At his risk of semantic pedantry, the author is compelled to admit that the present consulting culture confuses him. Whenever a financial scandal comes to light, the public issue enjoys examaining the value of consultation. As usual, the controversy emerges too late and, in return, too upset. There is no denying the fact that public indigniation is in a way justified. However, it poses the wrong questions. Because instead of wondering if consultation, be it financial, communicative or psychological, is appropriate or not we should rather doubt whether consultancy is the right term or whether language use misleads us once again.
Consultation is a highly paradoxical issue. At first sight, it is a communication form which separates two parties with divergent levels of knowledge- here the advice seeker lacking knowledge, there the consultant knowing something. An everyday issue, indeed - and often for free. Day by day people drag others into stores to help them buy mobile telephones. Young parents ask their ancestors for educational advice. Colleagues give lessons on problems (for instance on how to avoid uninvited advice). But under corporate conditions, in firms, offices, seminars or political organizations, the constellation gets quite tricky. For here, the advice seeker rings his hands, while the consultant is rubbing his. As soon as adivice is professional, it has ceased to be a favour. And, as a consequence, who spends lots of money on rejecting advice?
Nevertheless - consultation means it remains up to the client to make a decision himself. He can, but need not accept the advice. If he had to, we could not speak about advice, but, with increasing obligation, instruction, direction, or order. In turn, this also means professional consultants are virtually obliged to rather give instructions than advice. So examining the consultant's competence is not so much a question of whether his advice is good, but whether he manages to point out his view must count as a recommendation, not as an instruction. So his salary limits his full scope of competence, since it inevitably raises the client's expectations. Apart from the money, the everyday advisor is in a much more comfortable position. If, for example, asked if parents should punish their spiteful child by applying house arrest or reducing their pocket money, he will be free to examine the question itself. Perhaps the parents should send their child to a psychologist, apply spanking or liberally raise the allowance. In contrast, a professional who acts this way, is in the imminent danger of being regarded as a babbler talking his way out, as soon as things get a little tricky. And this goes especially for business consultants. As a service agent, he is not expected to help his client decide, but to decide himself. And this might be the only thing a consultant cannot do. Here lies the core of the problem - nolens volens professional consultants trivialize themselves as coaches, the clients as obedients. There is no arguing about the clients' goals the advisors are entitled to help them achieve; more often than not they are consulted too late, anyway, when only bad and evil are at stake. And, what is more, the consultant cannot know what is good for the client; that remains to the latter. Nor the consultant can know beforehand what his client does not know. But he can know, if he is competent, what his client unconsciously knows, that is what the latter can know. But under the present conditions this is quite a disappointing outlook. That is why is is such a big issue.
But this does not imply consultants are useless; all the same, it is dubious if they are useful as advisors. Their avail is to make decisions in uncertain situation possible - even if these decisions turn out to be wrong and to be based on instructions instead of advice. In a way, a consultant is something like an imaginary crutch to help the client make things go on. And if it fails, the advice seeker still can defend himself from his stakeholders, perhaps even his shareholders, by pointing out he has taken highly regarded consultation. And perhaps he even might succeed in doing so. So really competent consultants insist of differring from coaches - although, as we have seen, they are functionally the same.
One question remains open: Since one is not a born consultant, since one usually gives but also takes advice, it might be interesting to know who advises the consultant. And what the advisor's advisor advices. Does he tell him that the problem of consultation should be tackled differently, thus securing critical self-reflection on consultation? Or is it just the other way round - does the advisor's advisor train his client even more bluntly, telling him: 'If your client asks you whether he should do X or Y, you must always (!) tell him to do the one without letting the other'? And who advises the client to select a consultant? As soon as the author will have consulted an appropriate person, he will be able to give helpful advice.
Consultation is a highly paradoxical issue. At first sight, it is a communication form which separates two parties with divergent levels of knowledge- here the advice seeker lacking knowledge, there the consultant knowing something. An everyday issue, indeed - and often for free. Day by day people drag others into stores to help them buy mobile telephones. Young parents ask their ancestors for educational advice. Colleagues give lessons on problems (for instance on how to avoid uninvited advice). But under corporate conditions, in firms, offices, seminars or political organizations, the constellation gets quite tricky. For here, the advice seeker rings his hands, while the consultant is rubbing his. As soon as adivice is professional, it has ceased to be a favour. And, as a consequence, who spends lots of money on rejecting advice?
Nevertheless - consultation means it remains up to the client to make a decision himself. He can, but need not accept the advice. If he had to, we could not speak about advice, but, with increasing obligation, instruction, direction, or order. In turn, this also means professional consultants are virtually obliged to rather give instructions than advice. So examining the consultant's competence is not so much a question of whether his advice is good, but whether he manages to point out his view must count as a recommendation, not as an instruction. So his salary limits his full scope of competence, since it inevitably raises the client's expectations. Apart from the money, the everyday advisor is in a much more comfortable position. If, for example, asked if parents should punish their spiteful child by applying house arrest or reducing their pocket money, he will be free to examine the question itself. Perhaps the parents should send their child to a psychologist, apply spanking or liberally raise the allowance. In contrast, a professional who acts this way, is in the imminent danger of being regarded as a babbler talking his way out, as soon as things get a little tricky. And this goes especially for business consultants. As a service agent, he is not expected to help his client decide, but to decide himself. And this might be the only thing a consultant cannot do. Here lies the core of the problem - nolens volens professional consultants trivialize themselves as coaches, the clients as obedients. There is no arguing about the clients' goals the advisors are entitled to help them achieve; more often than not they are consulted too late, anyway, when only bad and evil are at stake. And, what is more, the consultant cannot know what is good for the client; that remains to the latter. Nor the consultant can know beforehand what his client does not know. But he can know, if he is competent, what his client unconsciously knows, that is what the latter can know. But under the present conditions this is quite a disappointing outlook. That is why is is such a big issue.
But this does not imply consultants are useless; all the same, it is dubious if they are useful as advisors. Their avail is to make decisions in uncertain situation possible - even if these decisions turn out to be wrong and to be based on instructions instead of advice. In a way, a consultant is something like an imaginary crutch to help the client make things go on. And if it fails, the advice seeker still can defend himself from his stakeholders, perhaps even his shareholders, by pointing out he has taken highly regarded consultation. And perhaps he even might succeed in doing so. So really competent consultants insist of differring from coaches - although, as we have seen, they are functionally the same.
One question remains open: Since one is not a born consultant, since one usually gives but also takes advice, it might be interesting to know who advises the consultant. And what the advisor's advisor advices. Does he tell him that the problem of consultation should be tackled differently, thus securing critical self-reflection on consultation? Or is it just the other way round - does the advisor's advisor train his client even more bluntly, telling him: 'If your client asks you whether he should do X or Y, you must always (!) tell him to do the one without letting the other'? And who advises the client to select a consultant? As soon as the author will have consulted an appropriate person, he will be able to give helpful advice.
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