Behaviours

The Institute of Business Consulting has launched this best practice about:

"the behaviours buyers of consultancy should expect and receive from consultants in order to create sustainable and mutually beneficial relationships"

Do buyers of consultancy expect any particular behaviours, and if so what? You'd have thought this nothing new, because Fiona Czerniawska published enough advice for the intelligent client in her 2002 book. She advised clients on how to select a consulting firm, and how to manage consultants to maximise value. Unlike a lot of the practitioner literature, Czerniawska addresses her book to the client, not to the consultant. This is a book to help the client get value from consultants, not to help consultants to get more work. She emphasises relationships and factors that have an impact. For example, she writes about trust and the fact that it must be mutual "Trust can never be unilateral", so like the IBC, she is concerned with mutuality.

Yet Castle, speaking at the IBC, says clients still have two overriding concerns:

"Who is in control of the relationship, and how can we be sure we are getting best value?”

That's what I'm researching.

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CZERNIAWSKA, F. (2002) Value-based consulting, Palgrave Macmillan.