SOME FACETS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLIENTS IN ORGANIZATIONS

Journal of Management Studies, 20, 3 , 1983

SOME FACETS OF T H E RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLIENTS

IN ORGANIZATIONS

CHRIS MCGIVERN Unzuersity of Bath

ABSTRACT

Although frequently represented as a critical aspect of consultancy, the relationship between consultants and their clients and its relevance to the achievement of successful outcomes are subjects to which few writers have devoted serious attention.

In an earlier piece of research, the author concluded that an ‘interdependent’ relationship was likely to be an important factor in successful consulting assignments. H e identified eight facets of this type of relationship. This paper describes how that theory was tested when three consultants, together with a number of their clients, explained why they thought their work together had been successful. The cases illustrate both the ways in which the relationships were built and the extent to which they were perceived as having been important ingredients in the outcomes achieved.

The relationships described were characterized by high levels of mutual trust and interaction as well as contingency on the part of the consultants. In several respects the relationships were seen as interdependent. A feature of this study was that the extent to which the consultants found the research useful in a personal sense seemed to depend on the quality of the relationship between the author and the consultants. In the cases described the exercise seems to have been mutually beneficial. In another example this seems not to have been the case and the explanation seems to lie a t least partly in a lack of interdependence.

INTRODUCTION

‘THERE are two major aspects to any consulting relationship ; the analysis and solution of the problem, and the relationship between consultant and client’ (Kubr, 1976). So begins a chapter in a lengthy-over 350 pages- book on consulting, in which just three pages are devoted to the subject of ‘creating and maintaining sound relationships’.

Addressfor reprints: Mr. C. McGivern, 17, Telston Close, Bourne End, Bucks., SL8 5TY.

CHRIS MCGIVERN 368 Many other texts on consulting make statements like this, together with

similarly scant advice on how to handle such a ‘major aspect’ of consultancy. There is general agreement that relationships are important. Few would deny that the consultant who is not trusted is unlikely to be given ‘accurate’, ‘reliable’ or ‘valid’ information (Argyris, 1970). Nor is he likely to be regarded as someone with whom to collaborate freely. Trust, confidence, likeability-all these, the student of consultancy is frequently told, are characteristics the successful practitioner must cultivate. And that, more often than not, is where he is left. Why?

One reason may lie in the tendency of most writers on consultancy to consider the relationship between the consultant and his client to be almost entirely a matter of ‘chemistry’ and therefore not susceptible to any serious attempts by an individual to change ‘the way he is’. People either ‘get on’ with one another or they do not. True, a number of writers offer general prescriptions to guide the practitioner who wishes to develop his relationship-building skills (e.g. Davey, 1979; Ford, I 974; Swartz and Lippitt, 1975). Kubr, for example, adjures the reader to strive to achieve ‘joint problem definition’ and to ‘listen, be patient and modest’ and to work in a ‘highly organized and disciplined manner’. Roles are to be clearly worked out so that the client is left in no doubt as to what the consultant will do, and be responsible for. But for more than this one has to turn to Argyris and Schon (1g74), Rodgers (1961) or Torbert (1976) for anything like a thorough analysis of the issues involved, and a means of improving individual skills.

Another perspective for considering client-practitioner relationships is described by McGivern and Fineman (forthcoming). They argue from the results of their study that the ‘successful’ consulting relationship ( i . e . one which is regarded as such by both parties) is characterized by an interdepen- dency between consultant and client which is both mutual and in balance. That dependency is based on the proposition that the consultant requires co-operation from his client(s) not only for assistance in defining the nature of the problem(s) a t issue but also during the processes of resolving them. By the same token, the client(s) will depend on the consultant for help in achieving what he or she requires from involvement in the exercise-even if that is, for example, primarily to avoid suffering any undesirable conse- quences, as may be the case with some members of the client system. The dynamics of this situation entail a risk for both parties of compromise and concession adversely affecting the quality of the intervention and its results. Further if the balance of the relationship begins to swing too far in favour of the investigator there is a risk of the client withdrawing co-operation, explicitly or covertly. If, on the other hand, the client dominates, the consultant may lack an incentive to continue. The consultant has potentially the power to maintain the balance between himself and his client, and in that sense ‘manage’ the relationship between himself and his client.

369 THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLIENTS

The notion of interdependence between client and consultant resulted from a study of some of the apparent overlaps between the practice of certain forms of research (e.g. action research) and organizational consultancy. This work isolated seven common facets of these activities, each of which appeared to contribute to their effective conduct. These facets were the degree o f interaction between the parties, the extent of the requirement f o r interpersonal skills, the clarity of the focal problemlirrue, the need for trust, the contingeng of the methods used, clienl and practitioner values, and the injuence of power. I n com- bination these appeared to provide a general description of some of the dynamics of the ‘successful’ relationship between the researcher or consultant and his subject/client.

The study was based on the available literature and on a questionnaire survey in which both researchers and consultants were asked generally about their understanding of the activities involved. As such the results provided a fair basis for a further study of the relations between investigators and those with whom they work, and to establish how the facets derived would compare with those found to exist as close as possible to actual practice. This paper is devoted to a description of how we set out together with some of the early results and conclusions.

F O C A L POINTS FOR THE STUDY

I n designing the study, there were a number of major points of concern. The first, and foremost, was how the results of a ‘grounded’, qualitative investigation on consultant-client relationships would compare with the findings from the initial structured opinion survey. Secondly, in feeding back clients’ perceptions to the consultant, would we gain more insight into the various realities of the consultant-client interaction, and would this process assist the consultant in his own practice? (This latter point is, incidentally, consistent with the Argyris and Schon, 1974, notion of reducing differences between espoused theories of behaviour and practice theories as an ingredient for effective consulting practice.) The final issue was more concerned with the actual research process. Would our own attempts at ‘interdependence’ with our research participants lead to enhanced validity of our findings, especially in the light of the potential value or benefit which could accure to participants? This form of ‘psychological validity’ has been described recently by Fineman ( I 983).

THE FORM OF THE STUDY

The study was designed as follows. A number of consultants (ten were to be involved ultimately, five to begin with) were approached and asked if they would be willing to take part in a project designed to study the characteristics of the ‘successful’ client-consultant relationship. In the first place, each agreed to talk about how he set out to build and maintain relationships. The

370 CHRIS MCGIVERN

intervirus were taped, analyzed and fed-back to the consultants. Then the consultants were asked if they would be willing for the researcher to interview one or two of their clients, to find out how they saw the relationship. l’hcsr interviews were also taped and a written account agreed with each client. The third step involved a further meeting with each consultant during which the clients’ comments were discussed and the implications of the whole exercise considered. The consultants’ views on the research process were also sought.

To illustrate the process and the context of the study, summaries of the data collected from three consultants and their clients are presented below, together with a brief commentary on each.

T H E CONSULTANTS

Cnnsukant A-Andrew

LVhat people buy when they place an order with me, is me, and what I project . . . if a client thinks ‘he’s like me’, then there’s a good probability of a relationship developing. If I can’t identify with someone, I won’t feel comfortable or be able to work with them very well.

Andrew, thirty-seven years, was a partner in a commercial consultancy with six full-time members. His work was mainly in the fields of creativity training and problem-solving. He had seven years’ experience in the job, before which he wa5 self-employed-though in a completely different field.

He felt his main initial task was to ‘identify’ with his client and the business. Identifying with the client personally was described as getting to know the client, his interests, his values and his outlook, and sharing his own views and attitudes on those topics with the client. Certain people, Andrew said he got on well with, and he was quite clear about what they were like. ‘Less certain individuals’, ‘people who would disclose information of a confidential nature’, ‘people who are open’. Unless he felt ‘comfortable’ with a client he believed his work would be unsatisfactory and he would lack personal commitment and motivation, qualities he said that were extremely important to him. He said that he had ‘to feel free to be myself, ‘to d o the right thing’. If he felt inhibited then he would not be willing to suggest new and perhaps risky courses of action which, given that he saw his job as helping clients to generate new possibilities in their work, defeated the whole object of working with them. Sometimes Andrew said he was ‘intimidated’ by a client’s image of seniority or high status. In these cases he was unable to work effectively with the client and would avoid pursuing the relationship.

Andrew explained that he was concerned to identify as precisell as possible his client’s area(s) of concern and then to make as relevant a contribution as possible to those concern(s). Part of this process involved what he referred to as ‘identifying with the client’s business’-getting to know the

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nature of the business in some detail and being able to demonstrate somc familiarity with it in his dealings with his clients.

Andrew was very clear about needing to be trusted and to trust his clients. So, for example, he would only take significant risks in generating really new approaches to clients’ problems if he could trust his clients not to use failure in that context as a justification for ending a project, rather to see i t as a starting point for improvement. Similarly, if he was not trusted sufficiently by his client to be given confidential information relevant to the assignment, he would tend to withdraw.

For Andrew, another way of describing the quality of the relationship was the ‘accessibility’ of the client.

THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLIENTS

I like open people, and when the amount of interaction I can get with a client is great, then I feel able to have a fairly loose working arrangement with him.

When discussing methods and approaches (which he claims he selects entirely according to the needs of his situation) Andrew said he preferred to have the kind of client who is open minded. I t is sometimes difficult to move clients with firm views about particular solutions and Andrew felt sometimes inadequate when working with them. Nevertheless, he aims to clarify aims, scope, criteria of success through considerable discussion with his clients. ‘We need that clear goal’ he said.

Andrew’s clienl--Bill. Bill was head of a research and development group in a multinational company and had used Andrew to help the group produce a report on future technological changes that would have implications for their organization. The project had only recently been completed and, according to the client, had been a great success. The first reason given was that very clear objectives had been worked out from the earliest stage. Bill had not himself been a member of the project team, but as its head, had got approval for it to be set up and had monitored its progress throughout. Although he had a lot of respect for Andrew’s abilities, Bill said that he personally had a rather different style and that he sometimes found Andrew’s sense of humour, for example, not always to his taste. Nevertheless, Andrew got on extremeiy well with the members of the project group who thoroughly appreciated his informality and the ‘sexual’ bias of his humour. Bill said that the differences in personal style between himself and Andrew were more than made up for by important values which he believed they shared. In particular was his high level of personal commitment to the job in hand. What always came across from Andrew was his genuine wish to help his clients and to do all he could for them. Bill was particularly aware of this as a result of working with other consultants who seldom showed any genuine commitment.

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How did this commitment manifest itself? One way was Andrew’s con- stant checking that progress was being made, and in the right direction. ‘. . . he will always strive to organize things in a way which meets what people want. Obviously on some occasions he is himself having to work very hard, to go in the direction he thinks you want to go in, and maybe will do things that he himself wouldn’t have chosen but because he thinks you want that, he will do his best’. Does Andrew just fall in with anything you ask for? ‘Andrew won’t just end up agreeing with the client for the sake of it, but if he is persuaded by your arguments he will change’.

Bill felt that he could trust Andrew partly because he knew that if he really disagreed with something he would say s-but at the same time ‘. . . he’s always at pains to say there’s no right way of doing it, but maybe we can find a good way-and that’s the kind of honesty of approach that has most impressed me and made it easy to work with Andrew’. Bill felt that there was a high degree of trust between himself and Andrew. It had built up over a long period before the latest project and had become ‘stable’. He added that ‘. . . the whole way in which Andrew operates can only be based on trust because he couldn’t work at all if the client didn’t trust him. You’ve got to trust consultants not just to be there to earn their fee but actually to do their best to help you. It’s not enough to demonstrate that they know more than you do about i t . . . but actually to use their knowledge to understand your problems and to try to use that to absolutely full effect. I would trust Andrew to do that every time’.

ilndrew’s client-Tony. Tony was the manager of a large team of scientists working in the gas industry. He had worked with Andrew extensively over a period of years and had found that his ideas and approaches were of some direct help in bringing about changes and improvements within his organization. Tony began the discussion by stressing the instrumentality of Andrew’s involvement and when this interpretation was tested with him, Tony said ‘from my point of view it’s the product that’s important, not just the person selling it. The guy who comes in with his shoelaces undone and no tie and his flies undone, if I wanted to buy that product his appearance wouldn’t affect me, . . . we’re not buying Andrew, we’re buying what he does’.

Later he also said however that ‘one of the main things he has contributed is his personal commitment, . . . it’s the way he sets time aside to do it, . . . it’s his sincerity-he believes in having a pre-briefing meeting, he clues himself up well in advance. He will say it’s about time we had a meeting, how about me coming to see you and we’ll go out for a meal somewhere and we’ll have a talk. I t would really be a business lunch-we don’t do much socializing-but it would be an investment of his time which is not itself income earning’.

‘. . . When you’ve got a consultant who seems to be able to click with his

3 73 clients that’s fine . . . it’s almost a subconscious thing that as soon as they walk through the door you assess them and you fix a role in your mind and you say well, he fits in this pigeon hole and you’re always testing out against that pigeon hole to see whether he fits or not’.

Tony returned several times to the way that Andrew worked with him- ‘. . . whenever Andrew is going to run a session here he always comes and consults me first and we say okay, who are the guys that are going to be there, what are the issues we’re going to face, how should we tackle it . . .’.

Despite his emphasis on product rather than person, Tony showed considerable confidence in Andrew, his commitment to both himself and the organization. It was not that Tony trusted Andrew to do a good job-‘. . . if I haven’t got enough credibility so that some outsider can bugger it u p then there must be something wrong with me’-but he had confidence that Andrew could guide clients in a direction which coincided with what they felt was needed.

THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLlENTS

Tke views ofAndrew’s work compared. It appears from these data that Andrew’s view of the importance of selling himself in a personal sense to the client is only part of the story. In both of these cases, the clients had considerable respect for Andrew-in particular his high level of commitment and willingness to give of his best. In neither case, however, did there appear to be a close affinity in purely personal terms. In neither case did they see Andrew as being ‘like themselves’. Both dients saw Andrew as the right man for the job- albeit for somewhat different reasons. The common thread appears to have been the appropriateness of the style with which Andrew worked with each of them-his informality with the project group in the first case-his poli- tical sensitivity in the second, where he made no moves without consulting the right people in advance. Thus there seemed to be only partial support for Andrew’s theory that he tried to get a close personal identification with his clients. O n the other hand, his belief in developing a close understanding for the business and its ways of working, and his style of ‘matching’ what the client needs with what he can offer seems to be strongly reinforced by the clients’ comments. A trusting relat ionshipin the sense of having confidence in each other-was clearly seen as important by the clients too, and their perceptions mirrored fairly closely those of Andrew.

In the first case Andrew had clearly ‘been himself (note, his ‘intellectual honesty’ with Bill) and thus his espoused belief in confronting and frank behaviour seems to have been borne out in practice. His point of view about having a ‘clear goal’ was also supported by both his clients, who both talked about spending a good deal of time on agreeing objectives and plans. Andrew seems too to have been seen as adopting a contingent approach to the way in which he tackled projects. All in all, therefore, there seemed to be a fairly high degree of congruence between Andrew’s espoused theories of behaviour and those perceived by his clients.

CHRIS MCGIVERN 374 Consultant B-Roger

In a funny sort of sense the more prescriptive I feel to start with, the worse I feel about it. A couple of times recently . . . we’ve got to the point of discussing the situation . . . having a half baked next step and getting them to put the energy into that next step and they’ve actually had none and I’ve put the leadership in a t that point and I’ve actually questioned them a lot and said do you realize where the leadership has come from on this? Does that mean you really want to d o it?

Roger was an internal O.D. consultant working for a multi-national. Aged forty years, he had until 1980 spent his career in civil engineering and line management; this last job was as Managing Director of a company in a construction group. His interest in the personal growth movement had led him into the O.D. field.

In the first interview on how he saw himself developing his relations with clients, Roger chose to describe two projects on which he had recently been wzorking.

Project I

In the first project, Roger described how he had worked as an external consultant with the Board of Directors of one of the companies in the Group he had previously worked for. They had, at Roger’s suggestion, decided to resolve a particular commercial problem as a group. Typically, such problems were normally dealt with by individual senior managers taking uni- lateral decisions. At the end of the intervention, the problem was resolved to the satisfaction of all those involved and the soltition was of a higher quality than the clients expected.

When Roger outlined his approach to working with the first client, he mentioned the following points and suggested that they reflected his inten- tions when working with a group. H e tried to allow for a free ranging exploration of the problem, to provide frameworks for clients to use in thinking around the problem, to reinforce positive contributions and to demonstrate the possibility of reaching consensus. Roger believed the clients found his contributions helpful because he was task centred, did not impose directions or solutions and demonstrated his understanding of the organization and the problem. In addition he used everyone’s contributions and avoided direct or implied criticism of clients.

Personally, he felt that he achieved some success because of his ability to be like his clients (his own background was similar), his energy when working with them and his ability to confront when necessary. He felt that this latter point, coupled with his low personal need for security enabled him to be unaffected by clients of high status and thus openly to take an independent virw and to present this to the client group.

375 Roger’s client--Jim. Jim was the Managing Director of the company Roger worked with on tackling the business problem. H e was not the most talkative of individuals, but suggested that Roger had made a valuable contribution in a number of respects. First, he did his homework carefully and prepared a framework for use by the client group when they attended a meeting. The framework was designed-on matrix lines in the case he described-to enable all relevant parts of the problem to be examined, and all possible solutions aired. Secondly, his contribution was more valuable because of his knowledge of the company-a reason why Jim would not normally use an external consultant for this kind of problem.

Other reasons mentioned were his ‘likeability’, his ‘intelligence’, and his ‘consultancy skills’. The latter were further described as being reminiscent of the ‘business school’ approach, by which Jim said he meant ‘systematic’- ‘putting common sense and figures into vague notions’.

O n Roger’s behaviour in meetings, Jim felt he usually confined himself to keeping a written record of what had gone on-‘but he actually controls the meeting by preparing the agenda and framework for discussion in the way that he does, so he doesn’t need to say very much’.


Project 2

The second of Roger’s projects was rather different. A senior manager was facing a number of problems, most of which Roger said had to do with lack of clarity over his role and what was expected of him, in particular by his own boss. The assignment had begun with Roger’s involvement with the subordinate manager (Paul) on one part of his current responsibilities, the management of a project team organized on matrix lines. Paul was having considerable difficulty in achieving any results with this team, and it emerged that part of the problem was a lack of clear objectives coupled with an absence of any delegated authority. Paul felt helpless in this situation- and, it soon emerged, so did he in his normal job.

Roger described Paul as playing ‘a very powerless subordinate role’ when he was with his boss. O n at least one occasion Roger had met the two of them with the object of getting them both to talk-and in particular to get Paul to talk and his boss to listen. The boss had continually dominated the discussion and in the end Roger had had ‘to shut him u p . . . and it was interesting to see how obviously upset he was by that and how he respected it and how he remembered it the next time we met and said I did the right thing. So I think that challenging people who are not used to it because of their position is an important part of the consultant’s role’.

I t thus emerged that Roger was confronting this man on behalf of Paul- giving him the opportunity to be heard when previously he had been unable to be. Roger admitted, however, that he was sometimes emotionally predis- posed to react in this way and he felt that sometimes he did it for mixed

CHRIS MCGIVERN 3 76 motives. ‘The difficult part for me is . . . to be sure I’m doing it for the right motives and the time I’m doing it for the wrong motives is when I’m being criticized . . . If I get to the point where I’m actually being defensive for some reason, or what’s worse, where I feel he’s not actually hearing me, my own needs start coming up and then I’m suggesting things that are either critical or they are shoulds or oughts . . . then things very quickly start to slide. You can feel the facts are on dodgy ground, starting to deteriorate’.

Roger also talked about his own desire to ‘give the client something’-a feeling he got when after some time he began to worry about whether the client was moving far and fast enough towards a solution. ‘I think that happens when I’m with a guy and he has been talking an awful lot, some very valuable data, and I’m starting to say to myself-now what’s he going to end up with at the end of this-and then I start to feel the need that I’ve got to give him something and that’s a very dangerous time for me. . . . I start pushing stuff a t them, proving how good I am, and it’s either giving them frameworks or formulas or examples or whatever’.

Roger had clear values in terms of being able to get on well with people and showed some frustration in not being able to live up to them. ‘There’s a deep-seated challenge in the thought that there are people I can’t deal with-I mean in a reasonably constructive and sharing way. There are, of course’.

Roger’s client-Paul. Paul began our discussion with a summary of the problems on which he and Roger were working. There was a close match with what Roger had said. Paul said at an early stage, however, that he thought that the problem with the matrix team could be resolved by his boss ‘putting his foot down more-as I put it, he could use an edict’. H e admitted though that ‘Roger feels that won’t necessarily work, and has persuaded me quite a bit that it won’t work’.

Paul said that Roger’s involvement ‘led to some interesting, helpful moves’ and that one result was that his boss had spent quite a lot of time on the subject, agreeing on what should be done. ‘This is where Roger has been extremely valuable . . . He’s providing an umbrella so that, if you like, I don’t have to spend a hell of a lot of time protecting my own position’.

What does that mean in practice? ‘Well, every so often situations come up about something new when he (Roger) will take a view that is helpful to me’.

Does that mean that he argues your case with your boss? ‘Yes, a case was argued through last week, and I’m pretty happy about it’.

I t sounds as though he is on your side. ‘Yes. The word umbrella is a bit odd-it’s Roger’s word. I feel I’ve been a loser for a long time. That’s the feeling-it may be misconceived, but that’s my feeling, I also have the frustration of trying to do this (matrix team) project without really getting a

377 breakthrough so that people, the hinderers Roger calls them, have been able to say well, what have you done in the team?’

‘In a way I’ve no problems about talking to my boss if I can get hold of him . . . he doesn’t easily, as it were, get his diary out’.

Is Roger changing your relationship with your boss permanently, or just in the short term? ‘I don’t know. He may be helping on a permanent basis-I think that’s probably right’.

How active has Roger been in getting you to sit down with your boss? ‘Roger has been pretty good at fixing up appointments-and my boss has usually managed to keep them’.

Asked about Roger’s personal characteristics, and which of them contributed particularly to his effectiveness, Paul mentioned : ‘quite a quick grasp of the business detail as well as the organizational issues, so one doesn’t have to go back to basics a t all’.

‘. . . a lot of understanding of the cultural differences between the functions . . . and people as well’.

‘. . . and he can withstand a barrage of abuse (he referred to a meeting which had been difficult for Roger) . . . so he’s got a sort of perseverance on top of these other attributes’.

He added: ‘I feel that he’s trying his damnedest to improve the situation, whether it’s anything to do with my relationship with my boss, or within the function generally, or in the team. I’m impressed with the amount of time he’s putting in. He may have other priorities a few weeks ahead, but when there’s a date in the diary one has during that hour a pretty well mapped out agenda. His preparation is good and he does try his best at writing it up afterwards which is helpful. I like to latch on to the reminders he has noted. I appreciate the fact that someone is trying to help me on that basis’.


The views of Roger’s work compared. One of the issues which emerged from Roger’s description of his own approach was his strong need to do something practical to help his clients-and to be seen to be helpful. In both of the interviews with clients he was certainly seen in this light. In the first case he was described as helpful because of his careful preparation of frameworks or agendas which he provided to help his client group work through their problem.

In the second case he appeared to some extent actually to be doing Paul’s job for him-making appointments with his boss and arguing his case. Perhaps the main difference between Roger and his clients’ views is that perhaps (this will be discussed later when Roger’s own views on the feedback are outlined) he was seen as doing things f o r them, rather than with them-or indeed getting them to do things for themselves. Nevertheless, a number of points do emerge from the clients’ comments which are common to both of them. These included knowledge of the organization, careful preparation, what appears to be a thorough or systematic or comprehensive

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approach to problem-solving, and again personal commitment-‘doing his damnedest to help’. The confidence or trust which this inspired in at least one of the two clients meant that he was willing to go along with courses of action, the purpose of which he did not fully understand.

Consultant C-Mike

The moment it moved was w h e n . . . I just thought there’s no point in going through this charade. I’ve had it too many times. I’ve had enough of it and I decided I’m going to tell them what they’re doing to me. By saying ‘I’ve had enough of this, you lot are pissing me off they were more valued by me because they were being treated like grown-ups.

Mike chose to concentrate on describing what he felt had been a turning point in his career in consultancy. Aged forty-three years, he had been self-employed for five years as an independent consultant specializing in the development of the design and production of audio visual training and communication programmes. H e also ran courses for staff tutors with one of the big four banks. I t was in this latter area of work that he had recently ‘had the experience’ which he felt had had such an effect on his whole approach to consultancy.

After a number of courses which had gone ‘reasonably well’, but never very successfully, Mike began to feel that the problem was that the participants ‘. . . were there under duress. They had to go through the week but they didn’t want to know about it . . . When I feel bad is when they turn up and say, well we shouldn’t really be here, we’ve got a lot of other work to do and that’s a load of rubbish anyway. We’ll never be able to use any of this-and they carry that attitude for the rest of the week. I’ve tried everything I know to get them involved from taking a totally directive approach-now hear this-to okay, what do you want to do? None of these has worked in my terms, which is the outcome. I see them going away and saying that’s quite useful-I could do something with that or . . . I don’t sell a specific solution to specific problems, I sell a tool kit . . . but I never felt before that I’d even got a tool kit to offer. They were just being forced to go through it’.

‘Last time this lot had a pre-meeting and they decided they wouldn’t pay attention unless this was going to offer something they could use directly on the job . . . I realized that they would never be receptive’.

What made him realize that? ‘Each time I worked with them I saw these blank faces, plus when I came in they were arguing animatedly and when I came in everything would s t o p . . . So I said I’m not doing you any good. What’s happened? What’s the problem? How do you see what you’ve done? And I asked each of them to tell me where they thought they were and they each told different stories. We were sitting around on the floor and a couple on chairs. I t was very informal. I started out by saying I’ve got all these

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marvellous ideas and it obviously wasn’t working-so that was when I sat down. So we were all just sitting around, lounging around, and I said look, I’ll tell you what, you lot have been pissing about for the last day . . . I didn’t need to feed the next bit in because they responded by saying yes’.

‘So now I come in regularly and try my bit and you lot don’t react, and now I’ve said something else and you’ve reacted differently. Would you tell me how you felt about what I said? That’s the first time I ever said that, I never felt confident enough to say i t before’.

‘Some people said that sounded pretty reasonable-I don’t agree but it’s a reasonable thing to say. Somebody else said I felt really bad when you said that, so we talked about how we felt and I told them again how I gave everything I had when I came and all they did was just piss about . . . I was really fed up . . . I thought nobody loves me, nobody cares what I feel-O.K. I’m getting paid for this, but so are they-to take a week off and skive-so are they going to work or are theyjust going to skive?’

‘So I said okay, that’s the first really frank conversation I’ve ever had on one of these courses-I think we can build on it’.

The participants on the course then decided to continue working on the same problem. ‘. . . and from that time on I think we only lost one person . . . I kept on reinforcing the message that it was what they wanted to do and if they wanted anything from me they should ask. By the end of the session they had got some kind of presentation together for the next day. Some of the stuff in it I thought was rubbish and said so, and if I saw something that was original I said so. Anyway, it all finished u p with a real scramble, we ran out of time and that was good because it was indicative that we were actually doing things and not just sitting around yawning and waiting for the next bit. Since then I’ve had a ‘phone call saying can you come back next week . . .’

Mike went on to describe further the way he was now building the relationship with the bankers. H e believed that they now saw him as ‘another human being like themselves-with my own specialities-I would be happy to ask them about banking, so why shouldn’t they ask m e . . . Before they hadn’t seen me that way. I had always tried to manipulate them. I tried to keep them happy, by saying I’ve had enough they were more valued by me . . . and at that point they said well, if he felt like that maybe there’s something in it, maybe it’s worth trying’. At that point, he felt he was ‘part of them’.

What the members of Mike’s client group said. A group discussion was held with the members of the course which Mike had run. I t began with a description of how, as Mike had said, they had looked upon attendance at the course as something they would rather not do. ‘We’re not going to enjoy it, we’re not going to get anything out of it and there’s no point in going’.

‘That was the frame of mind we had when we started. I t wasn’t until

CHRIS MCGIVERN 380 Wednesday when things started to click that we thought we could use them’, said one member. Another said: ‘Before we had found the whole exercise totally frustrating and at the end of it we all said it was a complete waste of time. There was effectively no working relationship with Mike. What event- ually came out of it was through what happened with Mike we all took a look at ourselves and came up with certain conclusions and as far as I’m concerned I saw value in what had gone on and regretted the disaster that had happened’.

One added: ‘Mike is now more flexible. I n the past there was an awful lot of frustration, a lot of questions unanswered, just left in the air. As a result of the last workshop, we’re all learning and we’ve got a better relationship with him-one of the things I’ve noticed is that if I had tackled Mike on something two years ago I wouldn’t have got an answer. Now I’m getting his views which is important to me. We have a more open exchange. I think this is how the relationship has changed’.

Other comments included: ‘Now you can ask him a question and he will either say I don’t know, or,

we’ll look at it and find out, or if he has got a view on it he’ll say well, this is my view, not necessarily what you may believe but it’s how I see it’.

‘What has happened as a result (of the experience of the course) is that the more we’re in contact with Mike, the more open we’re all becoming. For instance, yesterday he said I don’t know the answer but we’ll talk about it, which is something you wouldn’t have got out of him before’.

Was there a particular incident when you began to see this change very clearly ?

‘There was one when Mike came in and criticized us, on this day when we didn’t know what we were doing and Mike said you teach your course members to plan and define the objectives and here you are getting involved in trying to do something without your objectives being clear, and some of us took it as personal criticism, some of us saw straight away that what he said was apt’.

Another interjected ‘I took more criticism than anyone but what actually happened for me was that he was going down in my estimation-and then he actually gave me direction which is something I wouldn’t have got out of him the day before’.

‘Perhaps it was an assumption by Mike that we would know what we were doing-it wasn’t until he saw that we had spent two hours and got nowhere that he thought well, perhaps they don’t know . . . ,

‘It almost threw Mike in as a team member rather than an “us and them” situation. We didn’t come up with it with Mike standing over there watch- ing, he was actually there a t the eureka moment’.

What emerged from the group interview were two main sets of issues. One was to do with the way in which Mike had begun to work with the group in a much more frank and direct way, giving clear and specific answers, or


when he did not have an answer to give, to explore possible solutions in discussion. The second set of issues has to do with the way Mike seemed to have begun to come across in a personal way, rather than purely in terms of his role-the ‘we’ feeling rather than the ‘us and them’. ‘Mike comes over as a fellow I’m quite happy to have a chat with generally. He’s human and I think it’s very, very important for somebody in his situation’.

The views of Mike’s work compared. For Mike, the incident which took place during the course was clearly cathartic and it seems to have been much more memorable in i tsel f for Mike than for the course members. For although both they and he described the same changes-the move towards openness-they saw them taking place in a more evolutionary way, over a period during which they saw Mike having ‘learned’ what they really wanted. They did not experience-or at least recall-the one occasion described by Mike as being the moment.

What both parties did agree on, however, was that there were now ‘games’ being played between them. Mike was ‘one of them’ but had a special contribution to make in terms of his own expertise. As a result of the way the relationship had developed, Mike was now perceived by the group as having a ‘bag of tools’ to offer them, rather than the specific solutions to specific problems he had previously felt under pressure to provide. Mike had wanted to take a contingent approach to the work with the bankers, but they had apparently wanted him to be prescriptive. (This was consistent with the culture of the organization-‘domestic banking is a very structured environment-you are much directed which way you will go and this (style of learning) is alien and very frustrating’.)

SOME CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE CLIENT-CONSULTANT RELATIONSHIP

These three cases raise a number of particular issues:

A Lack of Emphasis on Results

One somewhat surprising feature of the accounts from both consultants and clients was the lack of emphasis on outcomes-i.e. what had been achieved as a result of their working together. Whilst it could be expected that to some extent the consultants would have been at least as much concerned with the quality of the process of the consulting relationship as with its achievements, this would seem to be a less predictable interest for clients. And yet they appeared to give considerable weight to such qualitative issues. Very few references were made to tangible results by the clients, even though they were being asked about the reasons why they believed their work with the consultants had been successful. Although one of Andrew’s clients had noted the fact that the objectives of the project had been achieved, this was expressed as being the result of the presence of a number of qualitative

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factors in the relationship. Success in this sense was, for the client, a result of the relationship being characterized by certain qualities-particularly this consultant’s manifestly high level of personal commitment-rather than his technical expertise or problem-solving skills. The consultant was committed, he said, because he felt ‘free to be himself‘ and could ‘identify’ with the client. (This does raise a further question, however, about whether consultant help is a means of dealing with practical problems or a form of therapy).

Effective Relationship-Building Strategies

It seems clear from these three cases that the consultant behaviours which do most to develop client relationships are those which are relatively unambiguous-i.e. their purpose seems quite clear to the client. Thus, when the third consultant, Mike, finally ‘blew his top’ and told the client group exactly what he thought about the way they were working together, there was a distinct improvement in their relationship. Thereafter he was accepted as an equal, a member of the group, because they now felt confident that he was being quite open with them. The fact that Roger, for example, argued on behalf of his client with the elusive boss, led the client to say that Roger ‘always tried his damnedest to help’ and thus gained his complete confidence and trust. Andrew too was praised because wherever possible he would do things the client’s way-but at the same time would always make his own preferences quite clear. So, ‘when he does agree with you, that’s O.K., he really does agree’.

Kty Facets of the Relationship

In our other study, eight facets of the relationship emerged as being significant. In these three cases, the facets which in their own terms have come out most strongly from the data are the needjor trust, high levels of interaction and contingent methods. In each case, these facets have been identified by both parties as being of special importance. Trust is most frequently regarded as the prime requirement and its existence from the client’s point of view seemed largely to derive from the kind of ‘authentic’ or unambiguous behaviour described above, together with a willingness to adapt to his needs and wishes, whether expressed implicitly or explicitly. For the consultants it seemed to relate to the extent that they perceived the clients to be open and non-manipulative. When the consultants felt that they were under pressure, being ‘played games’ with or denied relevant information, relationships and the quality of the resulting work clearly suffered.

This finding seems to confirm Rogers’ ( 1 9 6 1 ) conclusions about the characteristics of the helping relationship. Several of the qualities he refkrred t epa r t i cu la r ly the need for trust-were either implicitly or explicitly mentioned in these cases. Rogers argues that clients, regardless o f the specifrc or


technical orientation .f their helpers, are likely to experience attitudinal factors in the relationship as having been primarily responsible for any benefits they report. I n the cases described above, each of the three consultants was working on very different problems and using different approaches, yet their clients made similar points about the reasons for their working relationships being successful.

THE RESEARCH STRATEGY

Feedback, and Participant Reactions

As far as the consultants were concerned, the research seemed to have been acceptable, and in the short term at least, useful. As Andrew put it, the subject of investigation was personally ‘scary’ at the outset, but the way in which the process was conducted made it less so. I n the end it turned out to have been ‘one of the most useful pieces of information about myself for a long time’ and he specified ways in which the feedback would affect his future work. At the final ieedback session Roger was specific about the way the experience had affected him: ‘I suppose the bit I was aware of and your notes shocked me into seeing again was how dependent Paul is on me and how much I am seen by him as to be driving him forward and how little it’s really his project. It’s me helping to solve his problem, which is really too much me up front. That’s the feeling I have. I t feels like all the people involved . . . need someone to help them take it somewhere-that’s how it feels. My concern is that there’s a pretty funny place for me to get myself. My concern is that I might find a basis that helps them clear up this issue, but am I leaving them with any way to do anything themselves?’

Mike used the feedback meeting to develop his thinking on the conclusions he had already reached about the need to be more confronting with clients and to worry less about ‘being nice’ to them.

One reason for the consultants’ positive attitudes towards the research may have been due to the fact that they were given access to all the available data. Initially, written summaries based on the full interview transcripts were prepared-mainly because it was felt that the individuals concerned would not want to wade through pages of verbatim notes. I n the event, each was very keen to read everything in the transcripts: ‘This is all about me’ said one, ‘so I am very interested in it!’

Access to the data also helped to prevent any feeling of the researcher concealing information from the consultants and therefore contributed to the relationship of trust. Knowing that this was the case, the consultants involved had no obvious reason either to distort information, or to conceal it. The fact that the clients were to be interviewed meant too that there was little point in not being ‘open’. I n fact the descriptions provided by clients and their consultants turned out to be very similar in most cases.

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This was mutually advantageous. The consultants were placed in a position where they were able to identify any personal ‘misreadings’ or ‘misun- derstandings’, and thus to correct any errors that they might detect in their own behaviour. The researcher could feel a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the data because of this verification procedure. Further, the nature of the research process and the relationship between the participants made i t possible for them to discuss many of the researcher’s inferences and conclusions, as well as the consultants’ views on the research process.

The Role of the Researcher

An important aspect of this approach to enquiry concerns the researcher’s role. I t is clearly unlike that adopted in traditional research. At different points in the process the roles change from interviewer, observer, and general data collector to counsellor and helper and friend. Each of the three cases described in the paper involved some counselling, especially in the latter stages, in relation to issues that had been highlighted in the client interviews. This seemed quite natural in the circumstances-indeed it implied that the quality of the relationship between the consultants and the researcher was good, and that a significant degree of trust existed between them. It can be argued that this reflected also on the validity of the research itself. For not only were the data and a t least some of the conclusions subjected to a test of public verifiability (Argyris, 1g70), but the apparent existence of a trusting relationship between researcher and researched implied, de facto, that the data collected were more likely to be valid and less distorted by game playing or deception (Argyris, I 980).

Interdependence between the Parties to Research and Consultang?

The research described in this paper was, in a sense, conducted in two dimensions. At the most straightforward level, it was a study of relationships between consultants and clients. At another level, the method used was itself a test of the value-in terms of high quality results-of building a mutually beneficial interdependent relationship between researcher and subject. Thus the researcher was in a position not only to study but to experience the nature of relations between investigators and their clients. He was quite explicitly dependent on the co-operation of the consultants, and they, in turn, were able to derive feedback on their own performance that would not otherwise be available to them. While the three cases described in this paper provided a great deal of information about the nature of relationships between the consultants involved, the writer was very much aware of the extent to which i t was the way in which the research was conducted and the quality of his


relationship with the consultants which, as much as anything else, contributed to the outcome.

This became particularly apparent in the course of working with another (internal) consultant. In this case (the details of which are not reported in this paper) neither the research process nor the data it generated seemed to stimulate in him any apparent interest or concern. The data provided by his clients did not match the views of his performance which he put forward in the interviews. When summaries of clients’ comments were fed back to him, he showed every sign of not wishing to discuss them.

The relationship between us, although in many ways like those established with the other consultants-it was friendly and informal, for example- never developed to the point where either party was able to be completely open with the other. Although he was willing to talk about how he saw himself operating, when contradictory or inconsistent data appeared he made it clear that our contract-insofar as it existed-did not include discussing or confronting those inconsistencies.

Why this was so can only be guessed at. I t may have been that the data were too threatening, for his own image of himself as projected in the interviews was of considerable competence. He may have been concerned that his status within the organization might suffer. Whatever the reason, however, the quality of the relationship between us meant that many questions were left unanswered. The validity of the data must also be in some doubt. For example, to what extent was this individual aware of his clients’ views of what he had done with them? T o what extent, if at all, did he withhold or distort what he said in the interviews?

As parties to this piece of research, we could not be said to have been interdependent, therefore. As researcher, I was dependent on the consultant for collaboration, both for the data and for interpreting it. The consultant appeared not to believe that he had much to gain in return-indeed all the signs suggested that he would have preferred not to pursue the matter after the interviews had taken place.

What could have been done to avoid these difficulties is hard to deter- mine. That the other consultants appeared to describe their work in ways which matched their clients’ accounts indicates that this approach can provide an effective means of generating data on consultant behaviours. Whether the determining factor in making the approach work is the competence of the consultant (2.e. it may not be appropriate to the study of less competent individuals) or whether it is the ability of the researcher to build and maintain a sound relationship (in this sense one which will allow discussion of potentially threatening issues) has yet to be resolved.

We therefore plan to extend this study to embrace both successful and unsuccessful interventions in an effort to explore whether and to what extent the nature and quality of relationships explains consultant failure as well as the achievement of higher quality results.

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SOME FACETS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CONSULTANTS AND CLIENTS IN ORGANIZATIONS

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