Communication for Consultants

Rita R. Owens

• Publisher: Business Expert Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781631573781
• Topic: Negocios y empresa
• Subtopic: Comunicación empresarial

From the moment of their first client engagement, consultants in all fields face communication opportunities and challenges. No matter what their focus may be—professional services, accounting, technology, operations, human resources, manufacturing, or marketing—consultants drive change. That change, from its initial definition through its development and deployment, must be precisely communicated to a variety of audiences and through a variety of mediums. Most business communication books do a good job leading professional writers and presenters through the basics of audience, organization, formatting, and mechanics. But, only few focus on a specific business role, such as that of a consultant, and give guidance for communicating during all stages of a project. From the pre-engagement process, to the actual engagement, to the post-engagement follow-up, consultants are challenged by the variety of audiences whose roles continually shift throughout a project. This book guides a current or would-be consultant through the various phases of a typical engagement and gives practical advice and direction on written and oral communication throughout a project. Current and future consultants in all fields will gain specific knowledge about writing and presenting to a variety of audiences including clients, team members, managers, and executives.

CHAPTER 1

Key Considerations for Consultants

You and Your Audience

The Uniqueness of Communicating as a Consultant

When we enter a new consulting engagement, our audience—our client, welcomes us; but there is also natural tension in this relationship. Our clients or key stakeholders are the internals and we are the externals, the consultants. As mentioned in the introduction of this text, the relationship among consultants and clients evolves over time. We hope this happens in a positive way, but sometimes it does not. How does communication impact our relationship development? Well, communication is literally “our word” and the client will go back to that word over and over again. In the best scenario we go back to documentation to ensure that the work after an engagement follows the original mission or vision. In the worst scenario, the documentation becomes the detail that we may dispute once the engagement is over.

Effective communication is important throughout business. It’s the basis upon which we conduct business. We don’t communicate for entertainment or self-aggrandizement. For consultants, exceptional communication must be the standard. Anything a consultant writes or presents becomes part of the contract deliverable. It determines whether a relationship, a project, or an engagement succeeds or fails. It is not to be taken lightly.

Recently I spoke to a partner at a large consulting firm, and he shared an example illustrating how communications can go especially wrong for a consultant. He related a story about a small team working with a client and that client’s sudden dissatisfaction with the project.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the senior consulting manager on the project received a scathing e-mail from the client expressing that the team was not capable of carrying out the tasks at hand. The client felt that the team was too junior and not well equipped. The senior manager and his partner decided the best course of action would be to meet with the client face to face. When they did, they learned that the client really wasn’t unhappy with the team’s work but actually with its communication. The client felt that the team was driving to recommendations without including him and was actually sidestepping him. He felt the project was heading in a direction that sought to destroy the department he had created. As it turned out, the analyst in charge of the project team was so keen to complete the documentation and design work required to move the project forward that he and his team simply forgot to slow down and include the client in their communication.¹

This example serves to emphasize the critical problem of consultant/ client miscommunication. As consultants we are often completely driven to produce the final deliverable and often with the best of intentions. Our work is billable, and we want to be as efficient as possible. It’s easy for us to forget that there are other people in the mix, particularly our clients.

Two critical communication-related issues emerge from the preceding example. First, the consulting executives had the sense to know that replying to the e-mail would not really get to the heart of the problem, and perhaps an informal approach would even inflame the situation. They knew that a face-to-face meeting, rather than a quick e-mail reply, was necessary to understand what was actually going on. Second, the executives knew that the complaints in the e-mail might not represent the issue at hand. In the meeting, they learned that the client actually felt alienated from the project.

Let’s review the two takeaways from the example and how they connect to this uniqueness of communication within consulting:

1. Keep your audience (your clients) foremost in mind when working and communicating with them. The absence of communication is as significant as what you actually write and present.
2. Be very deliberate about using appropriate mediums, especially when handling a difficult situation. Don’t write or call when you need to meet.

What Characterizes the Consulting Role and Why Exceptional Communication Is So Important

As consultants, we produce deliverables that are reviewed and considered expert. Most of the time these deliverables are in the form of written communication, which is followed by or preceded by oral communication. The bottom line is that our output can be a piece of communication. Often, the product in consulting is our intellectual capital expressed in a communication. For example, when we complete an organizational redesign we offer a written plan with recommendations for implementation. Of course, a good plan or analysis helps a client actually implement that new organization, but the plan itself is what the consultant creates and delivers. In essence, it’s what our client is buying. And these plans we produce, whether they are multiple-page documents or PowerPoint presentations, become permanent artifacts for the client. Long after the consultant is gone the artifact lives on, and it often becomes the basis of a client’s strategic vision.

Our communication must be clear. It must meet its objectives. It must stand the test of time. It must be logical. More than anything, it must be audience-focused.

Consultant Communication General Assumptions and Guidelines

Communicating as a consultant demands rigorous attention to detail and a commitment to excellent business writing and presentation standards.

Polished Professional Delivery

As noted above, our communication is our product so it must be as close to perfect as we can achieve. Frankly there is no room for error when a consultant communicates.

Many years ago, a technology consultant told a story that stuck with me. This particular consultant was just about to close on a very important contract. In the final stages of the negotiations, when things were going very well and it appeared that the consultant would seal the deal, one small error made a tremendous difference in the outcome. This small business consultant had been able to win the deal over some very large competing companies. He had been able to overcome the typical obstacles of representing a small business. A polished orator, the consultant was able to convince the client that his small company would do the best job.

A final meeting was organized, and the night before the meeting the consultant hastily wrote some product sheets to solidify what would be delivered. The next morning at the meeting, the client appeared and surprisingly announced he had decided not to enter into the contract. As it turned out, he had read those final product briefs the night before and found a spelling error. The word “successfully” had been misspelled multiple times. All the client’s fears about working with a small company came to bear upon his final decision. His last words to the consultant were, “We thought, what kind of a person would we be dealing with if he can’t spell simple words?”

Of course, years later in our world with spellchecking tools we can’t imagine spelling prohibiting our success. However, it’s very easy to overlook critical editing especially when we’re multitasking and responding too quickly; and it’s important to know that it matters.

General Assumptions

Before we begin to analyze our writing, let’s review some overall general assumptions and guidelines relevant to consultant writing and presenting:

• Consultants communicate to conduct business. That is the overarching reason for our communication. We don’t communicate to show what we know, but we communicate to respond to the client audience needs at a particular moment in time.
• Consultant communication is very different from the kind of communication we write personally or in school. Our tone, our language, what we include, what we exclude, and more are completely determined by the value proposition for the audience, the client.
• The essence of consultant communications is relationship building. We must choose the appropriate medium, depending on the situation and the client’s needs.
• Consultant communication is part of the permanent record of activities between a consultant and the client. It must be created and produced at the highest professional level possible.
• Consultants typically communicate within a specified time period and often with a firm deadline. Consultant communication is either written or presented, typically under much pressure of time or circumstance. This pressure puts us at increased risk of producing unrefined communication, but we must do everything we can to avoid that.
• The success of a project depends on excellent communication; therefore our communication is critical and costly.
• Consultant communication often follows a template or a particular protocol. Many large corporations minimize their risk of communication problems by providing a template, but great consultants are equipped to go it alone.
• Consultant communication might be facilitated in a classic style or in a contemporary mode. All consultants should be proficient in English usage and traditional models, but we must also be adept with modern social media and digital communication options.
• Consultant communication is professional in appearance, format, and style.
• At all times, and in all communication, we must approach our client with great consideration and respect. The best way to ensure this happens is to consider all communication as an integral part of conducting business. Too often, our written communications and our presentations are afterthoughts. They often follow the “real” work we have done, so we don’t consider them critical to our success. Nothing could be further from the truth.

But beyond having well formatted, grammatically correct materials, what should our communications entail? Let’s review the attributes, mediums, and techniques commonly found in good business communication.

What It Sounds Like

There is a particular tone to a business letter or presentation. After all, we are conducting business, not writing or presenting creative material. Often, we presume that if we’re writing or presenting on an important matter that we must take on an air of sophistication and intellectualism. We think our sentences and vocabulary must sound academic because of the nature of the topic. Actually, the reality is quite the opposite. Business communication is the byproduct of conducting business; it is not itself the business. So we must focus on presenting clearly, even if that means we are more blunt than we’re typically comfortable being.

Consider these characteristics of good consulting communication:

Messages are sharp, crisp, and to the point

Not This: After much analysis, we are requesting that you consider changing your business practices to allow for more advanced customer relations management technology.

But This: We recommend you purchase a customer relations management system.

Messages are precise

Not This: There are a lot of problems with the current e-mail server that must be addressed.

But This: We have found seven e-mail server issues that need attention.

Sentences are in the active voice

Not This: Final reports will be distributed to the clients by the consulting team.

But This: The consulting team will distribute final reports to the clients.

Language is professional

Not This: We’re kind of worried about a lot of the accounting practices we’ve found.

But This: We have some concerns about many of the accounting practices we have encountered.

What It Looks Like

Beyond using an appropriate style and tone, choosing the right communication medium and format is important. We determine what medium and format we use based on our purpose, the audience’s disposition, and the circumstances surrounding the communication. We’ll review this when we develop our audience analysis later in this chapter. But to give you a general sense of what business communication looks like, let’s review the following:

• Established business protocols can determine the “look.” Formal business letters, memoranda, e-mails, texts, slide presentations, face-to-face meetings, and virtual meetings each prescribe a particular approach.
• Sentences tend to be short and direct. Paragraphs are short, too, and they are typically left justified, single spaced, with double spacing in between.
• Charts, graphs, and other visuals complement text.
• Headings are used to guide the audience toward particular topics.
• Bullet points are used to make the material easily read and digestible.

The Communication Creation Process

In all our communication we must be acutely aware of our audience; our goal is to make comprehension easy for the reader or listener. People can’t afford to waste time unnecessarily on reading and meeting, so writing and presenting must be succinct, clear, and to the point. In other words, we must be time and effort conscious.

Electronic delivery of materials, via e-mail especially, has eroded many of our established business communication standards. Of course, we all embrace the ability to communicate rapidly with one another, but this immediate interaction does create challenges. For example, before e-mail, we would craft a report or proposal on paper and it would be delivered with the daily mail. Our client might set aside time to read that mail and give the report or proposal and all its elements his or her full attention. Today, many of our executive clients average 100 or more e-mails per day; the management of the inbox in itself has become a chore. So, when we attach large reports to those e-mails, they can easily be overlooked or ignored. Because of the technology shift, it has become increasingly more importan...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Disclaimer
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1. Key Considerations for Consultants
• Chapter 2. Pre-Engagement Communication
• Chapter 3. Engagement Communication
• Chapter 4. Post-Engagement Communication
• Appendix A
• Appendix B
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Adpage