ques

120

Arthur N. Thrner

Consulting is more than

giving advice

By building on a hierarchy of goals, consultants and managers can work toward mutual interests

of all the relationships that executives enter into with outsiders, perhaps none is so tainted by misunderstanding as the engagement of management consultants. Tb executives, consuhants may seem con- cerned mainly with prolonging their assignments and un- able to appreciate the practicalities of managerial issues. Conversely, consultants may see their clients as short- sighted and lacking the backbone necessary to make important decisions. How can such stereotypes be done away withi By starting at the beginning of the assignment. Mr. Ihrner maintains that if managers and outside advisers work out in advance what is expected of each party during their work together, the chances of solving problems are improved. He suggests that managers and consuhants structure the engagement according to a hierarchy of goals — which proceeds from the most basic objective, pro- viding information, to the most sophisticated, permanent improvement of organizational effectiveness. The best way to move up that hierarchy is for executives and advisers to work together to identify needs and develop solutions.

Mr TUrner is professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School. Recently he has studied management education and consulting in several developing countries. His current research and teaching focus on the process of effective consulting.

Illustrations by Geoffrey Moss.

Each year management consultants in the United States receive more than $2 billion for their services.' Much of this money pays for impractical data and poorly implemented recommendations.^ To reduce this v̂ âste, clients need a better understanding of what consulting assignments can accomplish. They need to ask more from such advisers, who in turn must leam to satisfy expanded expectations.

This article grows out of current research on effective consulting, including interviews with partners and officers of five well-known firms. It also stems from my experience supervising beginning consultants and from the many conversations and associations I've had with consultants and clients in the United States and abroad. These experiences lead me to propose a means of clarifying the purposes of management consulting. When clarity about purpose exists, both parties are more likely to handle the engagement process satisfactorily.

A hierarchy of purposes

Management consulting includes a hroad range of activities, and the many firms and their members often define these practices quite differently. One way to categorize the activities is in terms of the professional's area of expertise (such as competitive analysis, corporate strategy, operations management, or human resources). But in practice, as many differ- ences exist within these categories as hetween them.

1 lames H, Kennedy, ed., 2 See lean Pierre Frankenhuis, Dirtctory til Managemeni Con.^ullantfi. "How to Get a Goad Consultant," (Fiiiwilliam, N.H.: HBR Nnvember-Dccemher 1977, Consultant's News, iy79). p. 133,

Management consulting 121

Another approach is to view the process as a sequence of phases - entry, contracting, diagnosis, data collection, feedback, implementation, and so on. However, these phases are usually less discrete than most consultants admit.

Perhaps a more useful way of analyzing the process is to consider its purposes; clarity about goals certainly influences an engagement's success. Here are consulting's eight fundamental objectives, arranged hierarchically (also see the Exhibit):

1 Providing information to a client.

2 Solving a client's problems.

3 Making a diagnosis, which may necessi- tate redefinition of the problem.

4 Making recommendations based on the diagnosis.

5 Assisting with implementation of rec- ommended solutions.

6 Building a consensus and commitment around corrective action.

•̂ Facilitating client learning-that is, teaching clients how to resolve similar problems in the future.

8 Permanently improving organizational effectiveness.

The lower-numbered purposes are bet- ter understood and practiced and are also more requested hy clients. Many consultants, however, aspire to a higher stage on the pyramid than most of their engagements achieve.

Purposes 1 through 5 are generally con- sidered legitimate functions, though some controversy surrounds purpose 5. Management consultants are less likely to address purposes 6 through 8 explicitly, and their clients are not as likely to request them. But lead- ing firms and their clients are heginning to approach lower-numbered purposes in ways that involve the other goals as well. Goals 6 through 8 are best consid- ered by-products of earlier purposes, not additional objectives that become relevant only when the other purposes have been achieved. They are essential to effective consulting even if not recognized as explicit goals when the engagement begins.

Moving up the pyramid toward more ambitious purposes requires increasing sophistication and skill in the processes of consulting and in manag- ing the consultant-client relationship. Sometimes a professional tries to shift the purpose of an engagement

even though a shift is not called for; the firm may have lost track of the line hetween what's best for the client and what's best for the consultant's husiness. But repu- table consultants do not usually try to prolong engage- ments or enlarge their scope. Wherever on the pyramid the relationship starts, the outsider's first job is to address the purpose the client requests. As the need arises, hoth parties may agree to move to other goals.

1 Providing information

Perhaps the most common reason for seeking assistance is to obtain information. Compiling it may involve attitude surveys, cost studies, feasibility studies, market surveys, or analyses of the competitive structure of an industry or husiness. The company may want a consultant's special expertise or the more accu- rate, up-to-date information the firm can provide. Or the company may be unable to spare the time and resources to develop the data internally.

Often information is all a cUent wants. But the information a client needs sometimes differs from what the consultant is asked to furnish. One CEO requested a study of whether each vice president generated enough work to have his own secretary. The people he contacted rejected the project because, they said, he already knew the answer and an expensive study wouldn't convince the vice presidents anyway

Later, the partner of the consulting firm said, "I frequently ask: What will you do with the information once you've got it? Many clients have never thought about that." Often the client just needs to make hetter use of data already available. In any case, no outsider can supply useful findings unless he or she understands why the information is sought and how it will he used. Consultants should also determine what relevant information is already on hand.

Seemingly impertinent questions from hoth sides should not be cause for offense - they can he highly productive. Moreover, professionals have a responsibility to explore the underlying needs of their clients. They must respond to requests for data in a way that allows them to decipher and address other needs as an accepted part of the engagement's agenda.

2 Solving problems

Managers often give consultants diffi- cult prohlems to solve. For example, a client might

122 Harvard Business Review September-October 1982

Exhibit A hierarchy of consulting purposes

Additional goals organizational effectiveness

Facilitate client learning

Build consensus and commitment

Traditional purposes Assist . '' implementaHon

Provide recommendations

Conduct diagnosis thai may redefine problem

Provide solution to given problem

wish to know whether to make or buy a component, acquire or divest a line of husiness, or change a market- ing strategy. Or management may ask how to restruc- ture the organization to he able to adapt more readily to change; which financial policies to adopt; or what the most practical solution is for a prohlem in compen- sation, morale, efficiency, internal communication, control, management succession, or whatever.

Seeking solutions to prohlems of this sort is certainly a legitimate function. But the consul- tant also has a professional responsihility to ask

whether the prohlem as posed is what most needs solving. Very often the client needs help most in defin- ing the real issue; indeed, some authorities argue that executives who can accurately determine the roots of their troubles do not need management con- sultants at all. Thus the consultant's first job is to explore the context of the problem. To do so, he or she might ask:

Which solutions have been attempted in the past, with what results?

Management consulting 123

What untried steps toward a solution does the client have in mind?

Which related aspects of the client's husiness are not going well?

If the prohlem is "solved," how will the solution he applied?

What can he done to ensure that the solution wins wide acceptance?

A management consultant should nei- ther reject nor accept the client's initial description too readily. Suppose the prohlem is presented as low morale and poor performance in the hourly work force. The consultant who huys this definition on faith might spend a lot of time studying symptoms without ever uncovering causes. On the other hand; a consul- tant who too quickly rejects this way of descrihing the prohlem will end a potentially useful consulting pro- cess before it hegins.

When possihle, the wiser course is to structure a proposal that focuses on the chent's stated concem at one level while it explores related factors- sometimes sensitive suhjects the client is well aware of hut has difficulty discussing with an outsider. As the two parties work together, the prohlem may he redefined. The question may switch from, say, "Why do we have poor hourly attitudes and performance?" to "Why do we have a poor process-scheduling system and low levels of trust within the management team?"

Thus, a useful consulting process involves working with the problem as defined hy the client in such a way that more useful definitions emerge naturally as the engagement proceeds. Since most clients - like people in general - are amhivalent ahout their need for help with their most important prohlems, the consultant must skillfully respond to the client's implicit needs. Client managers should understand a consultant's need to explore a prohlem before setting out to solve it and should realize that the definition of the most important prohlem may well shift as the study proceeds. Even the most impatient client is likely to agree that neither a solution to the wrong prohlem nor a solution that won't he imple- mented is helpful.

3 Effective diagnosis

Much of management consultants' value lies in their expertise as diagnosticians. Never- theless, the process by which an accurate diagnosis is

formed sometimes strains the consultant-client rela- tionship, since managers are often fearful of uncov- ering difficult situations for which they might he hlamed. Competent diagnosis requires more than an examination of the external environment, the technol- ogy and economics of the business, and the behavior of nonmanagerial memhers of the organization. The consultant must also ask why executives made certain choices that now appear to he mistakes or ignored cer- tain factors that now seem important.

Although the need for independent diagnosis is often cited as a reason for using outsiders, drawing members of the client organization into the diagnostic process makes good sense. One consultant explains: "We usually insist that client team members he assigned to the project. They, not us, must do the detail work. We'll help, we'll push-hut they'll do it. While this is going on, we talk with the CEO every day for an hour or two about the issues that are surfacing, and we meet with the chairman once a week.

"In this way we diagnose strategic proh- lems in connection with organizational issues. We get some sense of the skills of the key people-what they can do and how they work. When we emerge with stra- tegic and organizational recommendations, they are usually well accepted because they have heen thor- oughly tested."

Clearly, when clients participate in the diagnostic process, they are more likely to acknowl- edge their role in problems and to accept a redefinition of the consultant's task. Top firms, therefore, establish such mechanisms as joint consultant-client task forces to work on data analysis and other parts of the diag- nostic process. As the process continues, managers naturally begin to implement corrective action without having to wait for formal recommendations.

4 Recommending actions

The engagement characteristically con- cludes with a written report or oral presentation that summarizes what the consultant has learned and that recommends in some detail what the client should do. Firms devote a great deal of effort to designing their reports so that the information and analysis are clearly presented and the recommendations are convincingly related to the diagnosis on which they are hased. Many people would prohahly say that the purpose of the engagement is fulfilled when the professional presents a consistent, logical action plan of steps designed to improve the diagnosed problem. The consultant rec- ommends, and the client decides whether and how to implement.

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Though it may sound like a sensible division of lahor, this setup is in many ways simplistic and unsatisfactory. Untold numhers of seemingly con- vincing reports, suhmitted at great expense, have no real impact because-due to constraints outside the consultant's assumed bailiwick-the relationship stops at formulation of theoretically sound recommenda- tions that can't be implemented.

For example, a nationalized public util- ity in a developing country struggled for years to improve efficiency through tighter financial control of decentralized operations. Recently a professor from the country's leading management school conducted an extensive study of the utility and suhmitted 100 pages of recommendations. According to the CEO, this advice ignored hig stumbling blocks-civil service reg- ulations, employment conditions, and relations with state and local govemments. So the report ended up on the client's hookshelf next to two other expensive and unimplemented reports by well-known intemational consulting firms. This sort of thing happens more often than management consultants like to admit, and not only in developing countries.

In cases like these, each side blames the other. Reasons are given like "my client lacks the abil- ity or courage to take the necessary steps" or "this consultant did not help translate objectives into actions." Almost all the managers 1 interviewed about their experiences as clients complained about imprac- tical recommendations. And consultants frequently blame clients for not having enough sense to do what is obviously needed. Unfortunately, this thinking may lead the client to look for yet another candidate to play the game with one more time. In the most successful relationships, there is not a rigid distinction between roles; formal recommendations should contain no sur- prises if the client helps develop them and the consul- tant is concerned with their implementation.

5 Implementing changes

The consultant's proper role in imple- mentation is a matter of considerable debate in the profession. Some argue that one who helps put recom- mendations into effect takes on the role of manager and thus exceeds consulting's legitimate bounds. Oth- ers believe that those who regard implementation solely as the client's responsibility lack a professional attitude, since recommendations that are not imple- mented (or are implemented badly) are a waste of money and time. And just as the client may participate in diagnosis without diminishing the value of the consultant's role, so there are many ways in which the

Management consulting 125

consultant may assist in implementation without usurping the manager's job.

A consultant will often ask for a second engagement to help install a recommended new sys- tem. However, if the process to this point has not been collaborative, the client may reject a request to assist with implementation simply because it represents sucb a sudden shift in the nature of the relationship. Effective work on implementation problems requires a level of trust and cooperation that is developed gradu- ally throughout the engagement.

In any successful engagement, the consultant continually strives to understand which actions, if recommended, are likely to be implemented and where people are prepared to do tbings differently. Recommendations may be confined to tbose steps tbe eonsultant believes will be implemented well. Some may tbink sucb sensitivity amounts to telling a client only what he wants to hear. Indeed, a frequent dilemma for experienced consultants is whether they should recommend what they know is right or what they know will be accepted. But if the assignment's goals include building commitment, encouraging leaming, and developing organizational effeetiveness, there is little point in recommending actions that will not be taken.

A pervasive issue

Viewing implementation as a central concern influences the professional's conduct of all phases of the engagement. When a client requests information, the consultant asks how it will be used and what steps have already been taken to acquire it. Then he or she, along with members of the client organization, determines which steps the company is ready to pursue and how to launch further actions. An adviser continually builds support for the implementa- tion phase by asking questions focused on action, repeatedly discussing progress made, and including organization members on the team.

It follows that managers sbould be will- ing to experiment with new procedures during the course of an engagement - and not wait until the end of the project before beginning to implement change. Wben innovations prove successful, they are institu- tionalized more effectively than when simply recom- mended without some demonstration of their value. For implementation to be truly effective, readiness and commitment to change must be developed, and client members must learn new ways of solving problems to improve organizational performance. How well tbese goals are aebieved depends on how well both parties understand and manage the process of the entire engagement.

126 Harvard Business Review September-October 1982

People are much more Ukely to use and institutionalize innovations proved successful than recommendations merely set forth on paper. Experi- ments with implementing procedures during the course of a project rather than after the assignment's completion have had very good results. All in all, ef- fective implementation requires consensus, commit- ment, and new prohlem-solving techniques and man- agement methods.

6 Building consensus commitment

Any engagement's usefulness to an organization depends on the degree to which memhers reach accord on the nature of prohlems and opportuni- ties and on appropriate corrective actions. Otherwise, the diagnosis won't he accepted, recommendations won't he implemented, and valid data may he with- held. To provide sound and convincing recommenda- tions, a consultant must he persuasive and have finely tuned analytic skills. But more important is the ahility to design and conduct a process for (1) building an agreement ahout what steps are necessary and (2) estah- lishing the momentum to see these steps through. An ohservation hy one consultant summarizes this well:

"To me, effective consulting means con- vincing a client to take some action. But that is the tip of the iceberg. What supports that is estahlishing enough agreement within the organization that the action makes sense-in other words, not only getting the client to move, hut getting enough support so that the movement will he successful. To do that, a consul- tant needs superh prohlem-solving techniques and the ability to persuade the client through the logic of his analysis. In addition, enough key players must be on board, each with a stake in the solution, so that it will succeed. So the consultant needs to develop a process through which he can identify whom it is important to involve and how to interest them."

Consultants can gauge and develop a cUent's readiness and commitment to change by con- sidering the following questions:

What information does the client read- ily accept or resist?

What unexpressed motives might there he for seeking our assistance?

What kinds of data does this client resist supplying? Why?

How willing are memhers of the organi- zation, individually and together, to work with us on solving these prohlems and diagnosing this situation?

How can we shape the process and influence the relationship to increase the client's readiness for needed correc- tive action?

Are these executives willing to leam new management methods and practices?

Do those at higher levels listen? Will they he influenced hy the suggestions of people lower down? If the project increases upward communication, how will top levels of management respond?

To what extent will this client regard a contrihution to overall organizational effectiveness and adaptahility as a legiti- mate and desirahle ohjective?

Managers should not necessarily expect their advisers to ask these questions. But they should expect that consultants will he concerned with issues of this kind during each phase of the engagement.

In addition to increasing commitment through client involvement during each phase, the consultant may kindle enthusiasm with the help of an ally from the organization [not necessarily the person most responsihle for the engagement). Whatever the ally's place in the organization, he or she must under- stand the consultant's purposes and prohlems. Such a sponsor can he invaluable in providing insight ahout the company's functioning, new sources of informa- tion, or possible trouble spots. The role is similar to that of informant-collaborator in field research in cul- tural anthropology, and it is often most successful when not explicitly sought.

If conducted skillfully, interviews to gather information can at the same time build trust and readiness to accept the need for change throughout the organization. The consultant's approach should demonstrate that the reason for the interviews is not to discover what's wrong in order to allocate hlame but to encourage constructive ideas for improvement. Then members at all levels of the organization come to see the project as helpful, not as unwanted inquisition. By locating potential resistance or acceptance, the interviews help the consultant leam which corrective actions will work and almost always reveal more sound solutions and more willingness to confront diffi- culty than upper management had expected. And they

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Selected readings Works by behavioral scientists or about behavioral consulting:

Chris Argyris, Intervention Theory and Method (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1970).

Chris Argyris and Donaid A. Schon, Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective (Reading. Mass.: Addison-Wesiey. 1978).

Michaei Beer, Organization Change and Development: A Systems View (Santa Monica, Caiif.: Goodyear, 1980).

Peter Block, FlaiAfless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used (Austin, Texas: Learning Concepts, 1981).

David Koib and Aian L. Frohman,

'An Organization Development Approach to Consulting," Sloan Management Review. Falil970,p.51.

John P. Kotter, Organizational Dynamics: Diagnosis and Intervention (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1978).

Gordon Lippitt and Ronald Lippitt, The Consulting Process in Action (La Jolla. Calif.: University Associates. 1978).

Edgar H. Schein, Process Consultation: Its Role in Organization Development (Reading. Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1969).

Frit2 Steele, Consulting for Organizational Change (Amherst: Universityof Massachusetts Press, 1975).

Works by management consultants or about management consulting:

Larry E.Greiner and Robert 0 . Metzger, Consulting to Management (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-HalU982),

Robert E. Kelley, Consulting (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981).

Allan A. Kennedy, "One 'Perspective' on the Consulting Process," Exctiange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal. Summer 1979, p. 16.

Allan A. Kennedy, "Ruminations on Change: The Incredible Value of Human Betngs in Getting Things Done," Exchange: The Organizational Behavior Teaching Journal. vol.6,no.1,1981,p.4.

Milan Kubr, f^anagement Consulting: A Guide to the Profession (Geneva: International Labour Office, rev.ed.,1976).

Jeremiah J. O'Connell, Managing Organizational Innovation (Homewood, III.: Richard D. Inwin, Inc., 1968).

Robert H. Schaffer, "Advice to Internal and External Consultants: Expand Your Client's Capacity to Use Your Help," S.A.M. Advanced Management Journal, Autumn 1976, p, 39.

Robert H. Schaffer, "Make Success the Building Block,' Management Reviev^. August 1981, p. 46.

Seymour TiHes, "Understanding the Consultant's Role," HBR November-December 1961, p. 87.

may also reveal that potential resisters have valid data and viewpoints. Wise consultants leam that "resis- tance" often indicates sources of especially important and otherwise unohtainahle insight.

The relationship with the principal cli- ent is especially important in developing consensus and commitment. From the heginning, an effective relationship hecomes a collaborative search for accept- able answers to the client's real concerns. Ideally, each meeting involves two-way reporting on what has heen done since the last contact and discussion of what hoth parties should do next. In this way a process of mutual influence develops, with natural shifts in agenda and focus as the project continues.

Although I have somewhat exaggerated the level of collahoration usually possihle, I am con- vinced that effective management consulting is diffi- cult unless the relationship moves farther in a collahorative direction than most clients expect. Suc- cessful consulting is expensive not only hecause good consultants' fees are high hut also hecause senior man- agers should be involved throughout the process.

7 Facilitating client learning

Management consultants like to leave behind something of lasting value. This means not only enhancing clients' ability to deal with immediate issues hut also helping them leam methods needed to cope with future challenges. This does not imply that effective professionals work themselves out of a joh. Satisfied clients will recommend them to others and will invite them hack the next time there is a need.

Consultants facilitate learning hy including memhers of the organization in the assign- ment's processes. For example, demonstrating an appropriate technique or recommending a relevant hook often accomplishes more than quietly perform- ing a needed analysis. When the task requires a method outside the professional's area of expertise, he or she may recommend other consultants or educational pro- grams. However, some memhers of management may need to acquire complex skills that they can learn only through guided experience over time.

With strong client involvement in the entire process, there will be many opportunities to help memhers identify learning needs. Often a consul- tant can suggest or help design opportunities for learning ahout work-planning methods, task force assignments, goal-setting processes, and so on. Though the effective professional is concerned with executive leaming throughout the engagement, it may

128 Harvard Business Review September-October 1982

be wise not to cite this as an explieit goal. Managers may not like the idea of being "taught to manage." Too mueh talk about client learning comes across as pre- sumptuous-and it is.

Learning during projects is a two-way street. In every engagement, consultants should leam how to be more effective in designing and conducting projects. Moreover, the professional's willingness to leam can be eontagious. In the best relationships, each party explores the experience with the other in order to learn more from it. *

8 Organizational effectiveness

Sometimes successful implementation requires not only new management concepts and tech- niques but also different attitudes regarding manage- ment functions and prerogatives or even changes in how the basic purpose of the organization is defined and carried out. The term organizational effectiveness is used to imply the ability to adapt future strategy and behavior to environmental change and to optimize the eontribution of the organization's human resources.

Consultants who include this purpose in their practice contrihute to top management's most important task-maintaining the organization's future viability in a changing world. This may seem too vast a goal for many engagements. But just as a physician who tries to improve the funetioning of one organ may contribute to the health of the whole organism, the professional is concerned with the company as a whole even when the immediate assignment is limited.

Many projeets produee ehange in one aspect of an organization's funetioning that does not last or that proves counterproductive because it doesn't mesh with other aspects of the system. If lower-level employees in one department assume new responsibilities, friction may result in another depart- ment. Or a new marketing strategy that makes great sense because of changes in the environment might flounder because of its unforeseen impact on produc- tion and scheduling. Because such repercussions are likely, elients should recognize that unless recommen- dations take into account the entire picture, they may be impossible to implement or may create future diffi- culties elsewhere in the company.

Promoting overall effectiveness is part of each step. While listening to a client's concerns about one department, the consultant should relate them to what's happening elsewhere. While working on current issues, he or she should also think about future needs. When absorbing managers' explanations

of why progress is difficult, the consultant should con- sider other possible barriers as well. In these ways, the professional contributes to overall effectiveness by addressing immediate issues with sensitivity to their larger contexts. And clients should not automatically assume that consultants who raise broader questions are only trying to snare more work for themselves. To look at how the client's immediate concern fits into the whole pieture is, after all, the professional's responsibility.

Important ehange in utilization of human resources seldom happens just because an adviser reeommends it. Professionals can have more influence through the methods they demonstrate in eonducting the consulting process itself. For example, if consultants believe that parts of an organization need to communicate better, they can consistently solicit others' thoughts on what's being discussed or suggest project task forces of people from different lev- els or departments. When a manager discovers that an adviser's secret weapon in solving some problem was not sophisticated analysis but simply (and skillfully) asking the people most closely involved for their sug- gestions, the manager learns the value of better upward communication. The hest professionals eneourage elients to improve organizational effectiveness not by writing reports or recommending books on the subject but by modeling methods of motivation that work well.

Consultants are not crusaders bent on reforming management styles and assumptions. But a professional diagnosis should inelude assessment of overall organizational effectiveness, and the consult- ing process should help lower whatever barriers to improvement are discovered. Good advisers are practi- tioners, not preachers, but their practices are consis- tent with their beliefs. When the eonsulting process stimulates experiments with more effective ways of managing, it can make its most valuable contribution to management practice.

More emphasis on proeess

Increasing consensus, commitment, learning, and future effectiveness are not proposed as substitutes for the more customary purposes of man- agement consulting but as desirable outcomes of any really effective eonsulting process. The extent to

3 Foran excellent discussion ai learning from consulting, set- Fntz Sicclc,

Consulting for Organizational Cbange (Amherst: University of Massachuaetls Press, 1975), pp.11-33 and 190-200.

Management consulting 129

which they ean be built into methods of aehieving more traditional goals depends on the understanding and skill with which the whole consulting relationship is managed. Such purposes have received more atten- tion in organization development literature and in the writings of behavioral consultants than in the field of management consulting. (For recommended reading in these fields, see the ruled itisert.) But behavioral objec- tives can best be achieved when integrated with more traditional approaches. And elients have a right to expect that all management consultants, whatever their specialty, are sensitive to human relationships and proeesses and skilled in improving the organiza- tion's ability to solve future as well as present problems.

The idea that consulting success de- pends solely on analytic expertise and on an ability to present eonvineing reports is losing ground, partly because there are now more people within organiza- tions with the required analytic techniques than in the boom years of "strategy consulting." Increasingly, the best management consultants define their objective as not just recommending solutions but also helping institutionalize more effective management processes.

This trend is significant to consulting firms beeause it requires process skills that need more emphasis in firms' reeruitment and staff development policies. It is equally significant to managers who need not just expert advice but also practical help in improving the organization's future performance.

As managers understand the broader range of purposes that excellent consulting can help achieve, they will select consultants more wisely and expeet more of value from them. And as clients learn how to express new needs, good consultants learn how to address them. 9

The Preying Mantis Of all the businesses, by far, Consultancy's the most bizarre. For, to the penetrating eye. There's no apparent reason why, With no more assets than a pen. This group of personable men Can sell to clients more than twice The same ridiculous advice. Or find, in such a rich profusion. Problems to fit their own solution.

The strategy that they pursue- To give advice instead of d o - Keeps their fingers on the pulses Without recourse to stomach ulcers. And brings them monetary gain. Without a modicum of pain. The wretched object of their quest. Reduced to cardiac arrest, Is left alone to implement The asinine report they've sent. Meanwhile the analysts have gone Back to client number one, Who desperately needs their aid To tidy up the mess they made. A n d o n a n d o n - a d infinitum- The masochistic clients invite 'em. Until the merciful reliever Invokes the company receiver.

No one really seems to know The rate at which consultants grow. By some amoeba-like division? Or chemo-biologic fission? They clone themselves without an end Along their exponential trend.

The paradox is each adviser, If he makes his client wiser. Inadvertently destroys The basis of his future joys. So does anybody know Where latter-day consultants go?

By "Bsnie Hamsbottom" in the Rnanc/al Times, April 11,1981. Reprinted with the permission of the author, Ralph Windle.

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