How to enter into a Client’s thought process?

The best way to get around the attitude of the busy leader of a SME and deliver something that is highly valued; and one that makes profound difference to their business performance is – to begin one step back i.e. working first on whatever problem or issue is real and pressing today. According to management consultants, Rosemary Harris Loxley of Harris Consulting & Tony Page of Page Consulting, this means doing essential work rather than nice to have and fancy work. The experts opine that a consultant must use a lot of ‘Questioning’ and ‘Listening’ to enter the client’s way of thinking, and follow a process that produces learning, insight and lasting impact on the client. This way, the authors say, a consultant can lead on to ‘Implementing the Solutions’ and help clients see their world differently. This approach was famously proposed by Reg Ravens in ‘Action Learning’. The approach recognizes that consultants who ask their clients questions generally tend to trigger more active, and hence profound, learning in clients, than those consultants who merely solve the problem for their clients and serve pre-formed solutions.

The authors make reference to the tool that is derived from ‘Kolb Learning Cycle’, which uses a simple sequence of questions to identify and understand the client’s problem, and to help implement the solution. The questionnaire should ideally start with probing the current issue i.e. the problem that is occupying the client right now, and must slowly move into probing the shared pool of knowledge between the client and consultant. The questionnaire must make the client reflect, gain insight, and help explore alternative ways forward to ultimately help think towards implementing a solution. It is also useful to build a loop back process, to explore new alternatives after piloting or implementing a solution.

In the process, the consultant should bring the client’s deep experience and tacit unarticulated know-how to the surface. This must then be challenged, tested and amended, in conversation with the client. Lastly, the consultant must help the client internalize and embed the new know-how in revised operating practices.