1. Consultant Client relationships

2. Assignment failures… Growth of Management Consulting industry.
But Increase in failures of assignments…..
Reforms are abandoned during the implementation phase (Brunsson 2000)
“Many implementation plans do not survive contact with reality” (Obolensky 2001, p. 177)
Former CEO of Volkswagen, Ferdinand Piëch, famously proclaimed: “If you want to ruin a company, you only have to try fixing it with the help of external consultants”.

3. Broad categories of failure causes
Personal characteristics of the consultant and of the client (e.g. lack of skills),
Technical shortcomings (e.g. ineffective project management),
An unstable or bad consultant–client relationship (e.g. lack of communication),
Sociopolitical aspects of the client organisation (e.g. hidden agendas; unreadiness for/resistance to change).
“The trick, for those who wish to become masters of implementation, is to be
accurately aware of what is happening, so as to anticipate better the pitfalls.”
(Obolensky 2001, p. 164)

4. Consultant – Client problems….
Lack of effective communication about how the project will proceed
Improperly setting expectations too high or too low
Lack of follow through on small yet important details
Under estimating project complexity or scope
Failing to understand user requirements.

5. Perspectives… What is the Client worried about ?
What is the Consultant worried about?

6. Perspectives… What should the Client be worried about ?
What should the Consultant be worried about?

7. Important issues…… Entry and contracting Defining the client system
Trust
Nature of consultant’s expertise
Diagnosis and appropriate interventions
Depth of interventions
Being absorbed by the culture
Consultant as a model

8. Consultant team as a microcosm
Action research and the OD Process
Client dependency and terminating the relationship
Ethical Standards in OD
Implications of OD for the client

9. Entry and contracting Telephone call Meet face to face
Norms for working
Exploration of problems
Formal compensation aspects

10. Defining the client system
Who is the client actually?????
Burke and Argyris—Intervention theory interactions,interrelationships and interfaces

11. Trust Issue Relationship of mutual trust Start at neutral base
Good guy- Bad guy syndrome
Confidentiality

12. Nature of Consultants’ expertise
Competence
Over reliance on consultant
Doctor – patient model
Expert role -:1.creates dependency
2.defense of recommendations
3. Confidentiality issue
4.raised expectations

13. Diagnosis and appropriate intervention
Comfortable with an intervention????
Appropriate to diagnosis

14. Depth of Intervention Harrisson suggests :
To intervene at a level no deeper than that required to produce enduring solutions to the problems at hand
And to intervene at a level no deeper than that at which the energy and resources of the client can be committed to problem solving and to change.

15. Being absorbed by the culture
Confronting the subgroup with the dilemma and outlining the consequences of inaction may be much more constructive than succumbing to the pressures of the culture

16. Consultant as a model Practice what is preached
Congruence in words and apparent feelings

17. Consultant team as a microcosm
Action Research and the OD Process

18. Dependency Issue and terminating relationship

19. Ethical standards in OD
Misrepresentation of skill
Professional ineptness
Misuse of data
Coercion/Collusion
Promising unrealistic outcomes
Deception

20. Implications of OD for Client
To enlarge the database for making mgmt decisions
To expand the influence processes
To capitalise on the strengths of the informal system and to make the formal and informal system more congruent
Become more responsive
To legitimatize conflict as an area of collaborative mgmt
To examine its own leadership styles and ways of managing
To legitimatize and encourage the collaborative mgmt of team,interteam and org.cultures

21. Robert Kaplan…..
His paper is based on a case study of an OD project in which 2 years were consumed in this preparatory phase.
The argument is made that before the desired changes in the organization are possible, a meta-change in the organization's capacity to learn and change and to collaborate with change agents is necessary.
The argument is made that this developmental phenomenon must occur at two levels-both at the level of particular units of the organization and at the level of the organizational system as a whole.

22. Assignment failures..causes
Personal characteristics of the consultant and client (e.g. lack of skills)
Technical shortcomings (e.g. ineffective project management)
Socio-political aspects of the client organisation (e.g. hidden agendas; unreadiness for/resistance to change)

23. I
The consultant-client relationship is – more or less implicitly – seen as key for consultation success (McGivern 1983; Fullerton and West 1996; Sturdy 1997)
Case study by Appelbaum and Steed (2005) 102 managers of a
telecommunication organisation were asked about their impression of the overall success of consulting projects.

24. importance of a good and sound relationship between the client and the consultant (e.g. Stumpf and Logman 2000; Kubr 2002; Kakabadse 2006).
“the two issues responsible for most failed consultations were the intrusion of internal politics into the consultation process and the failure to clearly establish and maintain consensual goals” (Lister and Pirrotta 1996, p. 37).
Ineffective project management was also the main reason for failure in the study by Smith (2002).