Client-Consultant Relations
The purpose of this chapter is twofold. Firstly, it is to explore how the subject of client- consultants relations has been dealt with in literature on management consulting through selected texts in order to position the thesis in relation to these different approaches. Secondly, it is to outline the analytical framework employed in the thesis and the basic argument that is unfolded in the following four empirical chapters. This analytical framework, and the resulting argument, was developed inductively in the process of coding and analysing the empirical material as described in the previous chapter. Based on the empirical patterns constructed in the process of coding I searched for and selected analytical tools to help me make sense of them. What is presented in this chapter, both my positioning in relation to existing research on consulting as well as the conceptual framework and basic argument of the thesis, is the result of this dialogue between empirical material and relevant theoretical concepts. In the following exploration of existing literature, as in the thesis as a whole, the focus is on how client-consultant relations are approached and conceptualised within different strands of literature on consulting.
PRESCRIPTIONS FOR EFFECTIVE RELATIONSHIPS
In reviewing the literature on consulting, Poulfelt and Greiner (2005) found that the majority of work focuses on the roles and behaviour of consultants and is at the same time often normative in nature (Poulfelt and Greiner 2005: 347-348). In this section I focus on this type of prescriptive literature on consulting.
Schein's "Process Consultation" (1988) and Maister, Green and Galford's "The Trusted Advisor" (2002) represent examples of such literature written by consultants for consultants about the best way to behave with clients and the best role to assume in relation to clients. Both see the client-consultant relationship as crucial and focus, in different ways, on how
consultants should build the relationship, create trust and involve the client. And both argue that consulting should be approached as a joint journey (Maister et al. 2002: 13; Schein 1988: 10). This emphasis on relationship- and trust building also figures in other prescriptive literature (Schein 1999, 2002; Cockman et. al. 1999; Carucci and Tetenbaum 2000; Kubr 2002; Fombrun and Nevins 2004). Kubr (2002) for instance, in his guide for the profession, states that it is of critical importance to create and maintain an effective consultant-client relationship. As he goes on to say:
"Building this relationship is not easy. To achieve success, both consultants and clients need to be aware of the human, cultural and other factors that will affect their relationship, and of the errors to be avoided when working together. They must be prepared to make a special effort to build and maintain a relationship of understanding, collaboration and trust that makes the effective intervention of an independent professional possible. There is no alternative." (Kubr 2002: 61).
Although Kubr (2002) emphasises that both consultants and clients have to make an effort to build and maintain the relationship the focus in this type of literature is mainly on how the consultant should do this as I will get back to. Another typical feature of prescriptive perspectives on client-consultant relations is the tendency to talk about the client as an individual and the client-consultant relationship as personal as also mentioned in the introduction.
In Maister et al. (2002) the client appears to be mainly the commissioning client or 'primary contact' as they call it. They furthermore state that they focus on the trust relationship that is to be built between two individuals - "an advisor serving a client" (2002: x). For Maister et al. the client-consultant relationship is thus essentially a personal relationship and their approach to how the consultant should behave and the skills necessary refers to interpersonal dynamics as their metaphor of romantic relationships indicates (2002: 37). The consultants have to create a close personal relation to the client that is based on trust in a way that has much in common with the relationships people build in their personal lives as the authors argue (ibid.).
At the same time they also mention that it is rarely just one person that is the client (ibid. 35). The consultant thus also has to be able to deal with politics and "learn the skills and methodologies for bringing the different players 'on board'" (ibid.). However, Maister et al. do not take it into further consideration how such social dynamics evolve or how the consultant come to participate in them as a social actor and with what consequences.
At first sight, Schein (1988) differs in his definition of the client, because he operates with the concept of the 'client system' and stresses that the client is the entire organisation (1988: 127). Schein does, however, also emphasise the importance of relationship building with the 'contact client' in his terms.
"One of the most important criteria for predicting the likelihood that a useful consultation relationship will result is the initial relationship formed between me and the contact client" (Schein 1988: 121).
Schein seems to distinguish between the personal relationship with an individual, as for instance the contact client, and the consultation relationship as such and stresses that the client is the entire organisation. As he states:
"[…] my client is not just the contact person or the person of highest rank but the entire group with which I am working and, by implication, the entire organisation. […] This concept of the whole group or organization as the client is one of the trickiest, yet most important, aspects of PC. In observing other consultants operating in the organization in which I have been working, I have noticed that many of them essentially take the highest- level manager, typically the president, as their primary client […]. In contrast, as a process consultant, I have found myself to be most effective if I can gain the trust of all key parties with whom I am working so that none ever thinks of me as pushing someone else's ideas." (ibid. 127-128).
Although Schein uses the concept of the 'client system', and stresses that the client is the entire organisation, there is nevertheless still a tendency to treat relationships as personal. The case story he uses to illustrate the above point indicates that it is, similarly to Maister et al., about gaining trust with individuals. Schein spends a good part of the book presenting his theory of 'human processes' that he declares is inspired by social psychology, sociology and anthropology (1988: 19). He does not, however, deal with the consultant himself as a social actor participating in social processes or situate client-consultant relations within these processes. In a later book, Schein (1999) makes the dynamics of the relationship his main focus of attention. As he says it in the preface, it is "necessary to understand the sociological dynamics of the helping relationship" (1999: xii). It is, however, mainly "the psychological forces that operate when one person asks another for 'help'" (1999: 30) that is in focus throughout the book, i.e. "the psychodynamics of the helping relationship" (ibid.) as he puts it. Thus in the conceptualisation of client-consultant relations, Schein (1988, 1999) and Maister et al. (2002) are similar in the sense that it is mainly about one-to-one interpersonal
relationships and relationship building. Both represent insightful and useful literature as such, but as I will argue further below, they leave other aspects of social relations more or less out of the picture.
The consultant as the active agent
As examples of prescriptive consulting literature, Schein (1988, 1999) and Maister et al. (2002) furthermore share the focus on the consultant as the main agent of creating the relationship regardless of whether the consultant is termed helper or advisor. As Schein formulates the focus of his book on relationship building (1999):
"What the helper/consultant needs to know, what skills she needs to develop, what attitudes she needs to hold to build and maintain effective helping relationships, and what she needs to do to implement this philosophy of helping are the primary focus of this book." (Schein 1999: 1).
The consultant has to establish the relationship and secure that it is helping, useful, value- creating, effective and productive. Implicitly, this means that if the consultant has the necessary relationship and trust building skills, behaves correctly and assumes the correct role, as each author defines it, then the consulting process will (most likely) be successful. Maister et al. state that trust of course goes both ways and the client has to participate and reciprocate in order to build it (2002: 23). The book, however, focuses on the 'trust-enhancing techniques' (ibid. 24) to be used by consultants and the interpersonal skills they should possess and it is the consultant that has to take the lead in relationship building (ibid. 38).
"Sometimes our unconscious views of being a 'professional' are based on distinguishing ourselves from our clients. In some ways, this separates us from our clients. But relationship building requires us to find common, not separate ground." (Maister et al. 2002: 37).
"The essence of professionalism lies not in distinguishing ourselves from our clients, but in aligning with them to improve their situations." (ibid. 56).
As we see here the consultant is perceived as the active agent that potentially creates distinctions and should make sure not to do so and foster an 'us' with the client instead (ibid. 57). Schein similarly focuses on how the consultant should behave and 'define a relationship' (1988: 119):
"My behaviour must illustrate at all times my commitment to establishing a helpful relationship" (Schein 1988: 121).
"The most important point to get across is that I will not function as an expert problem solver in the traditional consultant role." (ibid. 125).
"For example, in the interview itself, my method of asking questions and the content of what I ask project a certain image of me. If I want to establish a collaborative, helping relationship with the person being interviewed, I must behave in a manner congruent with such a relationship. This means I cannot play the role of the psychologist who asks obscure questions upon which I then place 'secret' interpretations or the like" (ibid. 145).
It is also here quite clear who the active agent is. The implication is that the consultant is able to define his or her role if everything is done correctly. In his later book, Schein (1999) extends this idea and argues that the consultant also can and should switch roles according to what is relevant. Schein (1988) takes into consideration that clients might have expectations that are in conflict with the role the consultant assumes. But again the consultant has to, and implicitly can, make sure that these are cleared up so the client has the correct expectations:
"As many of these expectations as possible must be revealed early so that they do not become traps or sources of disappointment later if I refuse to go along with something that the client expects of me" (ibid. 127).
Again an image of the consultant as the agent in control is portrayed. The consultant can refuse to do things and in order to avoid client disappointment should make sure that client expectations are revealed and aligned. Schein mentions that clients might conceal certain motives, but in that case they can be dealt with when they arise. He illustrates this with a case story and concludes:
"Getting back to setting the proper expectations on the part of the client, I have to state clearly that I will not function as an expert resource on human relations problems, but that I will try to help the client to solve those problems by providing alternatives […]. Finally I have to make it plain that when I am observing in meeting, I will not be very active but will comment on what is happening or give feedback only as I feel it will be helpful to the group in accomplishing its task". (ibid. 129).
The consultant 'sets the proper expectations' by stating clearly and making it plain how he or she will function and will not function. The consultant decides and knows best what is helpful and useful to the client in the consulting process. Schein sees the process consultation role he is advocating as clearly distinct from other consulting roles, namely the 'expertise model' and
the 'doctor-patient model' (1988: 5-9). Thus the consultant has to make the client aware of what the consultant's role is, and in what way it is different from other consulting roles, behave in accordance with it and make sure that the expectations of the client are aligned. If the client is not aligned with what to expect from the consultant it is better not to initiate the consulting process at all or terminate it.
Compared to Schein, Maister et al. (2002) are more focused on adjusting to the client and client expectations and they state that at the end of the day it is the client that is in charge (2002: 30). It is generally a slightly less powerful image of the consultant in comparison with Schein, but Maister et al. also talk about how the consultant should manage the expectations of the client (2002: 126) in a way that is very similar to Schein (1988). The general tendency in both books is the representation of the consultant as the main agent for building and maintaining the right relationship.
It is of course not surprising that prescriptive literature written by consultants for consultants take this standpoint. After all the aim is to help consultants improve and the focus is thus on what the consultant can do to do it right so to speak. As such this literature is valuable and useful to consultants. The popularity of personal trust and collaboration ideals and the wide ranging acceptance of process consultation ideals of creating client ownership of problems and solutions illustrates that the normative messages are embraced by consultants in different ways. Maister et al. themselves present several ideas that seem heavily inspired by Schein to say the least. As for instance, when they state that it is "a misleading belief that the advisor's job is to solve problems rather than to help the client solve problems" (Maister et al 2002: 57).
Prescriptive literature can become extensively influential and certain perceptions advocated are transformed into repertoires for making sense of what you do as a consultant, how you do it and repertoires for creating your identity and that of the consulting firm. As Alvesson and Johansson (2002) state, the consultants are not just the target group as readers of such literature; they are also a group being attributed with status and identity (2002: 229).
What is missing in the relationship equation?
One of the consultants in my study recommended that I read "The Trusted Advisor" (Maister et al. 2002) when I first started my fieldwork on the assignment he was working on. He told me that the book was a good representation of his own approach to consulting and that of his
firm. He explained that it is precisely the approach of creating trust, collaborating and involving the client that makes his firm unique and enables the creation of client ownership and learning. The other consulting firm in my study also subscribes to very similar ideas and Maister et al.'s "trust equation" (2002: 69) is on the wall in large print signalling the importance of the ideals of trust and relationship building.
I did as the above consultant suggested. I read "The Trusted Advisor" early on and over the course of my fieldwork I experienced consultants from both firms talking about and practicing ideals and using techniques not too dissimilar from what both Schein and Maister et al. advocate. Indeed the consultants I got to know generally have good personal relationship building skills and they would probably score relatively high on 'trustworthiness' according to the 'trust equation' (Maister et al. 2002: 69). A good indication is the extent to which the commissioning clients in both organisations were very happy with the collaboration. There was also an unmistakeable 'us' atmosphere (on most occasions), laughing together, common ground and common stories. My feeling and experience was that the consultants were generally trusted by their clients in ways that resemble the ideals prescribed in "The Trusted Advisor".
However, without being able to really put my finger on it at the time of the fieldwork, it kept occurring to me that something is missing in the equation. It is that something I explore in this thesis by conceptualising client-consultant relations, not as interpersonal one-to-one relationships, but as social relations and dialectic processes of collective identification. I focus not on stories of personal relationships, trust and chemistry but instead explore patterns of how consultants are perceived and defined as particular kinds of social actors in a social context that is the client organisation. This also means that contrary to most prescriptive literature my starting point is the client context and how internal actors position consultants.
In Schein's (1988) argument it is only in process consultation that client and consultant diagnose the problem and develop the solution together in a joint process. I argue that that is the case regardless of the role the consultant explicitly is attempting to assume or the approach used. Consulting is always a joint accomplishment. This has the implication that it is problematic to look at consulting roles in isolation from how internal actors position consultants.
Furthermore, I conceptualise 'the client', not just as the commissioning client and/or other individuals in the client organisation, but as collectivities of people. As also described
earlier, this means that I place less importance on personal characteristics of individuals and their personal relationships with each other. It is important to emphasise that by so doing I am not claiming that personal trust and other interpersonal dynamics of relationships are not important and I will maintain that the insights and advice on relationship building of prescriptive literature are useful for consultants. I will, however, leave these interpersonal aspects out of my analytical equation in order to highlight social aspects of relations and what this means for consultants' opportunities for taking part in creating change in client organisations as they aim to do.
With this analytical perspective the thesis also represents a shift away from the concern with normative evaluation of individual consultants as good or bad and individual consulting actions as right or wrong that is implicit to prescriptive literature. Instead the focus is on the social context within which consultants' actions are performed and interpreted. The consultants enter and become part of, if only temporarily, social contexts where they, from a