Consultancy, training and coaching fails on a regular basis. There's nothing wrong with the process - usually it is all good stuff. The problem is with the 'afters'. You should only participate in these activities for what happens afterwards - the change in behaviour or the results. The context here is the business.Most interventions are all about the process and not about the results. And that's why they fail.
The key issue is around accountability. If you (as client) are not accountable, if you do not have to report back the results then the whole intervention process will probably collapse.
At the Directors' Centre, the accountability issue is pushed because the consultants know that without accountability then the client can avoid the 'action' piece. Not enough consultants, trainers, coaches, mentors, accountants etc make their clients accountable to them for results.
And so the client doesn't get the desired results. That's pretty poor!
Paul and the team in our consultancy group seem to have cracked the accountability conundrum. The result: clients have to deliver; they get results; everyone is happy.
Paul and the team in our consultancy group seem to have cracked the accountability conundrum. The result: clients have to deliver; they get results; everyone is happy.
RELEVANT LINKS
The Directors' Centre - management consultancy (with accountability) for growing businesses
19 comments:
Some thoughts.
1) The consulting industry (and in fact most professional service industries) fail to deliver on their vague promises most of the time.
2 The main reason is that they sell what Robert calls "hot air" which is fine but then they do not attempt to define or be measured on outcomes.
3 Part of the problem lies with the relatively ignorant client believing the promise (or lies) of the consultant's sales patter.
4 A big BUT here. The consultant that gets paid on delivery or results may focus too much on the output (KPI) at the cost of any other factors.
Some common sense needs to be applied.
Yes, measure consultants on the promise but not at any cost. You must clearly define outputs and outcomes in your terms of reference. Most don't.
The ability of the consultant to swiftly define what can be done is part of their skill. The willingness to share the risk should be part of the process - they call it payment on results.
Another BUT...
Because most clients prefer a fixed price to a moving price (even if it is based on results) and because most consultants want to know that they are going to get paid, so there is a tremendous pressure away from payment by results and towards fixed price. That's OK but everyone needs to understand how the pricing:results relationship works.
Usually it is the client who is at a disadvantage because the consultant will have the upper hand in the negotiation because he/she does it all the time.
I am starting to rant so I will stop here.
JM - a consultant
We run a 20-person wine importers and wholesalers.
I have been on the receiving end of consultancy, coaching and mentoring. They are normally pulled in when I feel that we are getting stuck and we can't sort the problem(s) out for ourselves. They have been great, mediocre and simply dreadful.
Being a smug entrepreneur, I took what I wanted from these people and ignored the rest. At no point did I feel obliged to do what was discussed. After all I was paying to be helped to explore some ideas. I and they saw the relationship as giving me a way of thinking and seeing and understanding and making decisions.
I think that the lack of involvement and commitment in the results (by them) actually did the whole activity a dis-service.
I didn't see it at the time but had I been obliged to do something rather than just stare at my navel then I would have got better value for money and they would have had a lifelong loyal client. Instead I felt a little bit ripped off.
I am not sure if this is helpful.
Colin
PS about your Business Links discussion, some of their people are great but some are not so good. I am afraid it is pot luck. They are not our first port of call.
Re-reading my comment, I have to say that I anm not quite sure what the difference between the three (consultancy, coaching and mentoring) is. Different people have called themselves different things:
- the consultant diagnoses and recommends or helps?
- the coach brings it out of you because she has the questioning skills?
- the mentor has the experience and can advise you of your options?
They all seem to overlap like some kind of a Venn Diagram.
Colin
If I understand you, you are talking about how consultants and so on can get their clients to become responsible for decisions and be accountable to someone so that the client actually delivers on their action list? I start every coaching/consulting session with the action list from the end of the last session; only once we have gone through it and ticked or not every action point do we consider anything else. This is built into the contracting of the relationship. Does it work? Only if the client is able to have a manageable action list with SMART goals. Does it help? Yes. What about the under-deleiverers? It highlights their failings and lets them relaise that they are being unreasonable and gets them to adjust their own aspirations and focus on the R for Realistic or R for Realisable in the SMART goals they set.
Morag, Business Coach, Cardiff
Colin
Your defintions are close enough for all practical purposes. The so-called professionals (in their so-called institutions) get very uptight about the exact wording but no-one else seems to care.
What the client cares about is the result, the benefit. The technician thinks that they and their profession are the solution. Wrong! We buy holes not drill bits and do we really care how the hole is made if we get the hole we want? No.
Most consultants and the rest have little concept of true professionalism and so you choose the one that you think will work for you.
Madge
Morag
Please don't tell my you are an NLP practioner!
Madge
Madge
I have done NLP but I wouldn't make a big song and dance about it. Likewise, being someone who has a twitter account doesn't make me all bad.
Morag
On reflection I feel that I must share some of the blame for not taking more action after working with consultants.
Maybe I employed them to give me that extra push. I think I knew what I needed to do but didn't have the strength of my own convictions. I did need a sounding board and I did need someone who was objective.
In retrospect I think I was wasting their time as well as mine.
I think that I was probably a dishonest client although I only relise it now. The consultant was never going to win.
Enough soul searching. The psycholgists would have a field day I am sure.
Timne to get back to drinking the profits!
Colin
At ACE, we make clients accountable to the whole group, not just to the group chair/leader.
Tim
Robert said "Most interventions are all about the process and not about the results. And that's why they fail."
He is probably right, almost.
No "intervention" is about the process at all, if said process does not orient the organisation toward the best result. The whole point in having processes, is to have an effective 'road-map' that will lead to the best outcome for all stakeholders, particularly the customers.
So I would say that the problem is often with the lack of adherence to a clearly defined set of processes. Without such, there will be no 'afters.'
The answer is to analyse the problems, define the new processes, and lead the client organisation through each and every one of them; never moving forward to the next until they have mastered the current process.
There are no short-cuts (the taking of which, is precisely how they arrived at their current problems).
If the client wants sustainable results, they have to focus on taking the journey. The processes will take them to their 'afters'.
So Robert was almost right with his posting.
SW
Hi there everyone.
There is a point being missed here.
My story. The consultant visits and is keen to sell. She pushes and prods. "What is my vision? What is my dream? Let's work out the big stuff and everything else will be easy."
Wrong. I don't want to sort my dream and my vision. At least not now and not with her. Right now I am happy to be trading. I need help getting to next week. So she is irrelevant.
The consultant must sell what the client needs and not what the consultant has in their box of tricks.
Most consultants aren't aware of this whole diagnostic process and fail to be 1) professional 2) successful in terms of giving the client what she/he needs.
So who do you call in? Someone you think you can trust. Trust is about reputation. And so the system promotes those that can play the game (in every sense).
A disgraceful, unregulated industry.
Nigel. Computer and Office Supplies Company. SW. Employ 25.
Nigel
You might want to see this.
http://rochellemoulton.blogspot.com/2009/09/how-to-lose-client-in-10-days.html
Madge
or look at
http://www.spectator.co.uk/essays/540306/water-prozac-management-consultants-all-completely-useless.thtml
which states
I am talking about the frankly unbelievable report from the National Audit Office (NAO) at the very end of 2006, which stated, following a long and costly analysis, that management consultants were of absolutely no use to mankind whatsoever, despite the £3 billion of public money we spend upon them annually.
Let’s be clear: it did not say that management consultants were sometimes of no use, but that sometimes they were terrific. It said, per se, management consultants are absolutely useless, full stop. In the three years leading up to the NAO report, spending upon ‘outsourcing’ to the likes of Logica and Accenture (and surely those names should have given the game away) increased by 33 per cent. There was one glorious example of outsourcing cited: Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs outsourced the problem of needing to save £105 million in labour costs. This they did, successfully, to a team of management consultants who charged them £106 million. The NAO suggested that the work carried out by the consultants usually simply duplicated work done by the in-house civil servants. Either way, it was useless.
Love Madge
I am starting to get it now, I think.
The manamement consultant thing is a red herring. Akl you are after is widning people up to do the right thing.
We all now there are great and vile advisers out there. I am only interested in talking to a decient one. Who cares about the rest?
A reply for Nigel, I have been working in the Office Supplies Industry for the 35 years, the last 6 of these as a Business Consultant helping companies grow their top and bottom line. I think having been a dealer for 10 of the 35 years helps me to help my client through all the tough times and to make the tough decisions. It is about trust but I do feel having a complete understanding of the business market the client is in is important. If you need some help Nigel let me know through this medium.
I am starting to get it now, I think.
The manamement consultant thing is a red herring. Akl you are after is widning people up to do the right thing.
We all now there are great and vile advisers out there. I am only interested in talking to a decient one. Who cares about the rest?
Hi there everyone.
There is a point being missed here.
My story. The consultant visits and is keen to sell. She pushes and prods. "What is my vision? What is my dream? Let's work out the big stuff and everything else will be easy."
Wrong. I don't want to sort my dream and my vision. At least not now and not with her. Right now I am happy to be trading. I need help getting to next week. So she is irrelevant.
The consultant must sell what the client needs and not what the consultant has in their box of tricks.
Most consultants aren't aware of this whole diagnostic process and fail to be 1) professional 2) successful in terms of giving the client what she/he needs.
So who do you call in? Someone you think you can trust. Trust is about reputation. And so the system promotes those that can play the game (in every sense).
A disgraceful, unregulated industry.
Nigel. Computer and Office Supplies Company. SW. Employ 25.
On reflection I feel that I must share some of the blame for not taking more action after working with consultants.
Maybe I employed them to give me that extra push. I think I knew what I needed to do but didn't have the strength of my own convictions. I did need a sounding board and I did need someone who was objective.
In retrospect I think I was wasting their time as well as mine.
I think that I was probably a dishonest client although I only relise it now. The consultant was never going to win.
Enough soul searching. The psycholgists would have a field day I am sure.
Timne to get back to drinking the profits!
Colin
Morag
Please don't tell my you are an NLP practioner!
Madge
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