Why Doc, Why? Three ways of relating to the role of business consultant.

by Dr. Brian J. Mistler

December 24th, 2006

My clients often come to me – and, I know from talking to countless other business consultants, that I’m not alone in this story – asking broadly for help. The request for help often goes something like, "We regularly examine our productivity, motivate our employees, and generally improve our performance, and all we need is more X." Sometimes it’s that simple, often it’s not… When someone comes to me with an understanding of the problem, I’m occasionally afraid. Or, at least I’m skeptical. My sense is that a real understanding of the problem, implies a solution. I would ask, “How do you know the issue is sales management?” And, what have you tried to fix it? For example, "does ‘motivate employees’ mean ‘pay every other week’, or does it include a broad, individualized system of reinforcement?" Sometimes providing this clarity, as John Spence points out, can even get the ‘messenger’ in trouble.

As business consultants, we’re a bit like doctors – someone comes in, and says ‘my chest hurts’. And we say, let’s test your blood. My clients are sometimes aghast, since, they’re coughing and wheezing, not feeling any pain in their blood at all. Turns out there isn’t an elevated white cell count or such, so we ask about the foods they eat. This seems even more remote – the pain is in my chest, the patient says, and it doesn’t seem to matter what I eat. We, however, having worked with many people who have chest pain, have discovered that consuming too much dairy seems to be strongly correlated in a large number of cases.

This has let me to believe that there are three kinds of patients (and three corresponding doctor roles consultants can play), let’s say.

1. We can try to explain to the person why we think this is so… and, patients of type 1, the understander, who wants a co-investigator, this is very important.
2. But, for many of them they stop eating dairy, their chest feels better, and they don’t have to know why – patient #2 the pragmatist, who usually wants the consultant to play delegatee or, what I sometimes call plumber. That’s why they pay us. They’ve given us responsibility for their health, and we fix it. These clients are usually easier to work with because they stay out of our way, but a little less successful long-term, I imagine. It’s important, in any case, to know which patient you’re working with, but also to ask for enough of a scientific outlook that they give a few different things a shot.
3. If the person is convinced what the problem is, they don’t need us except to legitimize their solution with a prescription. This is type 3, the pre-decided, who hires a consultant to be the legitimizer. "Doc, I won’t take too much of your time, can you give me another penicillin script since the pharmacy won’t give it to me otherwise, and I’ll be on my way."

Unfortunately, my sense is that business consultants often have the reputation of being type 3 – boss hires us to get his people to finally listen to what he’s been saying, by hiring someone ‘objective’ to say it – or, to create cover for a pre-planned hire/fire/re-structure. I don’t judge this decision either, and, if people want to pay us to play this role, it may be fine, but, I think it’s important to understand what way the client/patient/user wants to go clearly.

I often think of business consulting as therapy for a whole organization. People often come to see an individual therapist as a type 3, and we slowly work them towards type 2, and eventually release them when they’re type 1 (the good therapists do at least, in my opinion) – and, we often help people make this transition by demonstrating our utility in the short term as we’re allied with their type 3 ambitions, and slowly help them re-frame the problem. The client usually comes in saying, “I’m a perfectionist and unhappy – help me be more happy and more perfect.” And, we spend a lot of energy trying to get them to view the problem differently. Sometimes explaining this very process to a client is helpful – at least, maybe it’s helpful if the client is an understander. Sometimes, all you can do is go along with their type 3 goals to some degree, sign on to the ones you can (like increased purposeful execution or life satisfaction), and try to avoid the others without destroying rapport, long enough for the client to see ‘past’ them on his/her own.

If the above paragraph isn’t helpful to you (especially for the pre-decided and pragmatists who have bothered to keep reading), then I would say, at least, consulting works best when both parties agree on things that are the important to do first/best (if I understand correctly, even sprinting requires putting one foot in front of the other), and for even the pre-decided, processes of clarity, alignment, and consensus help find out where other people are getting stuck executing the brilliant solutions that management has already picked out and announced.

In sum, whether you’re an understander, looking for a consultant co-investigator to help you figure out what’s going on and how to fix it long-term, a pragmatist, who just wants the consultant plumber to improve the bottom line without an interest in how the drain gets fixed, or a pre-decided, who hires a consultant to be the legitimizer of decisions already made, or some mix, like many of my clients, of all three, understanding theses relationships with your consultant usually proves helpful. And, investing even a little time in clarifying the problem further, besides understanding, can only lead to more legitimate, workable solutions.

For more on the importance of clarity, I encourage you to read, "Organizational Execution Crisis: The most important issue facing business today. . . and how to address it." Brian Mistler (co-investigator, plumber, and legitimizer).

Article Filed under: Business Excellence