THE EXTERNAL CONSULTANT


Few managers in the tumult of modern high- pressure business are concerned about being dependent in any specific situation


positive identity of the employed managers. We have emphasised that the negative views, embedded culture, myths and, unfortunately, some real experiences can make the relationship between managers and consultants difficult before any action is even started. Because something can happen however, does not mean it will happen. We, therefore, recommend that you exercise due diligence in the decisions involved in deciding to employ a consultant. For example, who that consultant may be, what you expect the consultant to provide, by whom and how the consultant will be managed, by whom and how final project action decisions will be made, and the cost benefits of employing the chosen consultant. There are many elements to a consultancy


Mandy Geal


is a director of Learning Partners Lim- ited. Her email is mandyg@ learningpart ners.co.uk.


Barry Johnson


is a non-exec- utive director and fiction au- thor. Barry and Mandy were members of the team that founded Learning Part- ners in 1994. For further information see www. learningpart ners.co.uk


project. Let’s just describe some important ones. The first is to establish that the project or problem cannot be handled in-house. We have met this situation on more than one occasion. Let us give you an example. One of the authors of this article was responsible for training and development in a UK company of a large multi-national corporation. The European Social Fund was looking to support graduate work experience training. Having read the blurb and analysed the best approach to ensuring we could meet the criteria and manage the bureaucracy we went ahead. We told all the European divisions we were doing this, with an open invitation for them to be involved. One of my section heads, with some advice from the finance function, managed the process. We were successful and were awarded what amounted to 60,000. As I was running a ‘zero budgeted’ training and development unit at the time, it was a great earner for us. Yes, a lot of money back in 1993 for doing something a division had been planning to do anyway. Walking through headquarters I bumped into a business MD, and we stopped to chat. It appeared he had just hired an external consultant to do the same thing as we had done. We had the experience, the requirement involved training


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and training was my responsibility, but he had not even picked the phone up. Why didn’t he know? The question is; do you need a consultant to do something you can do in house? To prevent this your company needs a database of skills. Has your company got such a database? Let’s assume the decision to use an external


consultancy has been taken. The decision makers will have considered the advantages and disadvantages of choosing different types of consultancy, a large one-stop shop with broad experience, which may be expensive, or a small specialist, which can match the company culture but will they have the particular experience needed? Now it comes to choosing which consultancy. You identify possible consultants and specify the objectives. You need proposals that you can evaluate with criteria to select the consultants. You talk to the consultants, discuss fees and agree a contract. You and they are on the road. What has to happen next is to manage the


consultants. It is more than managing the consultants; it is also managing your organisation. The project manager will ease open some doors and kick others down. He or she will manage relationships and keep track of the operations. The consultants will propose solutions, and the proposals will be evaluated. After this, the work of implementation that produces the outputs and changes required will begin. One of the great advantages of bringing in


consultants is that people in the organisation can learn from their experience and from observing how they diagnose the situation, propose solutions and manage the relationships. It is a great learning experience for your graduate trainees to be an assistant to the consultants, but only if you follow up with them so they can tell you what they have learned. What we are suggesting is, when you employ consultants, it is not just to solve a problem, it is also for your people to learn the skills and techniques of consulting. We have examined different perceptions of


the client-consultant relationship and considered both positive and negative interpretations of the power and control dynamics in that relationship. In conclusion, as consultants we prefer and recommend working in partnership with clients. From our experience, this type of relationship engenders the best interactions to achieve a successful outcome for any consulting project. This requires clear roles and responsibilities, but most of all requires respect for the different perspectives, knowledge, skills and experience that both client and consultant can contribute. Note that this can happen without ‘liking’ but rarely happens without trust.


September 2015 www.trainingjournal.com


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