Peter Block, in his book, Flawless Consulting, suggests that certain goals always be primary for consultants, that is, for individuals working to help people, but not having authority over those people. He suggests the following as primary goals for any type of consultant.
1. Establish a collaborative relationship with your clients
As a consultant, you should work with your clients almost as if you are peers working in a team. This is in contrast to the consultant who always works as an “expert” to direct the client what to do and when. Working in a collaborative fashion with your clients helps ensure that recommendations are accurate, that clients follow the recommendations and that they adopt the changes needed to improve themselves and their organizations.
2. Solve problems so your clients can solve them later themselves
The approach to problem solving in the project should always involve your client’s learning about what is being done and why, so that later on your client might use similar approaches to solve similar problems after you are gone from the project. So it’s important to regularly identify learning during the project, and discussing that learning with your client.
3. Ensure attention to developing the project and relationships
The quality of the relationship between you and your client is a reliable predictor of the quality of the outcome of the overall project. Your clients often judge a project, not so much by the outcomes from the project, but by the quality of the working relationship with you.
What do you think?
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Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD – Authenticity Consulting, LLC – 800-971-2250
Read my weekly blogs: Boards, Consulting and OD, Nonprofits and Strategic Planning.
Carter McNamara of Authenticity Consulting, LLC, provides organization development and consultant training services, and is developer of the Free Management Library. 
Jim Smith has been a consultant for over 40 years, and has very strong knowledge and expertise in successfully guiding change
in many types of organizations.
Having spent 30 + years in consulting and worked with over 100 clients on major change programs/M&A integrations/business transformations, I agree with your comments. I would also add: make sure that the benefits you deliver are greater than the cost of your services; respect your clients and their culture; care as much or more about their business than they do; and recognize that your role is to make your client successful, not yourself.
regards, jack prouty
I agree with the 3 main points made above. I would also like to stress the importance of developing a collaborative partnership approach. This helps to ensure that organizations develop because staff take responsibilty for their own development and continue to do so after the OD intervention has been completed.
I also concur with the suggestions provided. As an emerging doctor pursuing my PhD in Organizational Leadership, I find OD work intriguing. Suppose you are consulting for a religious organization (a church), would many of the suggestions still apply? Is there a different approach to Christian leadership verses secular leadership? If so, how can the consultant apply all of these theories, strategies, and ,methods primarily designed for the secular business world to religious organizations?
Hello,
I am a printer that currently prints for a couple of consultants/motivational speakers. I enjoy working with consultants and would like to expand my business to include more consultants in our customer profile.
How can I get more consultants to print with me? We take electronic files, print the product and ship it to the location without any the customer needing to come in or pick up the product. Our pricing structure beats most printers. We just did 100 books for an energy consultant at $1,000 and the price Kinkos gave was $1,853.
Do you have some suggestions for me? We are a 7 year company trying to get more business.
Any words of wisdom would be terrific.
Thank you
Bart Dolley
PPS Print Pack Ship