Understanding consulting—Part 1
From time to time, we hear of people working as consultants or others giving out consultancy work to experts. But next time, it could be you who will be involved in either being contracted out as a consultant or in acquiring services of a consultant. It is, therefore, important to understand how consulting should be conducted and how consultants should carry out their exercises.
Different consultancy works require different types and methods of consulting methodology. Today, we will start by looking at the three main types of consulting assignments.
The first type is the purchase of information or expertise. This is the type of consulting where a client brings in a consultant who operates as an expert in the situation and provides the correct technical solution. In this case, the client usually knows what the problem is, what help is needed and who to ask for help. The expert consultant takes away and owns the problem. In his or her own space, the expert consultant works out the solutions and comes back to the client with a solution.
And so, in your area, if you have a problem that you know well and are able to identify the kind of consultant that can find the solution for your problem, you will want to engage the type of expert consultant for that issue. A good example would be where you know very well that your company is paying a lot more tax than you should but internally, perhaps you do not have an officer with good mastery of tax issues to develop the solution. In this case, the appropriate action to take is to engage services of a tax expert as a consultant who will come and collect all the information he needs, go back to his drawing table and work out the solution which he would later bring and present to your management team for consideration, adoption and implementation.
The second type of consulting is the doctor-patient model. In this situation, the client experiences ‘pain’ or ‘symptoms’ and does not know what is wrong or how to fix it. The client then delegates diagnosis as well as identification of the remedy. The consultant takes over the problem until ready to offer a prescription. In this case, the consultant may likely have to spend a lot of time on site or with staff to understand the root of the issue.
The third type of consulting is the process consultation model in which the consultant acts as a facilitator and enables the client to work on the problem and generate their own solutions. The client owns the problem and continues to own it throughout the consultation. The consultant may or may not be the expert in the relevant technical area. The client shares in the diagnosis and is actively involved in generating a remedy. The consultant remains focused on the process and relationships. There are many consultants who have this rare skill to coordinate the process like this, without necessarily having the core content knowledge of the area under concern. This type of consultants are a little bit like project managers, who do not really need to have mastery of the content of the project to run the project well–it is down to process and coordination. But remember that key to the success of this model is that some members of the task team must have the know-how about the problem area.
Today, we have spent time understanding the three common types of consulting assignments. Next week, we will dwell on how one can effectively carry out a consulting exercise. Good luck as you rise and shine with consulting and consultants!
