Managerial Consulting Skills: A Practical Guide

Citation

Campbell, R. (2001), "Managerial Consulting Skills: A Practical Guide", Journal of Management Development, Vol. 20 No. 7, pp. 668-670. https://doi.org/10.1108/jmd.2001.20.7.668.1

Managerial Consulting Skills: A Practical Guide is not a scholarly or theoretical piece of writing. It is not meant to be. It delivers on what it sets to do, namely, provide a book full of practical, pragmatic advice based on wide experience and common sense. Charles Margerison is to management consulting what Barry Bucknal was to do it yourself. He is recognised as a leading authority and expositor on how to perform and add value in management consulting. His appeal is in his simple, straightforward, and understandable approach to undertaking a difficult occupation, fraught with many pitfalls. Organisations both public and private can ill afford poor consultancy. While consultants are human, they need to get it right first time and this book is essential reading in the repertoire of any practising or potential internal or external consultant who needs to do just that.

This book is constructed in five parts. First of all, Professor Margerison considers the purposes and processes of consulting, laying out for consideration the principal benefits of managerial consulting, the main consulting steps, and its key processes. He concludes this section with a discussion on time management and contracting. Second, he considers personal and interpersonal skills, referring to “conversation control” on which he has written extensively, and offers advice on how to gain permission and enter territory, raise energy levels and establish forums for sharing of information. Third, he helps the reader to clarify his/her consulting model, consider how to consult and share experience, how to get to grips with the organisation as a system, and the need to understand and manage the role pressure the client is under. Fourth, Professor Margerison deals with the politics and pressures of consulting, managing stakeholders, involving the key people and the factors influencing failure and success. In conclusion, action learning in business is discussed and the relatively new concept of consulting on the Web considered. Throughout the book, Professor Margerison introduces and summarises points from other consultants to aid learning and underpin the approaches presented.

In Part 1 Professor Margerison helpfully identifies various roles and tasks of the internal and external consultant and considers the behaviours that make them effective, highlighting the centrality of interpersonal skills and technical competence. He then lays out what he considers to be the three stages of consulting, namely: appraisal – moving from the first contact to contract negotiation; assessment from data collection, analysis and feedback to data discussion; and application – dealing with proposals, decisions, implementation and review. I found these helpful, providing a contextual background to undertaking a consultancy project. Key processes of consultation (action planning – considering mission, objectives; action research – designing data collection and review strategies; and action implementation – dealing with decisions, change management, restructuring, etc.) are also identified and discussed. Finally, the difficulties of developing a time schedule for the delivery of the project is discussed and, in this regard, a very useful checklist highlighting important questions as to the what, how, who, when, why and where of the project is provided.

Part 2 deals with an area that Professor Margerison has very much made his own, that of “conversation control”. This deals with the consultant managing his/her own conversation and listening ability which is crucial in responding in an understanding manner, leading hopefully to the building up of trust with the client. Managing your own cues and the selection of the client’s cues and clues are dealt with. Signs and signals covering non‐verbal cues and body language are also highlighted. A helpful dichotomy is discussed between problem‐solving and solution‐centred behaviour. Problem‐centred approaches are appropriate when the problem is open ended and, for example, the need is for the client to understand the process by which the solution is reached. Solution‐centred approaches are appropriate when the problem has been clearly diagnosed and the client has no interest in spending time working on the solution. This part also deals with how to manage the dynamics of agreement/disagreements and a particularly useful discussion on how to gain permission to enter territories of the client as a guest. This is particularly helpful when, in order to fulfil the brief, one has to enter areas originally off limits. A more in‐depth discussion here on these approaches would be useful, with perhaps some prescriptive modes. Professor Margerison brings this section to a close with a helpful discussion on how to develop an informal organisational structure alongside the formal structure in order to open up lines of communication necessary for problem solving. Interdepartmental forums, temporary structures and developing teams are all discussed.

In part 3 the author challenges the readers to be clear on their consulting role model, how they see their role and that of their client. Ethical considerations are also discussed. The need to clarify the consultant’s systems overview and the need to identify the key pressures and role pressures on clients and players are highlighted. I believe that this area is crucial, especially when organisations are viewed as feedback systems which have to be carefully managed. I would therefore like to have heard more of the experience of the author on how to manage these interconnections. Role consultation, internal consulting and managers as consultants are helpfully covered.

In part 4 the politics of consulting are discussed. All corporate governance and strategy, and this is no different for consulting interventions, are constrained by political feasibility. However, the consultant may face additional problems, in that the current orgnisational system is not capable of dealing with specific issues. If it were the consultant may not have been necessary in the first place. Therefore, being sensitive to the political infrastructure and analysing and managing key stakeholders is crucial. Professor Margerison deals with these issues and how to involve the “make‐or‐brea” people. As suggested earlier in the book, the necessities of identifying where and how the client fits into the overall system is critical. The need to have the client identify and describe the main actors as a precursor to making sense of the scripts, plots and themes and the interconnectedness between the actors is very important. Questioning assumptions and the need to be clear about the real reasons for requests for help are discussed. Factors influencing failure and success are debated, such as listening to key people, providing opportunities for problem solving, reporting as a process not as a solution, etc. Considering how clients see you and avoiding failure by positive news, respecting the culture and political involvement, etc. are also helpfully dealt with.

In the final part Professor Margerison deals with new developments in consulting and in particular action learning in business and consulting on the Web. He advocates action learning as having, from his experience, the greatest impact in improving performance in organisations. He identifies seven kinds of action learning questions such as business situation questions, personal style questions, policy questions and project questions, etc. He highlights the need to share and compare learning, deal with certainty and doubt, and try to manage the politics and personalities involved in the project. In consulting on the Web, Professor Margerison asks what your Web consultancy is and lists helpful points on how to design an impactive Web site.

In conclusion, this book is a veritable treasure trove of practical advice and guidance on consulting. It covers a vast array of material and, because of this, at times it is only able to give passing attention to topics that require greater in depth consideration and detailed examination. This gives a rather fast‐food response to difficult, complicated questions, as distinct from an à la carte, academic and empirical treatise. However, as in all of these things, there is a balance to be struck between depth and breadth, and Professor Margerison strikes it well.

If you ever wanted a book written by an experienced consultant that could give you excellent advice on a vast range of consulting problems and scenarios, then this book is the friend you have been waiting for.