“Can you believe how stupid?”

A group of young consultants were standing in our office. I was a part of that group though I was considerably more senior. The “kids” were complaining about people who worked for our client and I am ashamed to say I was joining in.

“Can you believe how stupid. It looks like they didn’t check on the market at all.” At this point one of the firm’s founding partners arrived. Marc was considerably younger than me, but he didn’t join in. He just said quietly,

“Permission not to client-bash.”

We all stopped. I certainly had learned this lesson before. Client’s hire consultants to help not to judge them. If you spend all your time judging them, the judgement will come through in all your interactions and you are unlikely to be perceived as helpful.

The client may not know your methodology. You may have discovered something they missed, but if you question their intelligence, perhaps their biggest mistake was to hire you.

Carl Rogers, the American psychologist and a founder of the Human Potential Movement, wrote a paper called “The Helping Relationship.” It was written for therapists, but he made several points that resonated in my consulting work:

• Help is defined by the recipient, not the helper. So what you think is helpful is irrelevant.
• Help must be asked for. Help that isn’t asked for is rarely seen as help; it is usually seen as interference at least and destructive at worst. We know this intuitively. People in large corporations often joke “I’m from Corporate and I’m here to help,” Ronald Regan used to say “The nine most frightening words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’”
• It is impossible to help someone who you don’t like. Rogers advised therapists to adopt “unconditional positive regard” towards their clients. That is to say, not only think of them positively, but place them on the same level as you and always give them the benefit of the doubt. I found when I adopted this attitude towards my clients, I listened more. I was better able to understand how they were asking me to help.

When I trained new consultants or internal client change teams in consulting skills. I always told them about Rogers views of help. I (mostly) practiced what I preached. Clearly not always, but I found when I slipped and joined in the client-bashing or in some way was “judgey,” I was less effective as a consultant.

Managing the client system.

Let’s be clear, there is only one client in a consulting engagement. That is the person who made the decision to hire you, the one individual who can say “Yes” when all others say  “No.” There may be several “influencers,” or people who “recommend.” Leadership teams often have a say; if you are being hired by a CEO the board may have voted on it. Everyone should be operating in the agreed best interests of the company. There is still one client.

That isn’t to say that all the other players are unimportant. Consulting engagements will not be successful if the only person who is satisfied is the one who signs the contract and the check. So we often talk about the “client system,” or the stakeholder network.

The client system is everyone who works at the company and sometimes outside people like suppliers, shareholders and the community. The stakeholder network is everyone upon whom your work will have a direct impact.

When I worked at Gemini Consulting I was part of the Analysis and Design team. These consultants were first on the ground and analyzed the clients problem and designed a project to resolve it. Most engagements began with “focus Interviews.”

The purpose of the focus interview was two-fold,

1. to identify areas for further analysis and
2. to build relationships that would help implement the project.

Several project leads I worked with, closed the focus interview briefing with the charge, “OK, go make some friends for Gemini.”

At Gemini, and other firms, and later when I was training innovation or improvement teams we did stakeholder analysis.

Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder analysis is a client system management tool. It is useful to track stakeholder’s point of view on the project and to progressively build support for action. We divide up the stakeholders and evaluate and manage the relationship. In that way we can understand who might be adversely affected and address concerns early.

There ae many evaluation tools with many different scales. One I have used successfully is the red-yellow-green stakeholder analysis chart.

Members of the client system are entered in the chart on the left and then evaluated as red to green. Everyone starts out as yellow, neutral or unknown. Evaluations happen over time and as the person’s views of and support for the goals of the project change they move towards green (strong support) or red (strong disagreement or resistance).

One person on the consulting team takes accountability for each individual, Others who interact with the individual may give input or take action, but the responsibility individual manages the plan to inform and improve the relationship.

The point of these evaluations is to prescribe action. The idea is to ensure that members of the client system are informed about the process, have input where appropriate, get credit if they make helpful suggestions or information. It is not to be “judgey.”

• I have seen some consultants get very cutesy with evaluation scales, emojis, 😊 ☹, or disparaging terms like lovers, idiots, and terrorists. This isn’t helpful, (re-read Carl Rogers) and imagine how destructive it is if someone leaves those stakeholder analyses in the photocopier.

Another tool some teams use is the stakeholder grid. This measures degree of influence versus support. (In the example at the left the initials are people’s names, actions are represented by the arrows.)

The plan for AD and FD was to inform and involve. The plan for CV  and TY was to maintain by showing outputs. PL was a junior person, whose ideas the team decided to showcase at senior levels.

Once again the emphasis is on action to improve support for the goals of the project, the change you were hired to make, and the results the client is trying to achieve. It isn’t about your opinion of members of the client system.

Some consulting firms talk about “consulting guard,” that is – be careful what you say, on site, in hotel lobbies, and elevators. You never know when you’ll be overheard. While that’s sound advice, I prefer Marc’s answer.

“Permission not to client-bash?”