Managing Consultants
Beyond the “us vs. them”.
The term ‘consultant’ can describe anyone from freelancers to executive advisors, senior experts, or ad interim staff. In some contexts, ‘consultant’ is also code for an ‘undercover secret agent’, a level of ‘cool’ rarely achieved in the profession. Vague as their label is, management consultants are often both sought after and portrayed as lacking practical mindsets, which can lead internal staff to entertain an “us vs. them” attitude hindering the co-development and sustainability of solutions.
A lot has been said about working with or as a management consultant. Indeed, if consultants can’t just waltz in to deliver benchmarked gospel, they are only as useful as clients’ ability to manage them. Beyond planning, capacity, and access, shared responsibility is a key success factor for the consulting relationship. It requires leaders and advisors to move away from transactional approaches and to gain understanding of their own and each other’s contexts and motives.
The essence of successful consulting may be encapsulated in Theodore Roosevelt’s famous saying: “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care”. That sense of care may be understood as a stewardship regarding leaders’ vision and mission, but also more simply as professionalism and care for a job well-done.
“Besides successful delivery, what can leaders aim for in their relationship with consultants?”, asked the Mouse.
As it has been said, consultants’ superpower comes from their status positioning them as external people a leader can trust. Their kryptonite is fewfold: presenting opinions as analyses, mistaking their responsibility to advise for an accountability to decide, or attempting to “save leaders” from themselves.
Unlike many other service providers, consultants, broadly speaking, are not a regulated profession, and cannot rely on pre-defined quality standards. Similarly, those working outside of larger firms do not necessarily have access to supervisors to help them navigate emotionally challenging situations. Hence, consultants’ business ethics are paramount, and managing engagement is an effort that requires proper time and resources, both from clients and themselves.
Clients may find in their relationship with consultants the opportunity to refine their own leadership style and explore what their relationship with their own team could be. Indeed, there are known signs of healthy consulting relationships: eye-to-eye level conversations, mutual understanding of parties’ interests, focus on results and not on best-efforts, appropriate emotional distance, etc.
Strikingly, those signs are at odds with many of the tell-tale stories about symbolic conflict in everyday management, the far-to-common sentiment of alienation of teams to their organisation, and the exhaustion one can feel working in environments where productivity and emotion management doesn’t seem to cohabit well.
One could argue that consultants’ status and business model create favourable conditions for well-managed interactions. Still, leaders can choose to value outside help for the fresh perspective and experience it brings or as additional horsepower. Again, a good consultant is probably both and navigates the need for either, consciously.
Yet, there is no objective reason this could not apply to teams as well. Teams can bring fresh perspective too, provided we value their contexts, avoid labels and toxic role-plays. They can also achieve a lot and challenge themselves through a best-effort approach, provided they are aligned with the greater purpose it serves.
Reciprocally, consultants are well placed to witness leaders’ loneliness. If the latter comes from being the person ultimately accountable for certain decisions, it can be accentuated by poor relationships with their teams.
Acting as mediators, consultants can help teams develop a kinder look at their leaders, and leaders can then fall in love again with their organisation. Achieving this “judo move”, at odds with the natural “us vs. them” reaction, requires proper training and awareness. The perception of fairness and trust that teams and leaders will put in their consultants is something to be earned by making every interaction a safe space to emulate a leadership style all would like to see in their organisation.
The mediating consultant may need to reflect on archetypal questions in the business, such as:
What are my own interests and motives in taking this role?
With whom do I have, and do I manage a relationship?
What are the existing or perceived power asymmetries in those relationships?
How can I manage expectations?
What I am responsible for and will I step out of my role?
…
For consultants, embracing that mediator role makes the job even more interesting, for the opportunity to fail or stumble whilst on one’s personal development journey is far greater. With it comes the responsibility to abide by another key principle of conflict management: “do no harm”. In other words, it is better to stick to the brief than take-on an unasked-for mediator role that may reveal vulnerable spots in the organisation beyond your control.
Handle with care.
Baptiste Raymond - 06/2022.