mitigated will be
different. Client risk is largely the client’s issue to deal with, but you
should be conscious of the client’s need to avoid risk, and be engaging in
such a way as to give them confidence that the risk is minimised.
Consultant risk is yours alone to manage.
Client staff will often think of themselves as representing the client and
perceive you as just another supplier, whereas you may see the same
client staff just as a resource to be used by you to deliver the engagement.
There is an inherent conflict in these views and managing it requires a
fine balance.
On some occasions you may end up ‘managing’ client staff within the
scope of the engagement. Remember, staff are not your personal employ-
ees. How they feel and what they say about you can influence your
client’s judgement of you. However, don’t treat them with kid gloves or
you will not get the work you require done. It’s great to be popular with
the troops, but it may not get the work completed.
If there are problems between yourself and client staff, discuss it with the
client as soon as possible. Don’t simply ask the client to remove any staff
you are having trouble with as this makes it look as if you are a weak
manager, but let the client know there is a potential problem brewing.
24113 � Key consulting tips
Be clear about the different types of risk.
Tip 9
Manage your relationship with client staff sensitively.
Tip 10
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High-performance consulting242
Sometimes clients want consultants to have zero impact on the organisa-
tion. The client may be concerned that the consultant may cause some
negative impact, especially if the engagement is dealing with some sensi-
tive issue such as cost reduction or due diligence associated with
potential mergers.
It is essential to act with sensitivity and respect a client’s need for you to
minimise impact. You can reduce your impact, but you cannot have zero
impact. Even an activity like data collection by consultants is visible to
the organisation. It is very difficult to do it and carry out an engagement
in secret. It is quite possible that staff will not know why an engagement
is being pursued, but the fact that something is happening will become
apparent to staff sooner or later. Therefore never promise to a client that
you can work in such a way that no one in the organisation will have
any knowledge of your work.
Engagements often require a consulting team to work on them. When
you are working on this type of engagement, engage the whole consult-
ing team, accepting the strengths and weaknesses of different
consultants. Delivering such a consulting engagement is like taking part
in a team sport. You always want the best team you can get, but, like
pulling a sports team together, the nature and timing of an engagement
means that there is often not a perfect match between the skills required
and the consultants available to deliver the engagement.
Continuing the analogy of the team sports, some consultants will be
playing out of the position they are best suited to. If you are the lead
consultant on an engagement, you must learn to get the best from the
team you have, helping those who are in roles they are not familiar with
to contribute to the overall engagement goal.
When in a team, work as a team.
Tip 12
You cannot have zero impact on a client organisation.
Tip 11
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If you are advising a client to act in a certain way, you should act in that
way too, otherwise your advice seems insincere. Human beings, including
clients, seem to have almost perfect radar to pick up inconsistency of
behaviour and hypocrisy. Yet consultants and consultancies are often loath
to take their own medicine, and act as if it is not relevant to them. The
worst financial systems I ever worked with were in an audit-based consul-
tancy and one of the most inefficient management processes I saw was in
a six sigma consultancy. The line management of
staff by senior managers and partners in some
consultancies I have come across would not be
tolerated in many other organisations. The
strange thing is that these consultants not only
gave advice contrary to their behaviour, they believed it. If you believe
your advice – take it yourself.
If you point out the difference between consultant behaviour within
their own companies and client recommendations, the consultants usu-
ally mumble something about ‘cobbler’s children’ (from the old story
that a cobbler’s children have the worst shoes). This is just labelling the
problem – it is not a valid justification!
What makes you valuable as a consultant is your ability to advise and get
things done. These capabilities improve with time and engagement expe-
rience. All engagements provide an opportunity to learn. But remember,
the client is not paying you to learn or develop intellectual capital – the
client is paying you because you already know.
On every engagement think about who is getting value and who is learn-
ing. It should be the client more than the consultant. Any value and
learning for the consultant should be collateral and not primary. If learn-
ing is your primary goal, you have lost the point!
24313 � Key consulting tips
Be authentic.
Tip 13
“if you believe youradvice – take it
yourself”
Learn on engagements, but don’t treat them as a time to learn.
Tip 14
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Many consulting contracts are specified on a fees-plus-expenses basis.
Consultants are often away from home for long periods of time.
Consulting organisations often set expectations that consultants will be
well looked after when working. These factors can result in consultants
generating huge expenses bills.
Don’t go crazy on expenses, or stray outside the expectations of the
client, or differ widely from how client staff operate. Yes, you have a right
to be recompensed for reasonable expenses when away from home. But if
the chief executive flies economy class, then it is not helpful for consult-
ants to fly first class and bill for that. Do not hide behind the wording of
your contract, as the details of what are and are not reasonable expenses
are often not thought about when developing an engagement contract.
When you arrive at the client’s workplace, work out what is acceptable
and what is not. If you are unsure, spend conservatively. If you make a
mistake – apologise – and if you underestimate what is acceptable to
spend, it is never a problem to start spending more! You can do a lot of
damage and cause significant resentment if you charge for what the
client perceives as excessive personal expenses. Clients do not see their
role as providing for well-paid consultants to live in luxury.
If you do become a hugely successful consultant, have a fleet of Ferraris and
Rolls-Royces, then that is absolutely fantastic for you. But don’t turn up to
client sites in one of them. Clients like to know a consultant is successful as
it gives them confidence they are working with someone who knows what
they are talking about. But there is a difference between turning up in a well-
appointed executive car and showing off. Clients do not like thinking that
the consultant working with them is significantly wealthier than they are,
High-performance consulting244
Keep the expenses reasonable.
Tip 15
Avoid ostentatious signs of wealth.
Tip 16
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and got that way by charging their organisation. There are lots of ways of
reinforcing your experience and competency – ostentatious wealth is not the
best. Save it for your family and friends at the weekend.
Consultants can become obsessed with how clever their work looks
rather than how clever it really is. There is some truth that clients can be
impressed with reports or presentations simply because they look good. A
well-prepared document with excellent graphic design can gain artificial
credibility because of how well it looks rather than what it contains.
There is nothing wrong with trying to make your presentations look
exceptionally attractive, and in modern business it is expected, but do
not use it as to hide a lack of thinking. Sooner or later, and often sooner,
you will get caught out.
An example of this is in the application of tools – such as spreadsheet-
based analyses of client data. Many problems can be solved with simple
intuitive tools. When you present a tool it should be because it is good,
not because of the ‘now that’s clever’ response. Such responses are short-
term. The tools must actually add value!
It is helpful to understand the difference between know-what and know-
how. An example of know-what is telling a client ‘the relevant regulation
is subsection 4.2 of the 2006 regulations’, whereas an example of know-
how is telling the client something in the form of ‘the best way to
conform with the regulation is to train all your customer-facing staff in a
half-day course as we have specified’. Know-what is facts, figures, infor-
mation and data; know-how is approaches and experience of what works
and an ability to make things happen.
24513 � Key consulting tips
Be clever, don’t just look it.
Tip 17
Knowing ‘what’ is useful; knowing ‘how’ is valuable.
Tip 18
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High-performance consulting246
Years ago an encyclopaedic knowledge of a busi-
ness topic was valuable. The person with the most
comprehensive set of know-what in an area was
sought after and treated as a guru. But increas-
ingly most business information can be easily referenced. A 15-minute
trawl on the internet can provide huge amounts of useful information
that would have taken weeks of research not that long ago. Hence,
simply knowing things is more and more just a basic requirement to con-
sult, it is not a differentiator. Clients need consultants to have access to
know-what, but the real value comes from know-how.
Know-how must be real. If you claim to have know-how to make things
happen for a client, then you must be able to make things happen and
not, for example, simply have the ability to list the sort of things a client
should be considering. Clients will soon find out whether your know-
how is real or bluffing.
Value to clients often comes from expressing the problem they really
have in simple terms, or explaining how to implement a solution in an
easy to comprehend and unambiguous fashion. Being able to express a
knotty set of problems that a client has struggled to understand on a
one-page diagram is of huge value. Similarly, showing a logical plan for
overcoming a problem that can be grasped in a few minutes is worth a
lot to a client. In business, the aim is to get results in the most effective
way, not to worry about understanding every aspect of every issue.
Accurate simplification is powerful.
Simplification is also required so that you can complete your engagement
within a reasonable amount of time. To do this, you need to prioritise
where you will focus your energies. A consultant must focus on an
engagement and remove or ignore peripheral issues. For example, a busi-
ness problem may have 20 contributory causes and you have time to
focus only on the most critical three. When you do prioritise, keep a log
of how you made your prioritisation decisions, and ideally keep your
“the real valuecomes from know-
how”
Focus and simplification are of most value to clients.
Tip 19
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client involved in such decision making. Whether you focus on the three
causes with the biggest impact on the problem, or the three which are eas-
iest to resolve, will significantly alter the content and outcome of the
engagement. A client may challenge, at a later date, your decision to focus
on those three aspects of a problem and not the other 17. Unless you can
give clear and appropriate reasoning, which the client agrees with, you
can end up with an ever-extending and loss-making engagement.
There is a balance to tip 19. Consultants love developing simple theories
and models, and generally clients like them and find them useful. But
there is an inherent risk in making the true complexity of real life appear
simple. There is always a risk of underdetermination by the data, i.e.
there can be competing theories, models or other simplifications that
equally well fit your understanding of the situation. The problem can be
compounded by a consultant who, after using a model which is intellec-
tually appealing and gives some useful results in one situation, fails to see
that what they have is just a model and not the truth that applies equally
well to all situations.
Making complexity simple can add huge value and give powerful
insights, but you must always remain modest enough to know that at
best the theory or model will approximate to reality and is not reality.
Business theories are not scientific laws. You must be alert enough to
identify when simplifications and models do not work. By all means see
the value in models and other simplifications – but also see the limits.
Related to simplification is the modern tendency to reductionism. A
reductionist breaks a problem into parts, treating the problem as the sum
of its parts. Some problems can be resolved by breaking them into small
simple components and resolving the individual parts. However, some
business problems are related to the complexity of a business and the
dynamic interaction between its components. In these situations, trying
to resolve real issues by solving small parts may never work.
24713 � Key consulting tips
Understand the limitations of simplification.
Tip 20
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In Chapter 4, I introduced the concept of the client’s change process.
This can be summarised by saying that most activities have followed on
as a result of some previous activity, and the activity that is currently
being done will flow on to another. Hence, you may be involved in some
strategic thinking which follows on to an operational review, which then
follows on to some change planning, and then carries on as a change
implementation project.
As a consultant you will be involved only in a part of this process, and
often will have to carry on using data, findings, recommendations or
plans someone else has developed. For instance, a client may have devel-
oped a change plan, but realise they do not have the skills to implement
it and ask you to help them run the implementation project.
There is always a risk in taking over from someone else. You may not
agree with the prior findings, or what was suggested by the previous
person may not be right. Taking the previous example, a client invites
you in to complete a project they have planned but do not have the skills
to implement. On the surface this may sound fine, but think about it for
one minute. If the client does not have the skills to implement the proj-
ect, do they really have the skills to develop a plan for it? Almost
certainly not!
You cannot always start from the very beginning of every change cycle.
You will not always be involved in the first stages of strategic thinking
through to the end of change implementation, and may just pick up one
part of this work. Therefore you must be able to take over from someone
else, but at the same time you should be wary.
The solution is not to reject engagements that require you to take over
from someone else’s work, but always to build in the opportunity to
review previous findings, recommendations or plans. Clients do not
always like this, as they can see it as simply an
attempt by you to increase your fees. But reviews
do not need to take long, and if you have an open
High-performance consulting248
Be wary of following on from someone else’s findings,
recommendations or plans.
Tip 21
“reviews do notneed to take long”
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24913 � Key consulting tips
conversation with a client about your need to manage risk then they
will normally accept this. It is usually in the client’s interest too, since
anyone who is involved for part of a change process, but hands over to
someone else, may have little incentive to make sure what they propose
will actually work. If the client will not allow you the opportunity to
review the previous work, it is often better to decline the engagement
than take the risk.
Different people work to different time horizons. We all know people
who cannot plan or think beyond tomorrow, and others who are not
interested in anything that is not measured in months or years. Typically,
more senior managers think in longer timescales, but this is not univer-
sally true.
If a client only thinks in terms of weeks or months there is little point
providing advice that will take years to implement or vice versa. The
client will be incapable of utilising your advice, no matter how theoreti-
cally perfect it is.
Summary
In this chapter, I have described a number of tips gained from my
experiences as a consultant. No doubt in 10 years’ time I will be able to add
to this list as my experience and knowledge continues to grow. Many of
these tips will apply to all consultants, but of course the lessons I have learnt
are a function of the type of engagements I have undertaken. The best tip I
can give to all consultants is to be observant and learn from the experiences
of working on multiple engagements across a variety of clients. It is this
diversity that gives consultants their value, in being able to consider a client
situation from a broader perspective than the client.
Successful engagement findings and recommendations should
match the client’s time horizon.
Tip 22
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If you have read each of the preceding chapters you have read all the
contents of the book directed primarily at consultants. As your career
progresses, you will learn, develop and build your own set of tips and
techniques. They will be the basis of your growing success. And if you have
any different tips, I for one am more than happy to hear them.
High-performance consulting250
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The client’s perspective –
buying consultancy
This book is primarily for consultants, but I know the readershipincludes buyers and users of consultancy. Therefore, in this lastchapter, I have taken a client-centric viewpoint, and describe tips
and techniques concerning selecting and controlling consultants. These
tips should not only be useful to clients. By thinking through these
points consultants who want to adopt a client-centric approach will be
better prepared to deal with any client objections to proposals and, most
importantly, more able to fulfil client needs.
When writing this chapter I thought of the Latin phrase caveat emptor (let
the buyer beware), because the buyer does need to beware when purchas-
ing consultancy. There are knowledgeable clients who can handle every
consultant and get the most from them. But like going to the dentist or
the garage, the consultant is the expert in a field (or should be), and you
are in their hands. Naturally, you have your own knowledge and experi-
ence to check a consultant’s advice: you can robustly probe and
challenge it, perhaps even test what they tell you, but in the end, for
pragmatic reasons, you may have to accept much of it in good faith. This
means the consultant is in a privileged position. Any time we buy serv-
ices from someone in such a position we are sensible to be wary. To paint
a slightly bleaker picture, whilst many professional management consult-
ants are paragons of virtue and ethical behaviour, a few are not – and you
can pay a price for naivety.
chapter
14
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There is a more positive mindset to adopt. Consultancy is most effective
when there is a productive relationship and working partnership between
the consultant and the client. These tips can be thought of as review
points that help in ensuring there is a productive partnership. All these
tips relate to areas which it is reasonable to have an open and constructive
dialogue between consultant and client as prospective business partners.
There are complex issues to consider when buying and getting the best
from your consultants that are unique to your context, but there are
some key tips common to every situation. To keep the detail to a reason-
able level, I have assumed a relatively simple situation in which you wish
to engage a consultant: you have a problem or issue and you want a con-
sultant to give advice on how to solve it. My list of 20 key tips for anyone
engaging a consultant or consultancy is shown in Table 14.1.
High-performance consulting252
Table 14.1 Client tips for buying consultancy
Tip
1 Start with an understanding of why you are buying consultancy.
2 Take time clarifying the scope and deliverables of the engagement.
3 Don’t forget you always have a choice – not to buy or to use someone else.
4 Check the proposal matches your needs and expectations.
5 Agree the billing arrangements up-front.
6 Clarify who is the client.
7 Decide how much freedom you will give the consultants.
8 Expect a lot – but don’t expect miracles!
9 Confirm precisely who is in the consulting team.
10 Read the small print in the contract.
11 If you don’t trust the consultant, don’t buy.
12 Before saying yes, be clear about what happens when they finish.
13 Plan check points in the engagement.
14 Prepare for the consultants’ arrival.
15 Keep an eye on who the consultants are talking to within your organisation.
16 Pay for work, not for sales activity.
17 Delivery is a partnership.
18 Check back against the proposal.
19 Check the deliverables – don’t just accept them.
20 Only pay the bill if you are happy with the work and the invoice is reasonable.
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25314 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Let’s go through each of these in a little more detail
Consultants are often engaged on the vaguest of pretences. I have had
many discussions with clients who have a confused understanding of
what it is they want the consultant to do. Perhaps there is a tangled knot
of issues, or the problem is felt rather than verbalised. Clients can be
tempted to hire consultants because they are under pressure and have a
general feeling of discomfort which they would like to go away, rather
than for a clear reason. The difficulty with this situation is easy to under-
stand. If you do not know clearly what your problem is, how can the
consultant clearly provide an answer? In general terms, the vaguer your
thinking is, the more risk there is that the consultant will not provide a
solution of value to you.
In the ideal situation you can concisely and unambiguously define the
issue you want the consultant to resolve in a sentence or two. The more
specific and precise you can be, the more specific and precise the consult-
ant will be in helping you. The shorter the definition of your issue, the
less chance there is for misinterpretation.
There is a related point. You should not only understand what your issue
is, but also have a rational justification for why using a consultant is an
effective and efficient way to resolve it. I am a strong advocate of consul-
tancy, but it should not be the answer to every problem. You have some
capable people already within your organisation.
Whatever your issue, why not see if they can
resolve it? In addition, if your problem is clear-cut
and of a common nature – why not try buying a
book? It will be much cheaper. I am not trivialis-
ing the situation: often the most sensible way to get a rapid solution will
be to hire consultants. But you should give your in-house staff a chance
first, at least on some occasions.
If you cannot clarify what your objective in hiring a consultant is, you
can ask for a consultant to help facilitate developing the definition. It is
“you should giveyour in-house staff a
chance first”
Start with an understanding of why you are buying
consultancy.
Tip 1
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often effective to engage consultants to help you structure your thinking,
or to identify and scope a problem. If you do this, be clear that the
reason you are using consultants is precisely that: to identify and scope a
problem, not to solve it. Good consultants are adept at helping clients
understand problems. The same consultants may then be used to go on
and solve the problem. But it should be a separate piece of work, and
remember that the skills needed to facilitate the definition of a problem
are not always the same as those required to solve it.
In tip 1 I described how it is important to understand your objectives.
The way a consultant will meet your objectives is by carrying out an
engagement to a certain scope and producing a set of deliverables.
The scope should be determined as a process of discussion and explo-
ration between yourself and the consultant. A broader scope may mean a
better quality of outcome, but it is also likely to mean a longer and more
expensive engagement. What factors you need to consider when setting
the scope will depend on the nature of your issue, but also how con-
strained you are in terms of time and budget. Such factors can be
described in terms of questions, such as: which areas of the business must
the consultants interact with to understand your issue fully? How many
people should they interview? Is there anyone you do not want them to
interview? Do you have an absolute time or cost limits? What corners
can be cut, and which must not be? Are there any previous reports or
documented analysis available? Are there any reasonable assumptions
the consultants can make to speed up the work?
The deliverables can take many formats. In traditional consulting engage-
ments the deliverables are a report, but they may also be a presentation
of findings, a workshop or some staff training. The point in checking
deliverables is to ascertain to your own satisfaction that the set of deliver-
ables the consultants is proposing will enable you to resolve your issue.
You may be tempted to expand the deliverables, and it is always worth
pushing consultants to maximise the value they provide to you, but if
you push too hard you may simply get an increased price.
High-performance consulting254
Take time clarifying the scope and deliverables of the
engagement.
Tip 2
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I have observed that clients often find themselves engaging consultants
reluctantly, because they feel they have a unique problem and only this
consultant can solve it – or they are in a hurry and this consultant is
available now. The client may be under pressure from a more senior man-
ager to get on and solve the problem. However, the client is not
comfortable with the consultant or their fees.
The truth is that rarely does a consultant have an absolutely unique skill
set. Even when they do, ask yourself – do you really need it for this piece
of work? For all really important work, get a competitive quote. This is
not just an issue of fees, but more importantly to check whether you are
offered the optimal service.
Assuming that you have given a clear scope and objectives for an engage-
ment, the consultant should be in a position to write a proposal that
meets your needs. Life is rarely this simple. It is only when writing a pro-
posal that a consultant realises there are gaps in their understanding. It is
only when reading a consultant’s proposal that you determine that what
you thought was a clear and unambiguous definition of needs was not
really understood by the consultant.
A proposal should do several things. First of all, it should play back to
you what the issue is that you want the consultant to solve and, without
being a history of your organisation, identify any relevant background
information, constraints or assumptions. Secondly, the proposal should
define how the consultant intends to resolve your issue. Finally, it
should include the commercial terms. There may be other items in a
proposal, but these three items are core. You need to be happy with all
three. Even though you are not the expert, you do need to check how
25514 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Don’t forget you always have a choice – not to buy or to use
someone else.
Tip 3
Check the proposal matches your needs and expectations.
Tip 4
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High-performance consulting256
the consultant intends to resolve your issue and ensure you have some
confidence that the consultant’s method will work within the culture
and context of your organisation.
Consultants find it irritating when a client constantly quibbles over
every single detail in a proposal. This is largely a commercial issue – con-
sultants cannot afford to spend a huge amount of time writing proposals
as no fees are being earned whilst doing this. Do be reasonable and only
quibble if there is a real need to, as it is helpful to start an engagement
with a good relationship with a consultant. But in the end you are the
client – the consultant is just someone trying to sell you a service. If you
are unhappy with the proposal, ask for it to be changed. If they will not
or cannot, there are plenty of other consultants out there.
Clients can be surprised by the timing and scale of fees when the
invoices arrive. As a client you should check up-front what you will be
paying for and when. The sorts of items that can cause surprises are
administration and expenses costs, which often can add 20 per cent to
the overall fees. You may find fees for people you have never heard of,
such as the consultant’s quality assurance team or a junior consultant
who had to do some background research for the engagement back in
the office. Remember a consultant will charge VAT and this will usually
be on top of the quoted fees for the engagement.
Part of the billing problem is the concern amongst clients that consult-
ants will try their luck and add additional charges to the engagement.
This is a risk to avoid. But there is also a risk the other way. It is almost
impossible to specify absolutely a consulting
engagement with total clarity up-front. Like most
service contracts there is a degree of ambiguity.
Consultants often experience scope creep, where
the client constantly adds extra work into the
engagement. This is difficult to manage as the
client’s requests are often individually reasonable,
but once several have been made the consultant is
Agree the billing arrangements up-front.
Tip 5
“consultants oftenexperience scope
creep, where the client
constantly adds extra
work”
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in danger of an unprofitable engagement unless fees are increased. You
may not be concerned whether the consultant makes a profit or not, but
you should be. A consultant working on an unprofitable engagement is
more likely to cut corners to get the work finished quickly.
The best way to avoid any conflict is to agree what will be paid for, when
invoices will be raised and to agree a process to discuss any exceptions or
changes to this. If you are on a restricted budget, you can always negoti-
ate a cap on things like expenses, or even ask for a fixed rate for the
whole engagement.
Do not expect fixed fees to be a solution to all problems. If you do nego-
tiate a fixed rate, do not then track how much time a consultant is
spending on a piece of work as this is no longer your concern. Your con-
cern should be: ‘Have I got a quality result for the fixed fee I am paying?’
Also, if you ask for a fixed rate, do not be surprised if, when you ask for
additional areas to be covered in an engagement, the consultant asks for
additional fees.
When you involve consultants in your organisation you may consider
yourself to be clearly their client. This may seem obvious to you and not
in need of any clarification. This may be true, but it is worth directly
confirming with the consultant that you are the client and they are
taking instructions from you and you alone. For all sorts of reasons (see
Chapters 2 and 5) consultants have a very fluid concept of who the client
is on many engagements. Their idea of the client can vary between the
person who engages them, other managers in the organisation, the
organisation itself (whatever that means) and sometimes other stakehold-
ers such as shareholders.
If you have engaged the consultant, and it is your department’s budget
that is paying their fees, and if what you are asking them to do is reason-
able and in the organisation’s interest, then you are correct to consider
yourself as the client for this engagement. No one else is. Of course,
sometimes it is not directly your budget, and sometimes what you are
25714 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Clarify who is the client.
Tip 6
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asking the consultant to do is in your personal interest as well as the organi-
sation’s. It is fair to say that then the concept of client is less clear cut.
Why worry about this? One reason is that you do not want the consult-
ant seeking changes to the scope or incurring extra fees because someone
else in the organisation has asked them to do additional work. You also
do not want the consultant to be drawing conclusions based on informa-
tion or assumptions you regard as invalid. Further, you do not want
consultants going behind your back and talking about you to more
senior managers (although, in reality, this is very rare).
’Who is the client?’ can be a difficult question for a consultant to answer,
as there may be many people who validly consider themselves as the
client of a consultant. This is especially true if a consultant has a long-
term relationship with an organisation and knows many different
managers there or is running several engagements in parallel within your
organisation. As a client you should understand that difficulty and make
it clear that you personally are the client on this engagement.
There are different ways of getting a consultant to resolve a problem for
you. At one extreme you can tell them the problem and leave them with
complete freedom as to how they resolve it. At the other extreme, you
not only tell them the problem but give them detailed step-by-step
instructions as to how to do it. In most cases a client works somewhere
in the middle. Usually you can give some freedom or discretion as to
how people working for you complete their tasks, but there are some
constraints in any organisation which mean they have to do certain
things in certain predefined ways.
Try to see it from the perspective of a consultant. Generally, if you define
the problem the consultant will come up with a solution in any way they
see fit. As the consultant is the expert this is reasonable, because they
should know the best way to do something. You may have to put some
limitations on how the consultant works for legal, regulatory or your
own organisation’s rules. For example, you may tell a consultant that
High-performance consulting258
Decide how much freedom you will give the consultants.
Tip 7
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their work must be done in compliance with the relevant health and
safety regulations. You may want to put additional constraints on the
consultant for political or organisational reasons. For instance, you may
say, ‘Please, do not involve the sales department in this piece of work.’
Additionally, you may be tempted to tell the consultant how to do the
work. You could say something like, ‘I want you to do this by running a
workshop for three days in March.’ There is nothing wrong with any of
this, but the less freedom you give the consultant, the less of their expert-
ise you are letting them use. On the contrary, the more discretion you
give to a consultant, the more able they are to add value and use their
specific skills and creativity, and come up with an innovative and power-
ful solution to your issues.
To give someone discretion, we normally have to trust consultants. If you
do not trust your consultant you have probably hired the wrong one
(see tip 11). If what you really want is someone who will not only try to
help, but will help by working in the precise way you define, with little
or no discretion, don’t pay for a management consultant. Save the
money. There are many very competent contractors as capable as any
consultant to follow your instructions at a much more economic rate.
Successful consultants can charge what are perceived to be high daily
rates. They can justify charging such rates because they should add sig-
nificant value. From a client perspective, if a consultant wants to charge
you a high rate it is reasonable to have high expectations of what they
can deliver.
Consultants are only human, even if they are highly skilled in a specific
area. Be demanding and do not accept any second-rate advice or deliver-
ables. Expect interesting and innovative solutions. But do not expect
them to suddenly resolve the fundamental issues that have been at the
root of all of your business problems for years and
years. If they do, then great, and sometimes they
will, but do not risk your personal reputation on
it happening.
25914 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Expect a lot – but don’t expect miracles!
Tip 8
“expect interestingand innovative
solutions”
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Whenever a major consultancy tells you about the wonders of buying a
service from them and all about their fantastic intellectual capital, meth-
ods and tools and years of experience, remember that you are paying for
people, not a company. Consulting is done by the productive interaction
of consultants and clients – human being to human being. Whenever a
major firm tells you that it does not matter who they provide as all their
staff are brilliant, smile but ignore them. Even in the firms with the high-
est recruitment standards there are significant variations in skills and
performance, and there are massive differences in the relevance of indi-
vidual consultant’s skills to your circumstances. The situation faced by
many clients is that a brilliant team arrives to make a sales pitch, but the
team who turns up to actually deliver the engagement is not the same.
Before a consulting engagement starts, confirm who exactly is on the
team, and make sure that you are happy that the individuals being pro-
posed have skills and abilities that are commensurate with their
individual fee rates. If you delay the start of an engagement, do not be
surprised if the consultancy firm cannot offer you the staff they origi-
nally proposed. Even so, any replacement must be acceptable to you.
Secondly, get some comfort that the people being proposed not only
have the necessary skills, but are people who you and your team can
work with. There is no point paying for a brilliant consultant who
cannot effectively work in your culture.
You may sometimes feel a little inexperienced about detailed legal and
contractual issues and want to believe that a consulting firm would not
pull the wool over your eyes. I think most consulting firms do not want
to play games with contracts, but for various reasons clients often find
themselves surprised when they are subject to legal clauses they signed
High-performance consulting260
Confirm precisely who is in the consulting team.
Tip 9
Read the small print in the contract.
Tip 10
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up to unintentionally. It probably happens because when a contract is
drawn up it is not drawn up as a friendly little agreement between a nice
consultant and an agreeable manager – the contract is drawn up by
lawyers representing two different legal entities. There is an inherent
assumption that when two organisations interact they are competent to
do so. Caveat emptor.
Do not enter into a contract of any scale without getting your lawyers to
check it. But you need to read it too. Your lawyers should ensure you do
not sign up to a contract that is detrimental to your organisation in ways
that lawyers consider are important, but your lawyer may be less worried
about some aspects that should concern you.
There can be all sorts of potentially troublesome clauses in a perfectly
valid legal contract from a consulting company. Examples include:
� What you pay for (expenses, fees and other costs).
� What you own at the end of the engagement and what the
consultants retain ownership over (intellectual property).
� Client confidentiality: what can the consultant do with any
information they find whilst performing the engagement?
� Changing consulting staff and whether this needs your approval.
Everyone has instinct and gut feelings about certain people. Sometimes,
for reasons you cannot quite verbalise, you do not trust someone. Of
course you must avoid simplistic thinking and rejecting consultants
because of your personal biases, but generally if you do not trust the con-
sultants you are about to hire, then don’t sign the contract. There are
plenty of consultants in this world, and you can find someone else.
Why do I say this? Because if you do not trust the consultant, you will
waste too much time checking their work and fretting and feeling nerv-
ous because you are uncomfortable. You are a busy manager and cannot
afford this. You do not owe a consultancy work, and should feel no
qualms about rejecting a consultant you do not trust.
26114 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
If you don’t trust the consultant, don’t buy.
Tip 11
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High-performance consulting262
You can go too far the other way. You should not buy consulting just
because you trust someone, and just because you trust someone you
should not accept their advice without critical review. You should always
be sceptical about any consultancy offering. As a professional manager,
you should be a little wary of anything any supplier offers you. Your
responsibility is to look after your organisation’s interests, and you
cannot do that without being constructively critical of what any supplier
offers. But there is a big difference between a workable level of ongoing
critique of a consultant’s work and true distrust.
A consultant will work with you for a limited period of time to produce a
set of deliverables. One common point of contention between consult-
ants and clients is the situation in which a consultant believes they have
finished their work and wants their invoice paid, and the client is not
satisfied because they cannot use the deliverables from the consultant.
It is easy for a client to develop a dependency on a consultant or consul-
tancy company. Consultants are often highly skilled and productive, and
can produce deliverables, recommendations or implementation plans
which are meaningful to them and usable by them given their skill level,
but may not be appropriate or easily usable by the client.
Ask yourself: will you be able to use the consultant’s advice or are you
opening the door to an endless stream of future sales? There is nothing
intrinsically wrong with the latter, but you should get into this situation
with your eyes open and sufficient budget to deal with it. Will your staff
need training to be able to apply the recommendations of the consult-
ant? Again, this is a normal situation, but if it is the case you should
ensure there is some degree of skills transfer built into the proposal.
Overall, the best approach is to define as one of your requirements for
the consultant that any deliverables they produce are appropriate to your
organisation and usable by you and your staff given your current level
of skills.
I discuss this issue in more detail in Chapter 8.
Before saying yes, be clear about what happens when they
finish.
Tip 12
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Many consulting projects are difficult to define in a way that you are
absolutely sure that your and the consultant’s understanding of the prob-
lem are the same. More importantly, in productive consulting
engagements understanding evolves as the engagement does. Part of the
reason for many engagements is as much to improve understanding as it
is to fix the problem. This means the structure and scope of the engage-
ment often changes as progress is made. Having regular check points in a
consulting engagement enables you to make changes to the structure or
scope in a controlled way. If you are employing consultants, I recom-
mend having some form of review at least once a week.
Additionally, if your finances are tight and the consultants are working
on a time and materials basis, regular updates enable you to track expen-
diture and ensure you are both getting value for money and that the
work remains within your budget. You can easily make sure the spend-to-
date is reasonable and you are not going to get an unexpected surprise.
Good consultants will ask for this – even insist on regular meetings with
their client. Both for cost and scope control, regular updates with any
consultants you are employing are essential. Most managers have busy
schedules, so plan these check points and fix them in your diary at the
start of the engagement.
Consultants are typically expensive beasts to have walking around your
organisation. They can add tremendous value, but they can also rack up
significant fees doing mundane administrative tasks. Some parts of the
engagement can be just as well done by your staff. Of course, you may be
working for a cash-rich company that really does not mind a few thou-
sand pounds of extra fees, but this is not true for most clients.
26314 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Plan check points in the engagement.
Tip 13
Prepare for the consultants’ arrival.
Tip 14
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If you can do up-front work it can save you a lot of money and make the
consultants more efficient. There are obvious administrative tasks – for
example, arranging building passes, car parking spaces, office space and
so on. Additionally, usually at the start of an engagement consultants
need to collect information about your organisation. Much of this data
collection needs the consultants’ specialist skill, but some data will be
quite straightforward. For example, consultants often need basic com-
pany information such as turnover, last year’s annual reports,
organisation charts and so on.
Of course consultants can perfectly well manage the process of getting
building passes and a desk – but do you really want to be paying some-
one at top rate to do this? Ask what administrative and facility needs are
required, and, if they are reasonable, fulfil them. Feel no qualms about
saying no if the consultant has unreasonable requests, or refusing ones
that do not fit the style of culture of your business. Also, ask them what
information they will need to do their work, and, if any of it is straight-
forward then source it for them. Finally, ask if there are any tasks on their
project that can be done easily by a member of your staff.
Sometimes you cannot help the consultants simply because your staff are
already too busy. However, you may be able to reduce consulting bills by
hiring cheaper contractors or temporary members of staff and getting
them to do some of the less value-adding parts of the consultants’ work.
Consultancy companies do not like this as it decreases their fees, but you
are the client.
If you are the client for a consultancy team working in your organisation,
it is worth keeping some track of who the consultant is talking to in your
organisation. You do not want to constrain unnecessarily the consult-
ants, as this may limit the quality of their resulting recommendations,
but you need to be aware of a few risks.
Common things to be wary of are:
High-performance consulting264
Keep an eye on who the consultants are talking to within your
organisation.
Tip 15
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26514 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
� Paying for consultants’ business development activities (see tip 16) as
they spend time talking to other potential clients in your organisation.
� Consultants interacting with managers who, for political reasons or
business sensitivities, you do not want included within the scope
of the consultants’ work.
� The impact and impression the consultants can give in the
organisation. It is easy to start false rumours running, for example
about impending redundancies, simply because of a consultant’s
loose talk.
� The impact the consultants have on your reputation. If you are the
client, what consultants say and do will, to some extent, reflect
on you.
Selling consulting engagements is one of the costs of running a consul-
tancy business. Experienced consultants know how to manage the
balance between chargeable client work and business development activi-
ties such as selling. When a consultant is working in your organisation,
they usually have the freedom to move around and talk to all sorts of
people. This freedom is often essential to the consultant being able to
make quality recommendations. This freedom is also a huge temptation
for the consultant, as it is a wonderful opportunity to make new relation-
ships and sell other work.
Don’t be paranoid about consultants selling other work: it is perfectly
legitimate for a consultant to try and gain other
business within your organisation. A consultancy
is a commercial enterprise and needs to sell prof-
itably to continue to exist. But you should not be
paying for their sales time. Make it clear that you
will not tolerate paying for any time that you perceive to be business
development activities.
Pay for work, not for sales activity.
Tip 16
“don’t be paranoidabout consultants
selling other work”
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High-performance consulting266
Unless you want completely generic information, consultants cannot deliver
meaningful advice on their own. (If you do need generic information, it’s
much cheaper to buy a book or a report.) The value from consulting comes
from bespoke recommendations which are tailored to your specific context:
your organisation’s sector, its nationality, the way you are structured, your
way of working – all those things that make your business unique. For a con-
sultant to understand your uniqueness they need to work with you.
Therefore be prepared to give a proportion of your own time to helping the
consultants. Consultants will help you, but you cannot simply delegate or
outsource the resolution of a problem to them. Additionally, you should be
prepared to provide staff time to work with consultants.
Factors to consider in allocating staff to work with consultants are:
� Data and information collection: Consultants cannot provide
bespoke advice without information about your organisation. The
main source of this information is you and your staff.
� Skills transfer: You may want to have some skills transfer from the
consultants to your staff as an outcome of the engagement. To
achieve this, staff must have time to work with and be trained by the
consultants.
� Cost minimisation: As described in tip 14, the more of your staff you
allocate to an engagement, the less consultant time you will require.
Usually your own staff are significantly cheaper on an hourly rate
than consultants.
� The limitations of consultants’ own skills and knowledge: There are
many things consultants cannot do and do not know about. For
instance, many consultants are not ex-line managers and some of
their advice will need to be made practical and workable for you to
make use of. Only you can do this.
If you are hiring consultants both to advise and implement, then be clear
to yourself that all a consultant can do when it comes to implementation
is help. The help may be valuable or even essential to implementation,
but it is your organisation that must own the implementation project,
and your organisation that will live with the results once the implemen-
tation is over.
Delivery is a partnership.
Tip 17
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At the end of a consulting engagement, and at periodic intervals
throughout the engagement, check that the work being done is aligned
with the proposal. Even if you have set up regular reviews, it is worth
explicitly checking back against the proposal. In the intensity of a good
consulting engagement it is easy to slowly veer off track compared to
what was originally agreed.
There are often valid reasons why the engagement is not following the
original proposal. The understanding of the work needed will evolve, and
new ideas, different from those originally proposed, are generated. Often
a consulting engagement starts trying to resolve one issue and then a dif-
ferent root cause is identified. Hence the shape and scope of the work
will change. You should ask for an updated proposal or statement of
work. This does not need to be a complex document, and can be some-
thing very brief. Without it, you risk ending the engagement in conflict.
All consulting engagements should result in some form of deliverable.
The deliverable may be something tangible like a report; it may be some-
thing intangible but measurable, such as an improvement in
performance in a department; finally it may be intangible and unmeasur-
able, such as some skills transfer to staff. Before letting a consultant
complete their engagement you should have confidence that the deliver-
ables produced are complete and of a sufficient level of quality. Of
course, this is easier for some deliverables than others, but even for those
that are completely unmeasurable you should judge completeness and
quality. You cannot reject deliverables simply because you do not like
them. Ask questions such as: are they comprehensive? Do they cover all
the areas expected? Are they of sufficient quality? Are the findings valid?
Are any assumptions the consultant has made reasonable?
26714 � The client’s perspective – buying consultancy
Check back against the proposal.
Tip 18
Check the deliverables – don’t just accept them.
Tip 19
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High-performance consulting268
Once the engagement is over and the deliverables have been handed
over, you will receive an invoice for the consultant’s work. For large
engagements you may also receive interim invoices. Your main responsi-
bility is towards your organisation, and you therefore must only pay the
invoice if you are happy with the work and the invoice is reasonable. By
reasonable I mean that it is in line with expecta-
tions and the parameters of the proposal or
statement of work. Even if you are happy with the
work, you may not be happy with the invoice
when you see thousands of pounds for unex-
pected expenses. If you are unhappy with the bill, tell the consultant,
and arrange to discuss it and ask them to explain and justify it. If they
cannot, ask for a reduction.
Many consultants will not thank me for pointing this out, but if you are
arguing over invoices, ask to see copies of all expenses receipts. It is a fair
request, but often extremely painful for the consultants, especially if
there was a big team on the engagement.
If you do decide to dispute an invoice with a consultant, make sure that
the reason for any discrepancy is not down to you or your organisation.
Clients often, unwittingly, ask consultants for all sorts of extras and add-
ons as an engagement progresses, and may increase the scope
significantly. Also, often consultants’ productivity is constrained by
being unable to get sufficient time with you or your staff, or slow deci-
sion making on your behalf. These sort of factors extend the
engagement, and it is usually perfectly reasonable for consultants to
expect additional fees in these situations, although this does depend on
the proposal and what was agreed at the start of the engagement.
Invoice surprises can be reduced by following the advice in tips 13
and 17.
“if you are unhappywith the bill, tell the
consultant”
Only pay the bill if you are happy with the work and the
invoice is reasonable.
Tip 20
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Conclusion
Management consultancy is a vibrant and dynamic business. Like all
businesses it has its ups and its downs, but clients always need help and
the range and number of issues they have are increasing. Many clients
find consultants useful and continue to buy a variety of consultancy
services even in the deepest recession. There are general trends in busi-
ness which are helpful to consultants. The ongoing tendency to
downsize and outsource functions results in increasingly efficient and
lean organisations. Efficiency is great for the bottom line, but it also
means there is little capacity for dealing with anything out of the usual.
Who do clients call when something out of the usual comes up? Often it
is a management consultant.
Not all clients are fans of management consultants, and some profes-
sional consultants prefer other titles such as business advisor. This can
lead to the incorrect conclusion that consulting is a business in decline.
It has its challenges but, in truth, there remains a huge and growing
demand for good consultants – a good consultant being one who adds
value in a way appreciated by clients. The most successful consultants are
those who offer a genuinely client-centric consulting service.
Management consultancy is, therefore, a great career choice. However,
there is a growing body of people who want to work as consultants.
Consultancy is a career chosen by many graduates, and it is also a result
of mid-career changes. There are increasing numbers of experienced
managers looking for alternative careers or the lifestyle flexibility that it
is possible to have as a consultant. Additionally, more countries are
developing their service industries. Geographies that were once seen as
territorial opportunities for consultants are now developing their own
competitive and high-quality consulting businesses who are selling back
into the consultants’ home countries. This is a good trend from the view-
point of the client, as the greater supply of consultants means that to
succeed as a consultant you must increasingly differentiate yourself with
better skills and innovative service lines.
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As I described in Chapters 1 to 3, to start as a consultant you need a skill
that is of use to your clients, but you also need to have or be willing to
learn the skills of being a consultant. Even the best and most successful
manager may struggle with understanding the processes, tools and art of
being a consultant.
Successful consultants build a profitable consulting business by thinking
from the client’s viewpoint, and developing service lines that are mean-
ingful to the client. But it is no good having skills alone. You must be
able to convince a client to utilise them, which requires that you not
only be capable but credible. Credibility comes from knowing about
clients, understanding their issues and coherently presenting your serv-
ices as ways to resolve their issues. Of course, you must be able to find
clients and potential clients must be able to find you.
There are three main processes you should understand to deliver value-
adding consultancy, which I defined in Chapter 4.
1 The consulting engagement process: These are the steps you should
take to go from selling an engagement, through delivering it to
closing it down in the optimal way.
2 The client’s change process: You should be able to position your
services relative to the wider changes the client is undertaking.
3 The client’s operational process: You should never forget that the
most important part of a client’s business is usually its day-to-day
operations, and any help you give must fit within the client’s
operational process.
Chapter 5 looked at ways to go about identifying opportunities, under-
standing client issues, developing opportunities and winning work. The
fundamental point, and one that potential consultants often overlook, is
that to be a successful consultant you not only need to be able to con-
sult, you must also be able to sell your services. This is not necessarily
hard, but it is essential.
Most of your time as a consultant will be spent delivering client engage-
ments, as outlined in Chapter 6. You start engagements by looking ahead
and planning what you will do, but at the same time expecting and
being flexible enough to requirements to modify the plan. As you
progress through delivery, always think from the client’s perspective. Is
what you are discovering innovative, implementable and acceptable to
the client? An engagement needs to be sufficiently wide ranging, but
clarity, coherence and usefulness are of far greater value than absolute
Conclusion270
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271Conclusion
comprehensiveness. The best consulting ideas meet three criteria: they
are innovative, implementable and acceptable to the client.
When thinking about consultancy, novice consultants tend to think in
terms of experts providing detailed advice, but there is an alternative way
of adding value to clients called process consultancy. This is described in
Chapter 7. Instead of advising a client of what the solution to a problem
is, the process consultant helps clients to develop solutions themselves.
The effectiveness and wide applicability of process consultancy should
not be underestimated.
Having delivered an engagement, you must finish it off and close it
down. Often it is the way an engagement is closed that a client most
remembers, and how you leave a client organisa-
tion is as important as how you make your first
sale. When you leave, the client should have or be
capable of delivering a sustained change. If there
is no change, you have added no value.
In Chapters 9 to 14 I described some of the higher-level competencies of
experienced and successful consultants. You should develop the ability to
locate and develop productive long-term relationships. You must some-
times be willing to say no to client opportunities, but when you do,
think carefully about how you will say no, as doing this in an inappropri-
ate way can damage your ongoing client relationship. Consultants face a
variety of business temptations, but sustainable consultancies are built
on a strong ethical foundation. Working ethically is essential in modern
business. Finally, as a consultant one of your main tools is language:
learn to use it appropriately and clearly, trying to avoid jargon and other
communication traps.
You will never know everything about consultancy. Observe, listen and
learn as your experience grows. Share your ideas with other consultants,
who are often happy to help you improve on them. Client needs are ever
changing, and success is built upon an ability to track these changes and
a willingness to adapt your service lines accordingly. I, and most success-
ful consultants I know, are always happy to receive comments and
suggestions on our approaches.
Good luck with your consulting career.
“often it is the wayan engagement is
closed that a client
most remembers”
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Additional
resources for
consultants
part
four
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A: The tools, processes and materials of
a consultancy business
I often talk with prospective consultants about how to go about setting
themselves up as a consultant. The somewhat unbounded question I try
to answer for them is ‘what are all the things I should think about to set
up and run a consultancy?’ Although I have titled this section ‘tools,
processes and materials’ the list is broader than that. I catalogue a variety
of things to consider, without defining them in detail. This should not
been seen as an exhaustive list, but it does contain most of the essentials.
The level of formality with which a business is run will vary from a one-
person, self-owned business through to a major consultancy with
thousands of staff and many partners. In principle the mechanics of run-
ning a consultancy and consulting engagements are the same, irrespective
of scale. However, anyone joining or working for a large or well-
established consultancy will have all the processes and tools they may
want, and so the list is aimed at someone setting up their own new con-
sulting business. I have assumed you will work based in the UK, although
most items will be relevant to someone working in any location.
The items in bold are essential or at least highly desirable in my mind,
from day one. The others are suggestions for you to consider or to
develop over time.
Tools, processes and materials required to run a consultancy
Legal structure/company registration
When I started as an independent consultant there was an ongoing debate as to whether it
was better to work self-employed/sole trader or via your own company. Increasingly there is no
choice, and generally you must have a recognised legal structure such as a limited liability
company (Ltd) or limited liability partnership (LLP). This is one area where it is worth seeking
specialist advice.
Company name
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Additional resources for consultants276
Tools, processes and materials required to run a consultancy (continued)
Company bank account
Cash float
You will not get paid immediately and will need some money to keep the business running.
When you first start it may be some months before the first client payment is made. It is easy
to keep the costs of a consultancy business low, but they will not be zero and therefore a
modest cash float is required.
I separate this from a personal cash float you may also need, depending on how you will pay
yourself during the initial stages of your consultancy. Most consultants, who run their own
business, receive a combination of a relatively small salary and dividends from profit. The focus
on dividends is due to the inability to forecast the company revenues accurately and hence the
need to keep the cost base and salaries comparatively low.
Company credit card
Accountant
Legal support
Whereas you must have an accountant to run a limited liability company, you are not obliged
to have any formal legal support and it may be expensive. Obviously larger firms may employ
full-time lawyers. This is easy to justify as the risk in some types of consulting is high and it is
essential, for example, to ensure that contractual terms are right. For a small firm or a one-
person consultancy company your need for legal advice will probably be very limited. Try and
develop a relationship with a local business solicitor you can call on if required.
Tax setup
For example: corporation tax, VAT, National Insurance (employer and employee), employee
tax.
Benefits to staff
For example: salary, pensions, dividends (for shareholders).
Business management processes
For example: engagement process, engagement/client risk assessment template, risk
management process, pipeline management.
Accounting system
There are many excellent and inexpensive accounting software packages. However, you do not
have to buy a proprietary software package, but to run a company you need some form of
accounting system, even if it is simply a spreadsheet for a one-person consultancy.
Expenses tracking
At a minimum you need somewhere to store receipts and a spreadsheet for logging which
expenses are allocated to which client or to business development.
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277� A: The tools, processes and materials of a consultancy business
Tools, processes and materials required to run a consultancy (continued)
Engagement costs tracking/invoicing
If you are going to charge a day rate you need a reliable mechanism to track the days spent on
a specific engagement and any other costs to be recharged to the client. Larger firms use time
sheets, but this is usually unnecessary for a very small consultancy.
Standard letter/email templates
For example: invoice templates, letters, envelopes, etc.
Availability tracking
You should have some idea of when you are free and when you are already committed so you
know how you can respond to new opportunities. For an individual consultant this can be as
simple as keeping a diary. Once a consultancy has several consultants or more, some form of
forward utilisation estimates is essential. These should be regularly updated and available to
all staff involved in selling.
Business cards
In this era of electronic communications business cards seem a very dated phenomenon. Yet
clients still expect them. If you are going to have them, get them decently made and ideally
professionally designed. It makes a significant difference to client perception. You can however
wait to invest in them until you have generated some fees.
Marketing materials
For example: company logo, website, leaflets.
Sales and other business development materials
For example: CV, case studies, service line descriptions, terms sheets.
Professional society membership
This is generally useful, but not mandatory. However, providing some types of professional
advice requires you to be a member of the relevant professional society. Some societies have
many fringe benefits, for example meeting or working spaces you can use for short periods at
zero or low cost. There are specific societies which support consultants, such as the UK’s
excellent Institute of Business Consultants.
Professional indemnity insurance
Arguably this is not mandatory, but many clients insist on it as part of their contract with
consultants and it is strongly recommended.
Facilities and office space
For example: company address, PC, printer, scanner, desk, stationery, storage space/filing
for papers, projector, etc.
If you plan to work from home ensure you are compliant with property, and health and safety
regulations. This is generally not an issue for solo consultants.
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Additional resources for consultants278
Tools, processes and materials required to run a consultancy (continued)
Reference materials
This depends on the specific type of consulting you perform.
Service line definitions, processes and tools
This tends to be the domain of the larger firms. One-person consultancies tend not to bother, as
details are all in the head of the consultant. Once there are more than a few people in the
organisation then it can be worth documenting formal methods. Also, irrespective of the value
to the consultant directly, clients like to see methods and tools and they can increase credibility.
Standard contractual terms
This tends to be restricted to larger consultancies. If you are a one-person consultancy usually
you end up taking the contract offered by clients rather than offering your clients a contract.
Relationship management system
As a consultant you will develop a lot of relationships and need to manage them to keep your
pipeline of work flowing. At the very least you need a well-maintained contacts list. It is better
still to have some form of tracking system logging contacts with key clients/potential clients,
and what you should do next. Remember, many of your relationships will be with other
consultants.
Agencies/other routes to market
Many consultants gain all their work through their personal network. However, there are a
range of agencies who deal with placing interim managers and consultants and these can be
a valuable route to market.
Driving licence/car/insured for business use
You can work without a car but it does constrain you, as not all clients are conveniently close
to public transport. Note that some domestic car insurance will not cover you for business use,
and as a consultant much of your travel is not to your usual place of work, and therefore
counts as business use.
Additional items for foreign work
For example: passport, work visa (if appropriate), travel arrangements, proof of company’s
tax status in own country (otherwise you may find yourself liable for local corporation or
withholding taxes), letter of invitation (required in some countries).
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B: References
I have had an eclectic range of influences and cannot remember, let
alone list, all the sources that have stimulated my thinking on consult-
ing. Many ideas have come from working with other consultants, and
where the source is a document it has often been an article.
The references I list in this appendix are all useful. They are of one of two
types: those that have had a major influence on my approach to consult-
ing or way I think about consulting; and those which include interesting
views on and tools for consulting, some of which I personally use. I have
also included one of my other books, which may help some readers who
want to explore further the critical topics in Chapter 8.
Alexander, Christopher (1964) Notes on the Synthesis of Form, Harvard
University Press.
Block, Peter (1999) Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used,
2nd edn, Jossey Bass.
Buzan, Tony (2002) How to Mind Map: The Ultimate Thinking Tool That Will
Change Your Life, Thorsons.
Chappell, Timothy (2008) ‘Moral Perception’, Philosophy, 83 (326),
pp. 421–437.
Cope, Mick (2003) The Seven Cs of Consulting: The Definitive Guide to the
Consulting Process, 2nd edn, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Fisher, Roger, Ury, William and Patton, Bruce (2003) Getting to Yes:
Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, 2nd edn, Random House.
Freed, Richard and Romano, Joe (2003) Writing Winning Business Proposals:
Your Guide to Landing the Client, Making the Sale and Persuading the Boss, 2nd
edn, McGraw-Hill Professional.
Hargie, Owen (2006) The Handbook of Communication Skills, 3rd edn,
Routledge.
Hume, David (1999) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, Oxford
University Press.
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Additional resources for consultants280
Kotler, Philip and Keller, Kevin (2008) Marketing Management, 13th edn,
Pearson Education.
Minto, Barbara (2008) The Pyramid Principle: Logic in Writing and Thinking,
3rd edn, Financial Times/Prentice Hall.
Newton, Richard (2007) Managing Change Step by Step, Prentice Hall.
Rankin, Elizabeth (2001) The Work of Writing, Jossey Bass.
Senge, Peter (1993) The Fifth Discipline: Art and Practice of the Learning
Organization, Random House Business Books.
Schein, Edgar H (1987) Process Consultation: Lessons for Managers and
Consultants: Volume 2, Addison-Wesley.
Schein, Edgar H (1988) Process Consultation: Its Role in Organization
Development: Volume 1, 2nd edn, Prentice Hall.
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C: Sample proposal letter
Address line 1
Address line 1
Address line 1
Address line 1
Phone number
Email address
Date
Dear enter name
Re: Ongoing support for the RENEW programme
Thank you for inviting me to work with you and your team over the last
few weeks in Ulan Bator. I enjoyed the experience very much, and look
forward to the opportunity to work with you again. As agreed when we
last met, I am sending you a short letter to outline XYZ Consulting’s
proposal for ongoing assistance to the RENEW programme.
This proposal follows on from the work XYZ Consulting has undertaken
so far for ABC Company. Phase 1 is complete, and I will invoice your
London office this week.
I am now proposing an additional four-week phase of support (referred
to in this letter as phase 2), and outline a possible longer-term engage-
ment to run until roughly the end of March (referred to in this letter as
phase 3).
Phase 2
The RENEW team is responsible for delivering the major change
programme to improve the operational performance of the company. To
deliver this programme you need access to project and change
management skills, as well as specialist techniques such as process and
organisational design. Your team is highly motivated but relatively
inexperienced. RENEW is a complex and ambitious programme. Team
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members have had initial training in project and change management,
but will need ongoing support to develop their skills further and
successfully deliver the programme.
In addition, you are considering the longer-term needs of the ABC
Company. Currently, you have very limited project and change skills in
the business. You believe that having an in-house capability to deliver
projects and change is essential to the effective ongoing management
and development of the business. Therefore, at the end of the RENEW
programme, in approximately 18 months’ time, you want to have
created a team with the capability to deliver any future projects and
programmes for the ABC Company.
The aim of phase 2 is to continue to enhance the capability of the
RENEW team, and to provide overall direction and support to the
programme. Over the next few weeks the programme structure will be
revised in line with the findings of phase 1.
The objectives of phase 2 are to:
� Perform a detailed review of each of the six component projects of
the RENEW programme. I have a structured quality assurance (QA)
process which I use to review projects. (I will undertake the review,
and am happy to provide you with my QA checklists and forms as
part of the ongoing skills transfer and for future use in the RENEW
programme.) The output will be a series of detailed recommendations
for each project manager to increase the likelihood of project success.
A review of this nature will take two days per project stream, working
with the project managers and their project teams.
� Feed back to you any significant issues or risks from my project
reviews, and provide an assessment of the team’s capabilities to meet
the challenges of the RENEW programme.
� Hold a one-day workshop with you and your team, to review progress
to date and identify common areas for improvement.
� Finalise the proposal for phase 3. As part of phase 2 we will explore
phase 3 in detail.
Taking these objectives in mind, and assuming that each of the project
managers will be available to work with me in phase 2, this will take four
weeks. Although I will work flexibly, any delay in the availability of
project managers to work with me is likely to lengthen phase 2.
Additional resources for consultants282
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Phase 3
Since it is not yet possible to finalise my role in phase 3, this section
outlines an indicative proposition that is subject to modification.
In your current RENEW team structure you envisage the role of a
programme consultant working with you to help deliver the programme.
In phase 3, I will perform the role of programme consultant. My main
objectives will be to:
� Support each of the project managers in delivering the component
projects that make up the RENEW programme. This will take the
place of ad hoc support, periodic QA reviews of the projects, and
where appropriate more detailed training or one-to-one support in
specific aspects of project, change management, process and
organisational design, as well as providing an understanding how to
manage IT projects.
� Identify and manage programme-wide issues and risks (i.e. issues and
risks which are common to many projects or which do not sit within
a specific project). The project managers will still remain accountable
for the resolution of issues and risks within their projects.
� Report to you on programme-wide issues and risks as they are identified
and support the identification of mitigations and resolutions.
� Define the role and develop the plans for your permanent project and
change management team to continue after the completion of the
RENEW programme.
The nature of this role may need to be modified as the programme
progresses. Therefore I intend to work in a flexible manner, expecting
these objectives to evolve in parallel with programme developments.
Fees and timing
For phase 2, the fees will be £..,…. We will discuss the commercial terms
and start date for phase 3 when I am in Ulan Bator.
Fees exclude expenses, which will be recharged at cost, and VAT. My
assumption at this stage is that my billing for phase 2 will be via the UK
office of ABC Company, but if we reach an agreement on phase 3 it will
be billed directly to your department. As with phase 1, I am assuming
you will provide support with visa arrangements.
You are aware I have a number of commitments in the UK, which I need
to finalise before I am fully available to work with ABC Company. In
283� C: Sample proposal letter
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terms of indicative dates I will be available to perform the work of phase
2 in the week starting 27 October, and, assuming that is successful and
we come to a mutual agreement, I am able to start phase 3 on the week
starting 24 November. Although it has not been planned in detail, you
should estimate that phase 3 will take approximately four months.
For your planning purposes, I would like to let you know that I will
be unavailable for the weeks commencing 22 December and 19 January
due to existing commitments.
I hope my proposal meets your requirements. If you have any questions
or issues please let me know, and if any of my assumptions are also
incorrect please advise me. Once you confirm that you are happy with
this proposal we can confirm starting dates.
I look forward to continuing to work with ABC Company.
Yours sincerely
Enter name
Director
XYZ Consulting
Additional resources for consultants284
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academics, and consulting services
44
accreditations 45, 54
adaptability 21
adding value 20–1, 121, 271
administrative tasks 263–4
advantages of consulting 14–15
advertising consulting services 83
advisors, role of 149
ambiguity of language 218
approach, rejecting engagements
owing to 222
appropriate work, ethics of
performing 184–6
approvers as clients 35–6
associate networks 80
authenticity 243
availability for engagements 25–6,
104
rejecting owing to 221–2
avoiding client dependency 188
bias
client biases in creating
deliverables 126–7
in client relationships 173
and data collection 118
blogs 83
body language 211
books, writing and publishing 83
boundary setting, planning a
consultancy engagement
113
branding
and client relationships 175
on deliverables 127–8
and ethics of necessary work
187
and intellectual property 55
budgetholders as clients 35–6
budgets
and the economics of
consultancy 6
and organisational change 64
rejecting engagements 229
selling consultancy 24, 26, 28
business advisors 4, 269
business cards 84
business development 7
and chargeable client work 265
and fair fees 184
and the propose to win stage 78,
83
business ethics see ethics of
consulting
business leaders, compared to
consultants 9–10
buying consultancy
client’s explicit needs for
29–30
client’s perspective on 251–68
hidden grounds for 30–2
call centres, and the phase in
change lifecycle 49, 50
Index
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capability
focusing the engagement 97–9
and process consulting 143–4
career consultants xii, 9, 15, 269
economics of consulting 17–20
chancers 185
change after engagement end
156–66
case for 159–60
coherent and complete
prerequisities for 160–2
identifying and overcoming
resistance 163–6
change implementation 49
plans 93–5
change lifecycle 48–51, 95, 103
change management 53
chargeable time 7, 17, 18
chargeable utilisation 7–8
Chinese walls 197
client interface 35, 37, 39
client needs
avoiding dependency 188
awareness of 81–2
buying consultancy 29–30, 33
changing 28
creating 30
and the engagement process 66,
79, 121–2
fulfilling 40
hidden 30–2, 40
lack of clarity of 33, 34
making yourself indispensable to
234–5
selling consultancy 24–6
underlying issues 89–97
challenging client’s perception
of 93–7, 102–3
framing a proposal 101, 102–3
client organisations 7, 32
and client relationships 179–80
differences between clients and
32, 33–4
totally avoiding 223
and zero impact 242
see also stakeholders
client relationships 169–80, 188,
271
closing the engagement 148,
155
confidence in consultant’s
recommendations 158–9
and consulting services 49–51
developing long term xiv, 176–9
developing networks 173–6
focusing the opportunity 85–97
good consultants and 21–2
how to say no 230–3
length of consulting projects 5
obstacles to selling consultancy
27–8
selecting clients 179–80
traps to avoid 172–3
value of to consultants 170–3
client satisfaction 32
client staff 37, 38, 39, 70
and intellectual property 54–6
managing relationships with
241
planning consulting
engagements 114
resistance to change 163
working with consultants 266
client-centric consulting xii, xiv,
41, 51, 58–64, 269
and client relationships 169,
171
client’s change process 58, 63–9
client’s operational process 59,
69–71
closing the engagement 149
Index286
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communication 205
engagement process 58, 59–63,
90
delivery 108
and jargon 216
clients 6–7
awareness of consultants 82–4
change process 58, 63–9, 270
clarifying who the client is 32–8,
87, 192, 257–8
closing the engagement 150,
152, 153–4
next steps 156–7, 162–3
collecting information about 61,
62
collusion and expert or process
consulting 144–5
constraints put on engagements
195–6
and consultancy networks 80
counselling and collecting
128–30
difficult 87, 88
duty of care to 191–2
ethical responsibilities 190
expectations of 259
focus on 246–7
giving credit to 236
identifying good consulting
clients 86, 87–9
juggling multiple tasks 29, 85
operational process 59, 69–71,
270
partnerships with 220
perspective on buying
consultancy xv, 251–68
positioning services with 51–4
primary (real) clients 35, 37, 39,
194
and rejection of engagements
avoiding certain clients 225–6
in client’s best interest 227
not in client’s interest 226
poor opportunities 228–30
resistance to change 165–6
and sustainable change 158–66
and trust 237, 261–2
typical set of 36, 37
understanding personal interest
236–7
closed questions 212
closing the engagement 60, 61,
62, 63, 147–66
art and science of 147–8, 152–5
change after 156–66, 262
checklist 155
and client’s next steps 156–7,
162–3
and criticisms of consultants
148–9
determining the end 160–2
and the future 148
identifying and overcoming
resistance 163–6
coaching 11, 12, 51
coherent change prerequisities
160–2
cold calls 81
collateral damage, risk of, and
consultancy engagements 70
collect, delivering consulting
engagements 109, 110,
116–20, 131
collecting information about
clients 61, 62
collusion, and process consulting
144–5
commence, delivering consulting
engagements 109, 110–15,
131
commencing engagements 61, 62
287� Index
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commercial interest, conflict with
ethical guidelines 196–8
commercial terms 104–5
rejecting engagements due to
225
communication 200–11
and business language 200
and client relationships 176–9
concept of 200–1
effective 201–2
excellent 202
planning and executing
communications 202–11
and process consulting 137
skills 199–200, 201, 206
ways of 201
communication wheel 202–11
deliver 203, 208
feedback 203, 209
how? 203, 207–8
listening 203, 209–11
what? 203, 206–7
who? 203, 205–6
why? 203, 204–5
companies see consulting
organisations
comparative advantage 43
competency 41, 43, 46–7
competitive differentiation 30
competitive situations, selling
consultancy in 27
competitors
and commercial interest 197–8
winning the engagement 99
conferences, presenting at 83
confidence, in consultant’s
recommendations 168–9
confidential information
and contracts 261
ethics of handling 188–9
conflict
different clients/stakeholders 33,
36
ethical dilemmas 193–8
conflicts of interest 190, 193–8
confrontational questions 213
consider, delivering consulting
engagements 109, 110,
120–5, 131
considering recommendations, in
the engagement process 61,
62
consultant needs 98
consulting approach 103
consulting organisations
economics of consulting 19
varieties of 12–14
see also large/major
consultancies; small
consultancy companies
consulting services xiv, 41–57
developing the right services 57
and intellectual property 54–6
marketing 82–4
phase in the change lifecycle
48–51
positioning with clients 51–4
and skills 41–6
qualifications 43–6
types of 46–51
see also service lines
contracting with the client 86
contractors 11, 29
contracts 189, 260–1
contractual terms in proposals
104–5
cookie cutter approaches 186
counsel and collect, delivering
consulting engagements
109, 110, 128–30, 131
Index288
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counsel and consult, in the
engagement process 62, 63
creating deliverables 61–3, 109,
110, 126–8, 131
creativity, and process consulting
144
credibility, converting competency
into 46–7
criticisms of consultants 148–9
cross selling 71–2, 73
culture
and client relationships 177–8
and data collection 117–18
delivering consulting
engagements 122
CVs 53, 147, 154
damage limitation exercises 232–3
data collection 116–20, 255
and analysis 120–5
cost to 120
objectivity of 117
quantitative/qualitative 117–18
sources of data 118–19
and success/failure of
engagements 119–20
days of work per year 18
decision makers, focusing the
engagement 88
decomposition, and data analysis
125
deliver to satisfy 107–10
deliverables
checking by clients 267–8
client perspective on 254
closing engagements 262
and coherent change
prerequisities 161
delivering communications 208
delivering consulting engagements
60, 61–3, 108–31, 147
collect 109, 110, 116–20, 131
commence 109, 110–15, 131
consider 109, 110, 120–5, 131
and the consulting approach
103
counsel and collect 109, 128–30,
131
create 109, 110, 126–8, 131
deliverables and closing the
engagement 151, 152–3, 154
demand creation 30
desirable needs 98
difficult clients 87, 88
duty of care of consultants 191–2
economics of consulting 15,
17–20
billing and invoicing 154,
256–7, 268
chargeable client work 265
chargeable time 7, 17, 18
and client relationships 170
costs 19–20
daily rates 17, 18, 53
expenses 184, 189, 244
fair fees 183–4
focus step 97
taxation 18–19
see also budgets
effective communication 201–2
employees
compared with consultants 8
of major consulting companies
12, 13
engagement management process
113–14
engagements xiv, 7, 58, 59–63,
270–1
289� Index
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290 Index
engagements (continued)
availability for 25–6, 104
rejection owing to 221–2
check points in 263
and client’s change process 58,
63–9
and client’s operational process
69–71
closing 60, 61, 62, 63, 147–66
constraints put by clients on
195–6
delivering 60, 61–3, 108–31
dimensions of 102
exit plan from 235
knowing when to say no 220–33
maximising consulting
opportunities 71–4
and process consulting 142–3
propose to win stage 60, 61, 62,
77–107
finding 61, 62, 77, 79–85, 105,
107
focusing 61, 62, 77, 85–100,
105, 107
framing 61, 62, 77, 100–5, 107
winning work 105–6
risk reward 239–40
value adding 186, 235, 237–8
what to avoid xv
enterprise resource planning (EPR)
55
environmental factors, delivering
consulting engagements 122
ERP (enterprise resource planning)
55
essential consulting jargon 6–8
ethics of consulting xiv, 31,
181–98, 271
application of 190–3
avoiding client dependency 188
client responsibilities 190
client’s perception of issues 95
closing the engagement 155
conflicts of interest 190, 193–8
and consulting services 56
contracts 189
ethical dilemmas 193–8
fair fees 183–4
handling confidential
information 188–9
and legal issues 181
and multiple clients 38
next steps plans 163
only doing necessary work
186–7
performing appropriate work
184–6
rejecting engagements 223–4
excellent communication 202
expectation setting 102–3
expenses 184, 189, 244
expert consulting 103, 113
and collusion 144–5
and process consulting 132,
133–5, 137–8, 139, 140–1
comparing and summarising
146
switching between 141–4
expertise xii–xiii
and communication skills
199–200
delivering consulting
engagements 117, 121, 123
exploratory questions 212
external consultants 74
finding opportunities to sell 78,
79–85
role of 10
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facilitation 29, 51, 108, 132–3
role of facilitators 11, 12, 135–6
skills 143–4
see also process consulting
facilitation workshops 128
fact finding questions 212
fair contracts 189–90
fair fees 183–4
feedback
delivering consulting
engagements 129–30
from communications 203, 209
feedback loops, in the engagement
process 62, 63
financial clients 36, 37, 39
financial services sector 47
finding opportunities to engage
61, 62, 77, 79–85, 105, 107
awareness of client needs 81–2
building and managing networks
79–81
client awareness of consultants
82–4
findings
and opinions 217
and recommendations 128–30
first impressions, and client
relationships 176
flexibility 238
and availability 26
in client relationships 21
closing the engagement 152
and consulting services 54
working as a consultant 16, 17
focus on clients 246–7
focus groups 119
focusing the engagement 61, 62,
77, 85–100, 105, 107
client’s underlying issue 89–97
consultant needs and capability
97–9
identifying good clients 87–9
likelihood of winning 99–100
follow on work 186
declining 222
follow up questions 212
framing the engagement 61, 62,
77, 100–5, 107
client issues 101, 102–3
writing a proposal 100–1
freedom given to consultants
258–9
functional knowledge, and
consulting services 43
generic skill sets, and consulting
services 42, 53
goals of communication 204–5
good consultants 20–2
government organisations 45
graduates entering consultancy
xii, 15, 269
earnings 20
groups as clients 36
handling confidential information
188–9
hidden client needs 30–2, 40
how to say no 230–3
how?, in the communication
wheel 203, 204–5
human resources (HR) consultancy
10, 47
hypotheses
and data collection 116–17, 129
and necessary work 187
implementation consulting 10,
48, 49, 50
data analysis 123
ending 156
� Index 291
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implementation planning 48, 49,
50
implementation
and the client change process
65–6, 68, 69
of resolutions 90
incomes 17–20
independence of consultants 5–6,
8
independent consultants 12–13,
15, 16
and client needs 25
and consultancy networks 80
earnings 17–20
independent viewpoints 89
individual client managers, and
the ethics of consultancy
192–3
individual managers, choosing not
to work with 223
individuals as clients 36
industry sector, and consulting
services 47
informal network building 80–1
innovation, and process consulting
144
intangible deliverables
and the consulting approach
103
planning the consultancy
engagement 112
intellectual capital 7
and consultancy networks 80
intellectual property (IP) 7, 29, 38
in contracts 261
and deliverables 1287–8
differentiating with 54–6
ownership of 189
interim management 29, 72, 90
agencies 80
role of 11, 12
internal consultants 5, 8
earnings 20
engagement process 74
role of 10
and selling work 78
internet research 246
interviews, and data collection
119
IP see intellectual property (IP)
issues, client’s underlying 89–97
challenging client’s perception of
93–7
framing a proposal 101, 102–3
jack of all trades, positioning
consulting services as 52–3
jargon 214–16
avoiding 104, 216
and deliverables 127
essential consulting 6–8
learning 45
questioning unfamiliar 216
reasons for using 214–15
of specific industries 45
journal articles, writing and
publishing 83
know what and know how 245–6
knowing when to say no 220–33
how to say no 230–3
signs of a poor opportunity
228–30
what to reject 220, 221–3
when to say no 227–8
why to say no 223–7
knowledge
and consulting services 43
intellectual property 54–6
and stakeholders 38, 39
292 Index
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� Index 293
labelling, positioning consulting
services 52–3
language xv, 199–219
ambiguity of 218
misuse of common terminology
217–18
questioning 211–14
see also communication; jargon
large/major consultancies
and client needs 25
consulting services 48–9
delivering consulting
engagements 111, 114
earnings and benefits 20
and expertise 132
and intellectual property 54
marketing 83
and operational processes 72
QA processes 128
selling consultancy 78
and selling work 78
service lines and client needs
91–3
working for 12, 13, 16–17
leadership consultants 4
leadership skills 9
leading questions 213
leaflets 83–4
learning opportunities 243
closing the engagement 154–5
and process consulting 139
legal issues 181
in contracts 260–1
in proposals 104–5
length of consulting projects 5
lifecycle, phase in the change
48–51, 95
lifestyle 15, 16
limitations of simplification 247
line managers, compared to
consultants 8–9, 14–15
listening 203, 209–11
live engagements 7
loaded questions 213
long term client relationships xiv,
176–9, 188
major consulting companies see
large/major consultancies
management
engagement management
process 113–14
managing compared with
consulting 138
new ideas in 55
management consultants
defining 6
reasons for negative perceptions
of xi
reasons for wanting to be a
consultant 14–17
role of 4–6
differences from other roles
8–12
managers
choosing not to work with
individual 223
compared to consultants 8–9,
21, 149
and consultancy engagements
70
consultants interacting with 265
consulting services for 43
ethical responsibilities 190
interim 11
line managers 8–9, 14–15
mandatory needs 98
marketing 41
and client awareness of
consultants 82–4
maximising consulting
opportunities 71–4
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MBAs 44–5, 181
media format, and deliverables
127
meetings
planning consulting
engagements 114
and process consulting 134
mentoring 11, 51
mergers and acquisitions 64
mind mapping 101, 207
mission statements in
organisations 34
mistakes, and client relationships
178–9
money see economics of consulting
monitoring client change processes
67
motivation for buying consultancy
30–2
multiple clients/stakeholders 33,
36, 38
necessary work, ethics of only
doing 186–7
networks
building and managing 79–81
client relationships 173–6
next steps plans 156–7, 162–3
nice to have needs 98
niche skills
and consultancy networks 80
and consulting services 42
non-contentious grounds, for
saying no 224–5
objectives in buying consultancy
253–4
objectivity, and data collection
117
observation 119
obstacles to selling consultancy
27–8
on sell 72, 73, 153
only doing necessary work 186–7
open questions 212
operate existing stage, of the client
change process 67
operational consulting 4, 10, 48,
49, 50, 270
operations, and organisational
change 65
opinions, and findings 217
opportunities 27
and business development 7
and client relationships 170
finding 61, 62, 77, 79–85
focusing 61, 62, 77, 85–100
qualifying 86
signs of poor 228–30
what to reject 220, 221–3
organisational change 63–9
outcomes
planning 112–13
and process consulting 136
outsourcing 49, 72
people, working with 21
phase in the change lifecycle
48–51, 95
pigeonholes, and consulting
services 52–3
planning consulting engagements
110–15
planning next steps 156–7, 162–3
political reasons for using a
consultant 89
portfolio careers 16
portfolios of services, companies
offering 12, 13
Index294
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power balance, and resistance to
change 163
presentations 206
well prepared 245
primary (real) clients 35
and conflicts of interest 194
privileged position of consultants
191
problem solving
clients’ failure to resolve
problems 31
and data analysis 124–5
facilitation/ workshops 29, 128
and process consulting 139–41
workshops 29, 128, 142
process consulting xiv, 51, 103,
108, 132–46, 271
advantages and disadvantages of
138–41
and collusion 144–5
and expert consulting 132,
133–5, 137–8, 139, 140–1
comparing and summarising
146
switching between 141–4
rejecting engagements 227
role of 133–8
workshops 136–7
professional bodies, as stakeholders
38, 39
professional societies, and
networking 83
profit margins, and stakeholders
39
profitability, of consultancy
companies 19
profitable engagements 77–8
project management
accreditations 54
delivering consulting
engagements 111
as a skill set 53
project teams 8
project work 46
promotion prospects 16–17
prompts to questions 212
proposals 7
checking back against 267
eliminated unlikely 106
focusing the engagement 88–9,
99
framing 61, 62, 77, 100–5, 107
and availability 104
checking for clarity 105
client issues 101, 102–3
legal, contractual and
commercial terms 104–5
writing a proposal 100–1,
104–5
matching client’s needs and
expectations 255–6
and prerequisites for change 161
and the sales pipeline 105–6
understanding client issues 90,
91, 93
propose to win stage 60, 61, 62,
77–107
and business development 78,
83
finding 61, 62, 77, 79–85, 105,
107
focusing 61, 62, 77, 85–100,
105, 107
framing 61, 62, 77, 100–5, 107
winning work 105–6
public sector work
rejecting 225–6
RFPs (requests for proposals) 81
published work, finding
opportunities through 83
pyramid principle 101, 207
295� Index
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qualifications, and consulting
services 44–6
qualifying an opportunity 86
qualitative data collection 118
quality assurance (QA), and
deliverables 128
quantitative data collection
117–18
questioning 211–14
real clients 35, 37, 39
and resistance to change 165–6
reasons for considering consulting
14–17
reasons for saying no 223–7
recommendations 128–30
client confidence in 168–9
ending engagements with 156
selling to clients 160
redundancy
consulting following xii, 15
and the ethics of consultancy
192, 193
rejecting engagements, what to
reject 220, 221–3
reports
delivering consulting
engagements 129–30
planning the consultancy
engagement 113
resistance to change, identifying
and overcoming 163–6
resources
and client biases 126–7
planning consulting
engagements 114–15
review engagements, ending 156
RFIs (requests for information) 79
RFPs (requests for proposals) 79,
81–2, 85
RFQs (requests for quotations) 79,
81
risk management activities,
planning consulting
engagements 114
risk reduction
and client relationships 170,
172
focusing the engagement 86
as grounds for buying
consultancy 31
and intellectual property 56
rejecting engagements 225
risk reward engagements 239–40
risks
associated with engagements
98–9
consultants talking within
organisations 264–5
different types of 241
of working as a consultant
16–17
role of consultants 4–6
differences from other roles
8–12
salaries 20
sales leads, and consultancy
networks 80
sales pipeline 105–6
Schein, E. 133
scoping issues
clarifying scope and deliverables
254
consulting intervention 102,
103
and prerequisites for change
161–2
and process consulting 142, 143
sector knowledge, and consulting
services 43
Index296
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security vetting 45
self disclosure, and client
relationships 177
sell on 7, 60, 148, 237
selling consultancy 23–40, 78
clarifying who the client is 32–9,
40
finding opportunities for 79–85
obstacles to 27–8
prerequisite conditions for 24–7,
28
profitable engagements 77–8
senior consultants, and
consultancy engagements
147
senior managers
becoming consultants 15
buying consultancy 32
as clients 33
and consulting engagements 97,
108
and the ethics of consultancy
192
PAs/secretaries of 174–5
service lines 7, 47–8
and client issues 90–7
ethics of 185–6
writing a proposal 101
see also consulting services
shareholders, and the ethics of
consultancy 193
simplification, limitations of 247
six sigma 55, 64
skills xiii, 9, 270
and appropriate work 184–5
and client needs 25–6
client’s scepticism of 27
and consulting services 42–6,
52–4
expanding 44–6
updating 54
development 14
expert consulting 146
focusing the engagement 97–8
and industry sector 47
limitations of consultant’s skills
266
process consulting 137, 139–40,
143–4, 146
questioning 211–14
transferring 103, 128, 266
see also specialisation
small consultancy companies 12,
13–14
and client needs 25
and expertise 132
finding opportunities to sell 78,
79–85
marketing 83–4
‘so what’ test, checking proposals
105
software development services 49
solo consultants see independent
consultants
specialisation
and client needs 89
and the consulting approach
103
and consulting services 41–2,
45, 46
service and sector 47–8
and smaller consultancy
companies 13–14
specialist consultants 10
staff see client staff
stakeholders 7, 31–2, 36–9
achieving consensus between
34–5
balancing interests of different
194–5
297� Index
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stakeholders (continued)
and data collection 120
focusing the engagement 88
multiple 33
and organisational change 64
questioning 213
range of 38, 39
resistance to change 165
strategic consultants 4, 10
strategy, and the client change
process 64–5, 66, 68, 69
strategy consulting 48, 49, 50
ending 156
subsequent engagements see follow
on work
surveys 119
sustainable change 158–66
taxation 18–19
teachers and consultants 21
team work 114, 242, 260
project teams 8
technology development services
49
think stage, of the client change
process 67
time, when to say no 227–8
time issues 70
availability for engagements
25–6, 104
finding opportunities 84–5
focus phase 99–100
managing 238–9
planning 111–12
timing of communications 207–8
wasting time 28
travel and lifestyle 15
trusted advisors, consultants as
191
types of services 46–51
uncertainties 16–17
unintended outcomes, risk of 70
up selling 71, 72, 73
utilisation 7–8
and stakeholders 38, 39
value adding engagements 186,
235, 237–8
varieties of consulting
organisations 12–14
variety of consulting work 14
VAT 256
vision statements in organisations
34
wealth, avoiding ostentatious signs
of 244–5
websites 84
what?, in the communication
wheel 203, 206–7
when to say no 227–8
who?, in the communication
wheel 203, 205–6
why to say no 223–7
why?, in the communication
wheel 203, 204–5
words, misuse of 217–18
work-life balance 17
workshops
problem solving/facilitation 29,
128, 142
and process consulting 136–7
writing books/articles/blogs 83
writing a proposal 100–1, 104–5
zero impact 242
Index298
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