Collaboration Strategies for Process Consultants
Collaboration Strategies for the Process Consultant
Pamela Pendley
Collaboration Strategies for the Process Consultant
Relationship building is a rigorous practice of the heart and soul. To many of us, relationship building is a mystery, and yet, it is a practice that invites exploration. The relationship between external and internal consultants is one that is inherently complex and potentially vibrant. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the collaboration strategies needed to build effective consultant relationships.
The relationship between the client and the consultant or between consultants is characterized by collaboration. To collaborate means to work together: the act of working together with one or more people in order to achieve something (www.itcfollmann.com/colaboration.html). There is enormous strength in the ideas, analysis and solutions for businesses if consultants and clients collaborate (Block, 1991). The client learns from the consultant, the consultant learns from the client, and the consultants learn from each other – a win-win situation!
According to Sarah Gevirtz, culutural anthropologist, only win-win situations exist when effective collaboration takes place. To find out what internal and external consultants are doing or not doing to create collaborative relationships with one another, Ms. Gevirtz, decided to speak with eight OD consultants (five senior consultants, three externals and two internals, working in large and small organizations in both public and private sectors).
All of the consultants (four women and four men) were between 40 and 60 years old, and all had 10 or more years of consulting experience. Each interview and informal discussion lasted approximately one hour. To insure confidentiality, the respondents were told that any names of people or companies would be disguised.
She asked the respondents to tell some stories about their work with an external or an internal consultant in order for her to get a big-picture understanding of each consultant's experience. She encouraged the respondents to speak openly and include as many of the scenes and specifics of their experiences as they could in order for her to understand the respondents' thoughts and feelings about the experiences.
She asked each respondent what they thought was the possible causes for what worked well and not and, were there any learning’s gleaned from the experience about yourself or about working with the other. As a result of this study, she identified the most common elements that hinder or enhance collaborative relationships as outlined below:
Hindering Factors
• One of the most consistent responses from respondents was that an external who accepts a consulting assignment without involving the internal sets up a situation that is a hindrance to the consulting process. When this occurs, the internal may feel threatened by the external, which may lead to the internal perceiving the external as arrogant.
• A second hindrance that several respondents reported, which can polarize the consultants is when the internal has concerns that the external might make a fundamental mistake that would not benefit the organization. If this is the case, the internal will not support the external's work and may sabotage it.
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