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Without truly effective relationship management skills, any consulting intervention that seeks to bring
about change is destined to fail. Effective relationship management is about more than having good
interpersonal skills, being easy to get on with, or a having a high EQ. It means having an
understanding of the dynamics of relationships and the skills required to move a relationship from the
early stage of first meetings into something that becomes an enduring source of value for both the
client and the consultant.
The consulting relationship plays such an important role because it is both the primary means of
engaging with the client system and the primary means of delivering the intervention. Without strong
and effective relationships, the most incisive and well thought through of consulting interventions will
flounder. Yet the consulting relationship is one of the most difficult kinds of relationship to get right:
who is the client? is it the company that is paying the bill, the person commissioning the work, or
the person who will benefit from the work, or all three?
what if there are conflicts of interest between these client groups?
what needs to be kept confidential and what can be used to nudge the system forwards?
how is power and authority negotiated? what if the decision-maker wants to go ahead with us but
the gate-keeper wants a different partner?
how to manage the tension between selling and consulting; how to avoid engendering suspicion
about whether we are cross-selling or consulting?
My aim in this paper is to offer a guide to understanding and managing the dynamics of the consulting
relationship, to give a framework for the reader to think about their relationship management skills,
and to offer some practical pointers about the realities of relationships.
These stages are not rigid, but they provide a useful framework to give insight into what might be
going on in a relationship at a particular time. The stages we describe are:
Fourth, in addition to these stages, there are some core capabilities essential to managing
relationships, and that particular capabilities become more important at different stages within the
life-cycle of a relationship.
The core of the RelationshipQ model suggests that it is useful to think of a relationship space within
which relationships move dynamically over time. The first dimension of this space tracks how
transactional or emotionally based is the relationship. The second is that of trust whether it is
reinforced or challenged. We can envisage the development as following a figure of eight pattern
within this space.
their expectations is rarely time wasted, even though you and your client may be facing significant
pressures to swing into action as soon as possible. Again, strengthening this early trust through
tuning in to our primary client will often mean that they trust us to engage further with the wider
client system, identifying other coaches within the system who can guide us through the multiple
agendas and positions we are likely to encounter.
On the other hand, if all we do is tune-in to our client and we are not sufficiently assertive about the
transactional basis of the relationship, we run the risk of failing to get our needs met within the
relationship, or of setting ourselves up to deliver against unrealistically high expectations. The old
adage of over-deliver against lower-expectations is only possible if we have the skills and awareness
to manage expectations effectively.
If we turn to the skills needed to manage this phase effectively we see two clusters:
Tuning in
Do you
Build rapport
Ask open, inquiring questions to get to the heart of how the other person sees the world?
Adapt your natural style and behaviour to fit with their style?
Understand the underlying motives, concerns and feelings that shape their behaviour and
opinions?
Establishing expectations
Do you
State explicitly what is being offered and what is not in any negotiation or transaction?
Define clear criteria by which to assess whether expectations have been met?
Act in an appropriately assertive way about getting your own needs met?
Pace investments in the relationship: do not give too much too soon?
Our evidence is that the strongest relationship are formed when there is reciprocated incremental
commitment. What this term means is that the relationship strengthens over time, step by step. An
early pattern is established of expectations clarified, commitments made and commitments met.
Initially this will happen at a mundane level, such as arranging mutually convenient meeting times
and place, but the importance of generating reciprocal commitment is clear: too often we can
become caught in a pattern of making commitments that our client does not match, creating an
early imbalance in the relationship and ultimately leading to the frustration of feeling like a servant
rather than offering a service as a partner.
In some situations the relationship may start in the top left quadrant, where there is suspicion or
even distrust. These can be highly challenging yet ultimately highly rewarding relationships. Cognitive
flexibility is our most important resource here. Our ability to sustain perspective and the awareness
that coolness and suspicion on behalf of our client relates to our role (and probably their previous
experience of people in similar roles) rather than to us personally. Taking the time to tune-in becomes
critical, as does the pacing of commitments: what is clear is that these relationships require significant
investment of energy and initially will move only slowly, if at all.
More commonly we find that different elements within our client system start their relationships from
different positions. For example, procurement departments often appear to want to focus solely on
the transactional basis of the relationship (such as defining access to intellectual property, cancellation
and payment terms, etc.). It can prove challenging to sustain the awareness that these interactions
are telling us important things about our clients system and how it approaches the world!
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Succeed in getting them to acknowledge when they have not delivered on their
commitments and to commit to change?
Focus and build on common ground, creating positive outcomes for both parties?
Managing emotions
Do you
Retain perspective: step back from difficult situations to understand what is going on and why?
Actively sustain contact with the other person when there are difficult problems?
04
Trust them and their commitment to you and demonstrate your commitment to them?
Renewing the relationship
Do you
Identify implications for the relationship of changes in role, life-stage, or organisational change?
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The Thinking Partnership
www.thethinkingpartnership.com
Oxford Centre for Innovation
New Road, Oxford
OX1 1BY
+44 (0) 1865 261 465