The role and values of management consultant
The question about who is a consultant may appear easy to answer. To many people, a consultant is a person who uses his or her knowledge to help organizations accomplish their goals. In that case, he or she is an individual who works with organizations to help them meet their objectives in specialized fields. Nevertheless, they at times work in collaboration with the organizational staff or with other consultants.
For an individual to qualify as an exemplary consultant manager, he or she has to exhibit numerous qualities, which range from being objective, endowed academically, having a strong work ethics to having strong communication skills. All these qualities help a consultant manager to relate and work with organizational staff without interferences.
The increasing cases of globalization and technological advances have led to organizations changing their management techniques. Initially, I had the perception that managing an organization is the responsibility of the company’s executive team alone. I believed that this group had the power to issue directions on everything that went on within their organizations. Nevertheless, this perception is gradually changing for I now have a clear picture of how management process takes place in organizations. Executive teams are gradually relying on consultants to give them advice on how to run their companies.
Currently, the role of management consultant is in high demand. When I learnt about management consultants, there are numerous ideas that came to my mind about some of the qualities that an individual should have to work as a management consultant.
Objectivity is of significant value to a management consultant. After learning how organizations are fighting to acquire consultant managers, I thought that organizations would go for any individual with consultancy skills. Nevertheless, this assumption is not what happens in the business world. After observing numerous organizations, I have learnt that a management consultant should build a strong relationship with individuals at all departments in an organization. I have learnt that it is hard for a consultant to make informed decisions about an organization without having a clear picture of the organization.
Hence, a consultant ought not to be biased. Establishing a rapport with employees in all departments would help a consultant make unprejudiced decisions, thus advising the company on what to do to enhance its operations.
Actually, consultants should view the organizations on a vertical dimension. After interacting with numerous management consultants, I have observed that their roles involve evaluating the challenges facing an organization expediently. In this way, they can analyze all the arguments given by the stakeholders and put into consideration all the ideas given by staff from various departments.
Based on the duties of a management consultant, I believe that a consultant should have a strong educational background on this field. Lack of strong educational background may hamper one’s ability to make decisions on complex matters affecting organizations. Besides strong education background, I think that a management consultant also should have a strong base with respect to general knowledge. From experience, people that are good academically tend to be more technical and rigid when it comes to solving problems. Such people like sticking to what they learnt and are not open to new ideas or ways of doing things.
I have an interest in studying organizational management; hence, I keenly observe how management takes place in different organizations. In the process, I have come to understand that, at times, some situations call for organizations to devise new approaches. Following technical approaches when dealing with urgent challenges may lead to delay, thus affecting organizational performance. According to my observation, at such a time, the consultant might not have time to refer to what he or she has learnt. He might be forced to stretch his or her imagination further and come up with an urgent response to the challenge.
At such an instance, consultants need to refer to their general knowledge rather than the academic knowledge. Consequently, I believe that an exemplary consultant manager ought to be endowed with both the academic and general knowledge.
By the term consultant, one might develop a perception that the consultancy career is like freelancing where the consultant sit in an office waiting for clients to come for his or her services. Besides, it sounds like consultancy is a job where the consultant has a lot of free time to attend to personal matters, and only engages in the consulting job when he or she is not committed. Moreover, it sounds like a job where the consultant operates within the confines of his or her office without having to interact with people implementing his or her proposals. On the contrary, the role of a consultant manager is one of the busiest and demanding managerial roles. After observing various consultant managers, I can confidently claim that their profession is the most demanding.
These managers get to their offices very early in the morning and are the last to leave the offices. Unlike other managers, consultants’ days are ever busy and if they are not in the office, they are either attending to certain clients in the field. This aspect contradicts the picture I had before relating with individuals working as consultant managers. Actually, a management consultant should be a person with a strong work ethics. The reason I say this revolves on duration the manager takes either in the office or in the field dealing with customers.
Communication is of great value to organizations. Whenever an organization needs to accomplish something or a project, it has to ensure that it has laid down proper communication strategies to ensure that individuals implementing the project are always furnished with relevant information. Consequently, I though that even the consultant managers should have effective communication skills to enable them interact with their clients. Prior to associating with consultant managers, I thought that the managers only focus on giving advice on the challenges facing an organization. Hence, they are not required to support their decisions since the organizational staff trust in their competency.
Nevertheless, this scenario only happened in the past when the number of consultants was limited. Today, the number of consultant managers has increased forcing the managers to come up with strategies to attract more clients. One of the strategies they use is communication. Whenever the managers give a particular suggestion, they come up with a supporting document to prove why they opt for that solution. This element has made me believe that a consultant manager can only attract more clients if he or she has strong communication skills. The manager has to support his decision. Besides, he or she needs to communicate with personnel at work to ensure that his or her directives are followed to the letter.
Qualities of management consultant
Exemplary management consultants exhibit different acquisitions. The expertise may be in the form of talent, knowledge, skills, and experience (Pierre 2003). Consultants use their skills in assisting organizations cope with challenges affecting their operations. For many people, it is obvious that exemplary management consultants have special expertise. Nevertheless, it is hard for them to identify the various qualities that make a consultant manager successful.
It becomes hard for organizations to identify the most experienced consultants when they encounter problems. Most of the organizational managers do not understand what constitutes an exemplary management consultant; hence, these managers do not know who to turn to whenever they are in problems. This paper will focus on some of the qualities that constitute an exemplary consultant manager. The qualities include communication skills, objectivity, and academic qualification among others.
According to Pierre (2003), a management consultant ought to have strong communication skills. Pierre posits that the consultant should know how to speak and write convincingly to support his or her decisions and facilitate easy implementation of his or her suggestions. Once a consultant gives a solution to a particular challenge affecting an organization, he or she may be directly involved in implementing the solution, or else, s/he may delegate the role to other people.
Hence, to ensure that these people stick to his or her suggestions, the consultant manager should write clear and precise instructions. If the management consultant is involved in the implementation process, he or she must be in a position to interact with senior members of the organization and confidently enlighten them on his/her suggestions.
Whenever an organization opts to go for consultants, the senior members in the organization develop an attitude that the company does not acknowledge their presence. Therefore, these employees see the consultant as a threat to their jobs (Pierre 2003). This aspect underlines why most of the management consultants come into direct confrontations with senior members in most organizations.
Therefore, to avoid such confrontations and ensure that the senior members buy to the ideas presented by a consultant manager, the manager has to have strong communication skills. The manager should present his or her ideas in a manner that convinces everyone that the ideas are the most appropriate steps to take and thus persuade the senior members to adopt and implement the ideas (Cochran et al. 2007). Besides, s/he should deal with the senior members at the time of confrontation.
From Pierre’s article, one may learn that consultant managers work as leaders in dealing with challenges facing organizations. As leaders, consultants encounter numerous challenges where most of them are internal. Consequently, academic experience may not be adequate to help them solve problems affecting different organizations. The article brings out the importance of communication skills in the consultancy field, which most of the people may perceive as of least importance. Besides convincing the senior members, consultants at times work with different teams in an organization. Hence, consultants should orient these teams with what they are supposed to do. It would be hard for a consultant manager to orient his or her team if he or she does not have strong communication skills.
Griffiths (2005) posits that an exemplary consultant manager is one that exhibits objectivity in his or her judgment. A good consultant must rely on facts. Management consultants are responsible for helping organizations overcome their challenges and enhance productivity. Consequently, the consultants’ advices should be decisive as they may have adverse effects on the organization. An exemplary consultant manager insists on acquiring facts on matters affecting an organization and evaluates the facts to determine their veracity. Even though a consultant manager may make his or her decisions based on conjecture or opinions given by organizational staff, s/he goes a step further to validate his/her decision by establishing the facts about the issues at hand (McCabe 2004).
An exemplary management consultant ought to screen all the facts presented to him or her to do away with extraneous elements. At times, employees are overwhelmed by emotions, thus presenting inaccurate information (Kubr 2002). Using such information without further analysis may lead to the consultant manager giving wrong advice. Given that the management consultants play a very decisive role, they need to analyze problems affecting an organization in all perspectives before making their decision. A management consultant should see a challenge from different angles and not just analyze the problem from its outer surface. A good consultant is one who comes up with numerous solutions to a problem, analyzes them, and advises his or her clients on the most appropriate measures to take.
The term “consultant” may lure one into thinking that management consultants have a lot of free time at their disposal. One may think that the consultants only advise their clients on what to do and leave everything to the clients. Nevertheless, management consultants always work hard to meet their deadlines and are ever struggling to utilize the limited time they get. According to (Fincham 2002), management consultants should have a strong work ethics in order to serve their clients effectively. In addition, they should be time conscious, not simply sitting in the office waiting for office hours to end and leave the office.
An exemplary consultant will always take his/her time to come up with solutions to problems affecting his or her clients and does not go for quick fixes. Consultants that do not like spending their time looking for a lasting solution to a problem will go for the first option that comes to mind. The fact that management consultants should have a strong work ethics underlines why most of the consultants report to office very early in the morning and leave after everybody else has left.
At times, management consultants are required to solve intricate problems using structured analysis. Hence, for a consult to solve such a problem, he requires to have a strong education background. He or she should have skills in analyzing and evaluating complex challenges (Robinson 2007). Besides, to ensure that a problem does not recur, a consultant should have experience in problem solving techniques.
Organizational problems keep on changing; hence, the approach used in dealing with a problem today may prove useless to a similar problem tomorrow. Therefore, an exemplary management consultant is one that keeps updating himself or herself with contemporary problems and ways of addressing them. It is hard for an individual with weaker education background to improve his/her skills in this field.
Apart from the academic background, management consultants should have firsthand experience and strong general knowledge. Not all problems affecting an organization are solved through academic skills (Larry 2004). One of the drawbacks of academic knowledge is that it makes the consultant very technical. Hence, the consultant becomes reluctant to adopting new ways of addressing problems. Consequently, an exemplary management consultant should blend his or her academic education with experience and general knowledge. This aspect would help in enhancing his or her flexibility in dealing with challenges.
Globalization and technological advancement are leading to the emergence of new challenges within organizations. A consultant without academic knowledge about such challenges may not be in a position to help the affected organizations (Simon & Kumar 2001). However, blending academic qualifications with experience and general knowledge gives a consultant an upper hand in dealing with emerging challenges. Such a consultant is not technical and is willing to adjust to the environment based on the situation. Consequently, he or she can reluctantly make changes to an old technique of addressing organizational challenges to suit new challenges.
A good management consultant is one who is open minded and willing to learn how to address challenges facing different industries. Most of the consultants specialize on a single industry (Werr & Stjernberg 2003). Consequently, it is hard for the consultants to assist any client originating from a different industry. As a consultant, one never stops learning and every day comes with a new experience. Consequently, for a management consultant to be efficient, s/he should be capable of sourcing new information and synthesizing it with minimal challenges. Moreover, consultants should be capable of building on what they know to come up with solutions to emerging challenges.
Reference List
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