Management consulting

Box 8.3 Principles of effective interviewing

(1) Before the interview

●Prepare questions likely to reveal the required information (the list will merely serve as a guide and a check that the interview covers all the necessary ground, and should not prevent the exploration of related topics).

●Find out about the interviewee’s job and personality.

●Inform the interviewee of the purpose of the interview.

(2) During the interview

●Give further detailed explanations to the interviewee at the beginning and request help in solving the problem.

●Start the interview in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere, making sure that you break the ice at the opening.

●Ask questions likely to lead towards required information, allowing the informant to follow his or her own line of thought so long as it does not stray too far from the subject under review or become too trivial.

●Encourage a spontaneous flow of information by asking further questions, making judicious comments supplementing the interviewee’s statements, and showing interest by smiling, nodding, mentioning that information is interesting, new to you, etc.

●Except for such encouraging interjections, don’t interrupt. Don’t appear critical of the way things are done now since this may antagonize the informant. Don’t argue and don’t jump in with suggestions for improvements.

●If questions are answered vaguely, pursue them in a pleasant and nonaggressive way until the answers are fully clarified.

●Be alert to non-verbal messages, feelings and impressions.

●Note facts and opinions during the interview (with the respondent’s agreement); note impressions and feelings after the interview.

●Before leaving, confirm what you have noted. Thank the informant for help, leaving the way open for further interviews if necessary.

(3) After the interview

●Read over the notes of the interview, list points to be checked and transcribe reliable information in the assignment’s classified data record.

●If appropriate, send the interviewee a typed summary for verification.

●Use information from one interview to prepare questions (e.g. for crosschecking) for other interviews.

Surveys of employee attitudes

The attitudes of staff in the client organization play some role in most consulting assignments. The consultant should be alert to attitudes when observing operations and processes, when interviewing people, and in all contacts with the client and the staff. In some assignments, a special survey of employee attitudes

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Diagnosis

may be required. This may be the case in assignments involving changes in employment and working conditions if the consultant needs to establish how people feel about present conditions and how they might react to the change likely to be proposed. As a rule, a survey is more likely to be needed in a large organization than in a small one, especially if it is suspected that different opinions and attitudes exist, but the number of people concerned makes it difficult to judge their relative importance.

The organization and the techniques of attitude surveys are described in specialized publications.7 A management consultant who is competent in this area may undertake such a survey. Alternatively, the consultant can turn to a specialist in social and behavioural research. The main techniques used are those described above, including observation, interviews and questionnaires. There are also special techniques, as used for instance in sociometric studies or motivational research. Their effective use requires special training, but they would not be needed in most management consulting assignments.

Estimates

When hard data are not available, or are difficult to obtain, the consultant may consider using estimates. Estimates are best made by people directly involved in the activity concerned, who have first-hand knowledge and who, in addition, will more readily accept proposals based on data they themselves have supplied. Wherever possible, estimates should be obtained from more than one source and cross-checked. If there are significant differences, the informants themselves should try to resolve them. If they cannot do so, a test may be applied, observations taken, or special recording installed.

The consultant may accept the client’s estimates:

●in respect of facts familiar to the client (e.g. frequent machine operations, or regular patterns of work);

●on aspects of the situation that do not need to be precise (e.g. percentage of total costs represented by administrative overheads, in order to decide whether to control these costs closely);

●to indicate whether further observation would be rewarding (e.g. incidence of machine breakdowns, or of lack of stock of finished products);

●to ascertain whether potential benefits from improvements are worth more accurate measurement (e.g. savings from substitute materials or change of product design);

●where the estimate can be tested (e.g. if estimates of operating times to be used for production planning and control would result in a product cost permitting the client to sell at a reasonable profit).

Before using estimates, the consultant should check their validity against experience. An effective way of doing this is to use a known total volume, quantity, or cost for a recent period or a known capacity. This is compared with

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