FacilitatorClient relationship
How systems thinking can help create collaborative client relationships
Session outline
• Whiteboard: Intro & setting expectations.
• Special breed of consultants?
• Challenges in process consultation.
• Soft systems thinking: two types of systems.
• Analyzing the intervention.
• Circle: wrap up and close.
Special breed consulting
• Is a group facilitator a special breed of a consultant?
Starting by some definitions
• Consultant: is an advisory contracted for and provided to organizations to help in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management problems, analyze such problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions (Greiner and Metzger, 1983).
• Group facilitator: Is a substantively neutral person without any decision-making authority, whose selection is acceptable to all members of the group to help improve how it identifies and solve problems and make decisions to increase the group effectiveness (IAF – International Association of Facilitators)
Two types of group facilitation
Roger Schwarz et al. (2005) define:
• Basic facilitation – helps groups learn ground rules and develop ability to selffacilitate most conversations.
• Developmental facilitation – Helps groups identify and change deeply held defensive routines and develop skills for leading organizational change and transformation.
• Developmental facilitation strongly overlaps with organizational development (OD) interventions
• OD = systemic and systematic change effort using behavioural sciences knowledge and skills to transform the organization to a new state.
3 models of consultation
EDGAR SCHEIN (1990) HAS IDENTIFIED THREE BROADLY ACCEPTED MODELS OF CONSULTATION:
PURCHASE-OF-EXPERTISE. THERE IS NO EXPECTATION TO FOCUS ON THE CLIENT RELATIONSHIP PER SE, BUT RATHER TO PROVIDE EXPERTISE IN A DETACHED MANNER.
THE DOCTOR-PATIENT MODEL. THE FOCUS IS ON USING A DIAGNOSTIC APPROACH TO EXAMINE THE CLIENT ORGANIZATION’S PROBLEMS AND ADVISE ON A SOLUTION. THIS MODEL EMPHASIZES THE IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A STRONG RELATIONSHIPS AND DEVELOPING TRUST BETWEEN THE CLIENT AND THE CONSULTANT.
THE PROCESS CONSULTATION MODEL. THE CONSULTANT IS A FACILITATOR WITH THE CLIENT ACTUALLY PROVIDING MUCH OF THE RELEVANT EXPERTISE. THE CONSULTANT PROVIDES MORE OF THE FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY FOR DEFINING THE PROBLEM AND THE BEST POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVES. IN THE END THE CLIENT CHOOSES WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE PROBLEM.
The roles of the client
In Schein’s model, six basic types of clients can be distinguished:
• Contact clients – the individual(s) who first contact the consultant with a request, question, or issue.
• Intermediate clients – the individuals or groups who or which get involved in various interviews, meetings, and other activities as the project evolves.
• Primary clients – the individual(s) or group who ultimately “own” the problem or issue being worked on; they are typically also the ones who pay the consulting bills or whose budget covers the consultation project.
• Unwitting clients – members of the organization or client system above, below and laterally related to the primary clients who will be affected by interventions but who are not aware they will be impacted.
• Indirect clients – members of the organization who are aware that they will be affected by the interventions but who are unknown to the consultant and who may feel either positive or negative about these effects.
• Ultimate clients – the community, the total organization, an occupational group, or any other group that the consultant cares about and whose welfare must be considered in any intervention that the consultant makes.
5 categories of consultants
Alternatively, Nees and Grenier (1985) propose five categories of consultants:
• (1) The mental adventurer analyzes truly intransigent problems such as long-term scenarios for country development, by applying rigorous economic methods and leveraging his or her experience base.
• (2) The strategic navigator bases his or her contribution on a rich quantitative understanding of the market and competitive dynamics, and then recommends courses of action without too much regard of the client’s perspective.
• (3) The management physician derives his or her recommendations from a deep understanding of the internal dynamics of the client organization, often willing to sacrifice some objectivity to gain a realistic perspective on what is achievable.
• (4) The system architect impacts his or her clients by helping redesign processes, routines, and systems – always in close cooperation with the client.
• (5) The friendly co-pilot counsels' senior managers as a facilitator rather than as an expert and has no ambition to provide new knowledge to the client.
Mapping group facilitator’s consulting roles
Purchase of expertise
Doctor-patient model Process consultation
Mental adventurer
The strategic navigator
The management physician
The system architect
Management Consultant
Management Consultant
The friendly co-pilot
Management Consultant
Management Consultant
Management Consultant
Management Consultant
Organizational development consultant / Group facilitator
Organizational development consultant / Group facilitator
A group facilitator is a particular breed of a consultant
In summary
She/he can deliver basic facilitation when focusing exclusively on the group objectives
She /he can deliver developmental facilitation and as a result approaches the role of an organization development consultant
When approaching the role of an OD consultant the group facilitator operates in the process consultation mode – client is ultimate responsible for decision making.
Challenges of process consultation
The group facilitator as a process consultant means that she/he must challenge the group to find their own answers providing the right conditions for effective teamwork.
Literature review
• Handley et al. 2005 researched the clientconsultant relationship and found out:
• Consultants can challenge the organizational status quo and lead the client to new or different forms of knowledge.
• Clients perceive the 'challenge' role of consultants to be very valuable by bringing an external or otherwise 'marginal' view which prompts clients to re-evaluate their own knowledge.
• However, the dynamics of challenge interventions are often presented at the level of generality and have not been fully explored in the context of case study research.
Research reveals
A case study centered on a strategy project sponsored by a senior executive in a multinational FTSE 100 organization:
• "We had a facilitator for this meetingan external facilitator called Robin. He does a lot of work at the EXCO level. He’s very senior and well regarded. He’s an external person, just works for himself. He's been extremely helpful. Actually, more helpful than STG (the consulting company) from the point of view of structuring the day and challenging us to really think through what we want to get out of it. He did all the right things. Asked all the right questions." [Peter, Senita project manager]
Effective contracting
For effective process consultation the clientfacilitator contract needs to be well defined upfront.
A contract is "an explicit bilateral commitment to a well-defined course of action" which means that all parties need to agree:
• why they want to do something
• with whom
• what they are going to do
• by when
• any fees, payment or exchanges there will be
A process consulting contract implies
• All parties need to state what they are prepared to do.
• Are they able and willing to undertake what is being asked?
• Is this appropriate? Does it fit within any statements of purpose and function?
• Is it legal, ethical?
• Do they have the competence to deliver this?
• What does each party want of the others?
In summary
• Contracts need to be measurable, manageable and motivational.
• Measurable means that the goals need to be tangible.
• The goal will be specific and behavioral and clearly defined.
• That each party involved in the contract will be able to say in advance how they will know when the goal has been achieved.
Wrap up
Major findings
References & additional resources
• OD competencies http://www.odnetwork.org/?page=odcompetencies
• Case study: http://www.designedlearning.com/pressroom/articles/contracting-eight-steps-to-building-a-strong-clientconsultant-relationship/
• Alonso strategy consulting’s article: http://www.alonsostrategyconsulting.com/The_ClientConsultant_Relationship
• Academic Paper: Client-consultant relations and the role of challenge http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc/archive/oklc6/pape rs/handley_sturdy_clark__fincham.pdf
• OLKC portal: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc
• Blog article: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/changeacademy/2012/04/30/change-and-the-knowledge-iceberg/
Acknowledgements:
The images in this presentation were captured from a book that I str ongly recommend:
Checkland, P & Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems in Action –
John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. http://amzn.com/0471986054
About the author
• Paul Nunesdea is the English author's name of Paulo Nunes de Abreu an organizational psychologist, MSc in Information Management and PhD in Management Science.
• Paul has conducted research work and external consultancy in a varied number of organizations including National and Regional Governments.
• In 2003 he started the "Forum Hospital do Futuro" a not-for-profit initiative that convened a national Think Thank in Portugal
• In 2009 he founded the Iberian Healthcare Leaders Forum that has convened several Thought Leaders summits in Spain and Portugal.
• Since 2012 is a member of the International Association of Facilitators and a Certified Professional Facilitator since 2018
• In 2020 he co-founded the Digital Collaboration Academy with renowned IAF colleague Peter Seah.
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