Facilitator-Client relationship

How systems thinking can help create collaborative client relationships

Paul Nunesdea | CEOgroupVision | Optimizing group collabora-tion

Session outline

• Whiteboard: Intro & setting expectations.

• Special breed of consultants?

• Challenges in process consultation.

• Soft systems thinking: two types of systems.

• Analyzing the intervention.

• Circle: wrap up and close.

Special breed consulting

• Is a group facilitator a special breed of a consultant?

Starting by some definitions

Consultant:

• is an advisory contracted for and provided to organizations to help in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management problems, analyze such problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions

(Greiner and Metzger, 1983).

Group facilitator:

• Is a substantively neutral person without any decision making authority, whose selection is acceptable to all members of the group to help improve how it identifies and solve problems and make decisions to increase the group effectiveness

(IAF – International Association of Facilitators)

Two types of group facilitation

Roger Schwarz et al. (2005) define:

• Basic facilitation – helps groups learn ground rules and develop ability to self-facilitate most conversations.

• Developmental facilitation – Helps groups identify and change deeply held defensive routines and develop skills for leading organizational change and transformation.

• Developmental facilitation strongly overlaps with organizational development (OD) interventions

• OD = systemic and systematic change effort using behavioural sciences knowledge and skills to transform the organization to a new state.

3 models of consultation

Edgar Schein (1990) has identified three broadly accepted models of consultation:

• Purchase-of-expertise. There is no expectation to focus on the client relationship per se, but rather to provide expertise in a detached manner.

• The doctor-patient model. The focus is on using a diagnostic approach to examine the client organization’s problems and advise on a solution. This model emphasizes the importance of building a strong relationships and developing trust between the client and the consultant.

• The process consultation model. The consultant is a facilitator with the client actually providing much of the relevant expertise. The consultant provides more of the framework and methodology for defining the problem and the best possible alternatives. In the end the client chooses what to do about the problem.

The roles of the client

In Schein’s model, six basic types of clients can be distinguished:Contact clients – the individual(s) who first contact the consultant with a request, question, or issue.

Intermediate clients – the individuals or groups who or which get involved in various interviews, meetings, and other activities as the project evolves.

Primary clients – the individual(s) or group who ultimately “own” the problem or issue being worked on; they are typically also the ones who pay the consulting bills or whose budget covers the consultation project.

Unwitting clients – members of the organization or client system above, below and laterally related to the primary clients who will be affected by interventions but who are not aware they will be impacted.

Indirect clients – members of the organization who are aware that they will be affected by the interventions but who are unknown to the consultant and who may feel either positive or negative about these effects.

Ultimate clients – the community, the total organization, an occupational group, or any other group that the consultant cares about and whose welfare must be considered in any intervention that the consultant makes.

5 categories of consultants

Alternatively, Nees and Grenier (1985) propose five categories of consultants:

• (1) The mental adventurer analyzes truly intransigent problems such as long-term scenarios for country development, by applying rigorous economic methods and leveraging his or her experience base.

• (2) The strategic navigator bases his or her contribution on a rich quantitative understanding of the market and competitive dynamics, and then recommends courses of action without too much regard of the client’s perspective.

• (3) The management physician derives his or her recommendations from a deep understanding of the internal dynamics of the client organization, often willing to sacrifice some objectivity to gain a realistic perspective on what is achievable.

• (4) The system architect impacts his or her clients by helping redesign processes, routines, and systems – always in close cooperation with the client.

• (5) The friendly co-pilot counsels senior managers as a facilitator rather than as an expert, and has no ambition to provide new knowledge to the client.

Mapping group facilitator’s consulting rolesPurchase of expertise

Doctor-patient model

Process consultation

Mental adventurer

Management Consultant

Management Consultant

The strategic navigator

Management Consultant

Management Consultant

The management

physician

Management Consultant

Management Consultant

The system architect

Organizational development consultant /

Group facilitator

The friendly co-pilot

Organizational development consultant /

Group facilitator

In summary

• A group facilitator is a particular breed of a consultant

• She/he can deliver basic facilitation when focusing exclusively on the group objectives

• She /he can deliver developmental facilitation and as a result approaches the role of an organization development consultant

• When approaching the role of an OD consultant the group facilitator operates in the process consultation mode – client is ultimate responsible for decision making.

Challenges of process consultation

• The group facilitator as a process consultant means that she/he must challenge the group to find their own answers providing the right conditions for effective team work.

Literature review

Handley et al. 2005 researched the client-consultant relationship and found out:

• Consultants have the ability to challenge the organizational status quo and lead the client to new or different forms of knowledge.

• Clients perceive the 'challenge' role of consultants to be very valuable by bringing an external or otherwise 'marginal' view which prompts clients to re-evaluate their own knowledge.

• However the dynamics of challenge interventions are often presented at the level of generality, and have not been fully explored in the context of case study research.

Research reveals

A case study centered on a strategy project sponsored by a senior executive in a multinational FTSE 100 organization:

"We had a facilitator for this meeting - an external facilitator called Robin. He does a lot of work at the EXCO level. He’s very senior and well regarded. He’s an external person, just works for himself. He's been extremely helpful. Actually more helpful than STG (the consulting company) from the point of view of structuring the day and challenging us to really think through what we want to get out of it. He did all the right things. Asked all the right questions." [Peter, Senita project manager]

Effective contracting

• For effective process consultation the client-facilitator contract needs to be well defined upfront.

• A contract is "an explicit bilateral commitment to a well-defined course of action" which means that all parties need to agree:

• why they want to do something

• with whom

• what they are going to do

• by when

• any fees, payment or exchanges there will be

A process consulting contract implies

• All parties need to state what they are prepared to do.

• Are they able and willing to undertake what is being asked?

• Is this appropriate? Does it fit within any statements of purpose and function?

• Is it legal, ethical?

• Do they have the competence to deliver this?

• What does each party want of the others?

In summary

• Contracts need to be: measurable, manageable and motivational.

• Measurable means that the goals need to be tangible.

• The goal will be specific and behavioural and clearly defined.

• That each party involved in the contract will be able to say in advance how they will know when the goal has been achieved.

Soft systems thinking

Soft systems methodology offers a powerful framework to analyze contracting in a group facilitation / process consultancy project.

The notion of a “human activity system”

• Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is a powerful approach for managing a client-facilitator relationship

CATWOE

• 1. Transformation - what fundamental change is made to the systems' inputs? in what outputs are they converted?

• 2. Weltanschauung - what is the fundamental worldview that makes this transformation relevant?

• 3. Customer - who is the beneficiary of this systems' transformation.

• 4. Actors - who enacts this transformation?

• 5. Owners - who can stop this system to operate?

• 6. Environment - what are the major external constraints that can impact the systems' operations?

An example

• we want the outside of our house’s fence to be painted.

• we need to find a person who will paint it and who will give us a quote for doing it.

• If we agree the quote, and we like him or her enough, we will no doubt employ them.

• We will agree a date and time, perhaps check they are insured, and choose the colour of the paint and off they go.

Think about your own examples

• Who would be in the role of Customer?

• Who would be in the role of Actor?

• What would be the Transformation?

• What is the Worldview behind this intervention?

• Who is the Owner?

• What are the Environmental constraints?

Model several CATWOEs

• You will be surprised with the knowledge that can be shared about the situation

Analyzing the intervention

The enactment of group facilita-tion: establishing ground rules, designing group processes, etc.

Appreciation of the group intervention’s sit-uation: organizational context, business en-vironment, etc.

Considerations concerning the intervention:Who is in the role of client(s), who “owns” the prob-

lem, etc.

A BC

Cultural stream of analysis

A) Analysis of intervention - Client/consultant relationship

• Who is in the role of client?

• Who is the 'would be problem solver'?

• Who is the 'problem owner'?

B) Social system analysis

• Roles, Norms, Values

Political system analysis

• How is 'power' expressed around here? What are the commodities through which power is expressed?

C) Group intervention

Wrap up

Major findings

• OD competencies http://www.odnetwork.org/?page=odcompetencies

• Case study: http://www.designedlearning.com/press-room/articles/contracting-eight-steps-to-building-a-strong-client-consultant-relationship/

• Alonso strategy consulting’s article: http://www.alonsostrategyconsulting.com/The_Client-Consultant_Relationship

• Academic Paper: Client-consultant relations and the role of challenge http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc/archive/oklc6/papers/handley_sturdy_clark__fincham.pdf

• OLKC portal: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/conf/olkc

• Blog article: http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/change-academy/2012/04/30/change-and-the-knowledge-iceberg/

References & additional resources

Acknowledgements:The images in this presentation were captured from a book that I strongly recommend: Checkland, P & Scholes, J. (1990) Soft Systems in Action – John Wiley & Sons, Chichester. http://amzn.com/0471986054

• Paul Nunesdea is the English author name of Paulo Manuel Coimbra Nunes de Abreu an organizational psychologist, MSc in Information Management and PhD in Management Science.

• Paul has conducted research work and external consultancy in a varied number of organizations including National and Regional Governments.

• In 2003 he started the "Forum Hospital do Futuro" a not for profit initiative that convened a national Think Thank in Portugal

• In 2009 he founded the Iberian Healthcare Leaders Forum that has convened several Thought Leaders summits in Spain and Portugal.

• Since 2012 is a member of the International Association of Facilitators

About the author

• groupVision specializes in group collaboration and works with group facilitators from the IAF - International Association of Facilitators - worldwide.

• We provide software tools and the expertise to apply them in any type of collaborative working environment.

• Combined with a clear understanding of your objectives we design interactive and participative working environments that transform your organization to thrive in the 21st century.

About groupVision

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