Management consulting is a profession with its own objectives, methods, rules and organization. To individuals who join this profession, consulting is a career in which they may spend the main part of their working lives.

36.1 Personal characteristics of consultants

To become a career consultant is to make a major life decision. Individuals considering the career and consulting firms should therefore think very carefully about the characteristics that make someone a suitable candidate.

Management consultants have discussed these characteristics many times and useful advice can be found in several publications.1 As for any profession, there is no one perfect model against which every entrant can be measured, but there are certain characteristics that affect the consultant’s chance of success and personal job satisfaction. These characteristics differentiate the consulting profession from other occupations that also require a high level of technical knowledge and skill, but that have other objectives and use different methods (e.g. research, teaching, or management jobs with direct decision-making authority and responsibility). In management consulting, particular importance is attached to analytical and problem-solving abilities, as well as to competence in the behavioural area, in communicating and working with people, and in helping others to understand the need for change and how to implement it.

What kind of person is able to perform appropriately the multiple roles required of a management consultant? The qualities a consultant needs fall into two broad categories: intellectual abilities and personal attributes.

“Dilemma analysis” ability

Intellectually, the consultant needs to be able to make a “dilemma analysis”, because an organization that uses a consultant may well be facing a situation

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that appears insoluble. If the difficulty could easily be solved by the operating manager, a consultant would not be needed. The consultant must recognize that a dilemma, whether real or not, exists in the minds of those within the organization. The consultant’s role is to discover the nature of the dilemma and to determine the real cause of it, rather than what is thought to be the cause.

To accomplish this, the consultant must have a special type of diagnostic skill, and should approach a study of the organization’s dilemma by means of an existential pragmatism that takes into account the total client setting and all situational variables. It is only through skilful examination of the organization’s fabric that the structural relationships between the various subsystems that comprise the total organization can be seen, together with the interdependent nature of its individuals, groups, substructures and environmental setting.

In order to make this kind of dilemma analysis, insight or perception and intuition are necessary. Insight is vital because any dilemma requiring outside assistance will be part of a complex situation. The toughest task is to penetrate this complexity and isolate the key situational variables. Unless the important factors can be sifted from the maze of detail, and cause separated from symptoms, accurate diagnosis is impossible.

Sense of organizational climate

Intuition, or “sensing”, must be coupled with insight in order to assess the nature and patterns of power and politics in the organization. Bureaucratic and managerial structures, both public and private, often do not function optimally. Underlying and intermingled with the functional operations of the organization are the dynamics of internal power and politics. Invariably, people are vying with each other for organizational influence or for some internal political reason. Very often the consultant has been brought in, not just to provide needed assistance, but also as an instrument of a strategy designed to secure an objective related to such influence.

Unless the consultant can intuitively sense the organizational climate, he or she runs the risk of being a pawn in a game of organizational politics. Conversely, the consultant who has the ability to recognize and understand the dynamics of the internal power and political relationships can use them in pursuit of whatever change objectives client and consultant conclude are appropriate.

Apart from these diagnostic abilities, the consultant needs implementation skills. Obviously, he or she must have some basic knowledge of the behavioural sciences, and the theories and methods of his or her own discipline. But more than these, the consultant needs imagination and experimental flexibility. Resolving dilemmas is essentially a creative activity. No real-life situation is going to fit perfectly into the models suggested by standard techniques or textbook methods. The consultant must have sufficient imagination to adapt and tailor concepts to meet real-life demands.

Furthermore, the consultant must be able to visualize the impact or ultimate outcome of the actions proposed or implemented. This is as much a process of

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experimental trial and error as of a priori solutions. The courage to experiment and the flexibility to try as many approaches as needed to solve the problem are important ingredients in the practitioner’s make-up.

Integrity

Other important qualities required of the consultant are personal attributes. Above all, he must be a professional in attitude and behaviour. To be successful, he must be as sincerely interested in helping the client organization as any good doctor is interested in helping a patient. The consultant must not conceive of himself as, or portray the image of, a huckster of patent medicines. If a consultant is concerned primarily to make an impression or build an empire, and only secondarily to help the client organization, this will soon be recognized by the organization’s leaders. People in management are generally astute individuals, and can recognize objectivity, honesty and, above all, integrity (see also Chapter 6).

When entering a client system, a strong tolerance for ambiguity is important. The consultant’s first acquaintance with an organizational problem tends to be marked by a degree of bewilderment. It takes time to figure out the true situation, and during this period the consultant is going to experience a certain amount of confusion. He or she must expect this to occur and not be worried by it.

Coupled with this type of tolerance must be patience and the ability to sustain a high level of frustration. Curing a client’s ills is likely to be a long and difficult process. Substantive changes, full cooperation and complete success are unlikely in the short term. Inevitably, attempts to change people’s relationships and behavioural patterns are going to be met with resistance, resentment and obstructionism from those who will be, or think they may be, adversely affected. It is important for the consultant to have the maturity and sense of reality to accept that many of his or her actions and hopes for change are going to be frustrated. Such maturity is necessary to avoid experiencing the symptoms of defeat and withdrawal that commonly accompany the failure of a person’s sincere efforts to help others.

Sense of timing and interpersonal skills

Finally, the consulting practitioner should have a good sense of timing, a stable personality and well-developed interpersonal skills. Timing can be crucial. The best conceived and articulated plans for change can be destroyed if introduced at the wrong time. Timing is linked to an understanding of power and of the political realities in the change situation, and to the kind of patience that overrides the enthusiasm surrounding a newly conceived idea or training intervention that one is longing to try out immediately.

Obviously, consulting involves dealing with people rather than with machines or mathematical formulae. The consultant must have good interpersonal skills and be able to communicate and deal with people in an

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