7.4 Internal Consultant Expectations from a Client

Just as a client has certain expectations of internal consultants, the internal consultants also should have certain expectation of the client for whom they are working. These are as follows:

A Clear Scope of Work.

It is difficult for internal consultants to deliver value if the scope of the work is not clearly defined. In these cases, the interpretation of the requirements of the effort are left to the internal consultants and the work team. Unfortunately, none of the members of the team know how to read minds. As a result, it is highly unlikely that they will deliver exactly what the client wishes but has not clearly articulated.  

This can be a serious problem. It is up to the client, who has a general sense of what they want, to be able to work with the internal consultants to develop a scope of work which can be utilized to drive the initiative. This may take time and several meetings, but a clear scope is an essential part of any successful initiative.

Leadership.

Once the scope of work has been finalized and the work has started, the internal consultants should expect that the client provides a certain amount of leadership to the effort. This does not mean that they become involved in the actual effort; although there are times when this is a requirement. However, it does mean that as the initiative evolves, the client participates in a way that the organization clearly sees that this work is important to the client (usually a site manager) and the company.

Sponsorship.

The internal consultants also should expect that the client provide ongoing sponsorship for the initiative. What this means is that the client, who typically is a part of the senior management team, visibly supports and acts as an advocate for the effort as the work is taking place. Without sponsorship, the collective focus of the organization will shift to alternative initiatives over the time it takes for the internal consultant to complete the work. As a result, when it is time to deploy what has been created, the focus of the organization will be elsewhere, making this task difficult if not impossible. It is the job of the sponsor to keep this from happening.

Motivation.

Longer change initiatives go through a life cycle. At first there is great enthusiasm. As the work progresses and people see how long the effort is going to take, there is a decrease in energy. This is especially true if the team members working on the effort have been assigned to work on it in addition to their regular jobs. It is the client’s responsibility to help motivate the team. The internal consultants can accomplish some of this, but motivation from the client is far more significant and empowering than that provided from a third party. While this is an expectation of the client, the internal consultants often may need to ask for a motivational effort. The reason for this is the client is not closely connected with the work taking place and may not know when this is actually needed.

Commitment.

The internal consultants also should expect the client to be committed to the initiative over the long haul; the usual amount of time it takes for change efforts to actually deliver the value for which they are developed. All too often, management’s focus is diverted to other issues; they cease to provide the commitment that is needed for a change effort to succeed. There are indicators that this is occurring and the internal consultants must be paying attention. When they see these signs, they need to act. This can be difficult because it falls to the internal consultants to remind management of the commitment that they made to the effort. Failure to sustain commitment is easily recognized by the team. The project will fall apart if the team believes that there is no commitment to its success from the client.

Funding and Resources.

Another expectation that the internal consultants should have is that the client will actively work to obtain needed resources in both funding and the more difficult resource to obtain: people. Internal consultants have no authority to provide either of these critical resources for the project. However, the client does have this authority and needs to exercise it in support of the project.

Recognition of the Time Required.

All too often the problem with a change initiative is that, once management sees the benefits that the effort can deliver, they want it implemented right away. This is not only a mistake. It is also an impossibility if the site management want the effort to be delivered correctly and have it generate long-term value. Internal consultants expect that the client will work diligently to convince the managers that, in the world of change initiatives, the proper time needs to be allowed to do the work correctly. In other words “slow is actually fast.” Convincing others on the management team of this fact is critical for success of the initiative.

Ownership of the End Product.

One important task for internal consultants is the ability to disengage from the work after it has been completed. It is very important that this disengagement happens and that it is begun early in the actual work. Then, when the work is finished, it is owned by the client and their organization. The internal consultants have the responsibility to ensure that the client fulfills this responsibility so that the initiative’s longevity is not contingent on the internal consultants remaining on the job. Otherwise, even if the effort is a success, it still has failed to achieve the true value built into the design.

7.5 Things Not to Be Expected

There is one thing that internal consultants should not expect—that their advice or recommendation will always be accepted and applied. All too often, internal consultants work diligently for a client and arrive at what they feel is a set of recommendations that clearly will provide value and address the organizational issues that they were hired to correct. Yet after the presentation, the management team rejects the proposal.  

This is very frustrating for those of us in the internal consultant role. Often when this happens, we ask ourselves, “What have we done wrong?” Why, with all of our efforts and sound reasoning, did the proposal get rejected? Could we have made our points differently? Better? In a different format? To a more informed audience? …or any of a thousand questions about our abilities. The truth is that the fault is not ours. Additionally it is not the client’s fault either. There are many reasons why the proposal may not be accepted. Most of them lie either in the soft skills or in the organization’s culture, neither of which the internal consultant has any control over.  

At one point in my career, I led a project to install a computerized maintenance management system in all of our plants. This single system replaced computerized systems in each of the plants that were different from all of the others. This project lasted four years. At the end of this project, one of the suggestions that I made in my internal consultant role was that we set up a users group. This group would have representatives from each of the sites. Their role would be 1) to interact with each other, sharing the best practices for the use of the system, and 2) to interact with the software vendor, promoting enhancements that would improve the functionality of the application. The benefits of this user group were apparent to me and many others. However, when we made our presentation to management, the idea was dismissed and the user group never formed. At the time, I blamed myself for the failure to get the managers to accept what I truly believed was a very good idea.

The failure to get the internal consultant’s advice taken is not the fault of the internal consultant. So let’s take a step back in time and analyze what happened from the standpoint of the soft skills, the eight elements of change. (Note: This analysis focuses on the elements most relevant to this particular situation.)  

• Leadership. The senior manager believed that all you needed to do was deploy a system and the work process changes would follow. He was the one who tossed the project team out of his staff meeting for suggesting a work process redesign as a part of the software deployment. With this mind set, why would he or his staff consider a user group?  

• Work Process. The leadership team did not see the connection between work process and software. With this being the case, why would they want a group working to develop best work practices around the software application?  

• Group Learning. The belief was that deployment of the software was the project. There was no expectation that there was anything to learn after the software was deployed. With this belief, the team felt there were more important issues to be addressed than to establish a user group.  

• Technology. The view of this element was that once the software was deployed, there was no need to do anything further. They did not have any concept of improved functionality and software enhancements simply because these did not exist in their current systems.  

• Communication and Interrelationships. A user group requires both of these elements, but the plants did not operate in this manner. The supporting evidence of this was the fact that each site previously had its own maintenance computer system with little similarity between them. The four elements of culture also had a hand in the failure of the management team to accept the idea of a systems user group.

• Organizational Values. The values of the sites were of independence, not cooperation to develop best practices and share information. With this mindset, the recommenda tion to form a user group was doomed from the outset.

• Role Models. The role model in this case was the senior manager. His prior behavior regarding work process change made it were clear to his subordinates what he thought of systems applications for anything other than support of the existing work process.  

With all of these factors against the concept of a user group, it was no wonder the idea failed to get accepted, let alone implemented. This evidence also clearly points out that there was no inherent failure on my part. The cards were stacked against me before I started; I just didn’t know it at the time.  

The message here is simple. When a proposal is rejected, take a step back and ask yourself, “Did the team that I supported as an internal consultant do the best job we could have?” If the answer is yes, then review the rejection in terms of the eight elements of change and the four elements of culture. You may be surprised at what you learn about why your proposal failed.  

One further thought for your consideration. Five years later with a different management team in place and a different set of values, I made the same proposal and it was accepted. All that had changed was the date on the documentation and, most importantly, the clients.