- •In praise of the fourth edition
- •CONTENTS
- •FOREWORD
- •The concept of consulting
- •Purpose of the book
- •Terminology
- •Plan of the book
- •ABBREVIATIONS AND ACRONYMS
- •1.1 What is consulting?
- •Box 1.1 On giving and receiving advice
- •1.2 Why are consultants used? Five generic purposes
- •Figure 1.1 Generic consulting purposes
- •Box 1.2 Define the purpose, not the problem
- •1.3 How are consultants used? Ten principal ways
- •Box 1.3 Should consultants justify management decisions?
- •1.4 The consulting process
- •Figure 1.2 Phases of the consulting process
- •1.5 Evolving concepts and scope of management consulting
- •2 THE CONSULTING INDUSTRY
- •2.1 A historical perspective
- •2.2 The current consulting scene
- •2.3 Range of services provided
- •2.4 Generalist and specialist services
- •2.5 Main types of consulting organization
- •2.6 Internal consultants
- •2.7 Management consulting and other professions
- •Figure 2.1 Professional service infrastructure
- •2.8 Management consulting, training and research
- •Box 2.1 Factors differentiating research and consulting
- •3.1 Defining expectations and roles
- •Box 3.1 What it feels like to be a buyer
- •3.2 The client and the consultant systems
- •Box 3.2 Various categories of clients within a client system
- •Box 3.3 Attributes of trusted advisers
- •3.4 Behavioural roles of the consultant
- •Box 3.4 Why process consultation must be a part of every consultation
- •3.5 Further refinement of the role concept
- •3.6 Methods of influencing the client system
- •3.7 Counselling and coaching as tools of consulting
- •Box 3.5 The ICF on coaching and consulting
- •4 CONSULTING AND CHANGE
- •4.1 Understanding the nature of change
- •Figure 4.1 Time span and level of difficulty involved for various levels of change
- •Box 4.1 Which change comes first?
- •Box 4.2 Reasons for resistance to change
- •4.2 How organizations approach change
- •Box 4.3 What is addressed in planning change?
- •Box 4.4 Ten overlapping management styles, from no participation to complete participation
- •4.3 Gaining support for change
- •4.4 Managing conflict
- •Box 4.5 How to manage conflict
- •4.5 Structural arrangements and interventions for assisting change
- •5 CONSULTING AND CULTURE
- •5.1 Understanding and respecting culture
- •Box 5.1 What do we mean by culture?
- •5.2 Levels of culture
- •Box 5.2 Cultural factors affecting management
- •Box 5.3 Japanese culture and management consulting
- •Box 5.4 Cultural values and norms in organizations
- •5.3 Facing culture in consulting assignments
- •Box 5.5 Characteristics of “high-tech” company cultures
- •6.1 Is management consulting a profession?
- •6.2 The professional approach
- •Box 6.1 The power of the professional adviser
- •Box 6.2 Is there conflict of interest? Test your value system.
- •Box 6.3 On audit and consulting
- •6.3 Professional associations and codes of conduct
- •6.4 Certification and licensing
- •Box 6.4 International model for consultant certification (CMC)
- •6.5 Legal liability and professional responsibility
- •7 ENTRY
- •7.1 Initial contacts
- •Box 7.1 What a buyer looks for
- •7.2 Preliminary problem diagnosis
- •Figure 7.1 The consultant’s approach to a management survey
- •Box 7.2 Information materials for preliminary surveys
- •7.3 Terms of reference
- •Box 7.3 Terms of reference – checklist
- •7.4 Assignment strategy and plan
- •Box 7.4 Concepts and terms used in international technical cooperation projects
- •7.5 Proposal to the client
- •7.6 The consulting contract
- •Box 7.5 Confidential information on the client organization
- •Box 7.6 What to cover in a contract – checklist
- •8 DIAGNOSIS
- •8.1 Conceptual framework of diagnosis
- •8.2 Diagnosing purposes and problems
- •Box 8.1 The focus purpose – an example
- •Box 8.2 Issues in problem identification
- •8.3 Defining necessary facts
- •8.4 Sources and ways of obtaining facts
- •Box 8.3 Principles of effective interviewing
- •8.5 Data analysis
- •Box 8.4 Cultural factors in data-gathering – some examples
- •Box 8.5 Difficulties and pitfalls of causal analysis
- •Figure 8.1 Force-field analysis
- •Figure 8.2 Various bases for comparison
- •8.6 Feedback to the client
- •9 ACTION PLANNING
- •9.1 Searching for possible solutions
- •Box 9.1 Checklist of preliminary considerations
- •Box 9.2 Variables for developing new forms of transport
- •9.2 Developing and evaluating alternatives
- •Box 9.3 Searching for an ideal solution – three checklists
- •9.3 Presenting action proposals to the client
- •10 IMPLEMENTATION
- •10.1 The consultant’s role in implementation
- •10.2 Planning and monitoring implementation
- •10.3 Training and developing client staff
- •10.4 Some tactical guidelines for introducing changes in work methods
- •Figure 10.1 Comparison of the effects on eventual performance when using individualized versus conformed initial approaches
- •Figure 10.2 Comparison of spaced practice with a continuous or massed practice approach in terms of performance
- •Figure 10.3 Generalized illustration of the high points in attention level of a captive audience
- •10.5 Maintenance and control of the new practice
- •11.1 Time for withdrawal
- •11.2 Evaluation
- •11.3 Follow-up
- •11.4 Final reporting
- •12.1 Nature and scope of consulting in corporate strategy and general management
- •12.2 Corporate strategy
- •12.3 Processes, systems and structures
- •12.4 Corporate culture and management style
- •12.5 Corporate governance
- •13.1 The developing role of information technology
- •13.2 Scope and special features of IT consulting
- •13.3 An overall model of information systems consulting
- •Figure 13.1 A model of IT consulting
- •Figure 13.2 An IT systems portfolio
- •13.4 Quality of information systems
- •13.5 The providers of IT consulting services
- •Box 13.1 Choosing an IT consultant
- •13.6 Managing an IT consulting project
- •13.7 IT consulting to small businesses
- •13.8 Future perspectives
- •14.1 Creating value
- •14.2 The basic tools
- •14.3 Working capital and liquidity management
- •14.4 Capital structure and the financial markets
- •14.5 Mergers and acquisitions
- •14.6 Finance and operations: capital investment analysis
- •14.7 Accounting systems and budgetary control
- •14.8 Financial management under inflation
- •15.1 The marketing strategy level
- •15.2 Marketing operations
- •15.3 Consulting in commercial enterprises
- •15.4 International marketing
- •15.5 Physical distribution
- •15.6 Public relations
- •16 CONSULTING IN E-BUSINESS
- •16.1 The scope of e-business consulting
- •Figure 16.1 Classification of the connected relationship
- •Box 16.1 British Telecom entering new markets
- •Box 16.2 Pricing models
- •Box 16.3 EasyRentaCar.com breaks the industry rules
- •Box 16.4 The ThomasCook.com story
- •16.4 Dot.com organizations
- •16.5 Internet research
- •17.1 Developing an operations strategy
- •Box 17.1 Performance criteria of operations
- •Box 17.2 Major types of manufacturing choice
- •17.2 The product perspective
- •Box 17.3 Central themes in ineffective and effective development projects
- •17.3 The process perspective
- •17.4 The human aspects of operations
- •18.1 The changing nature of the personnel function
- •18.2 Policies, practices and the human resource audit
- •Box 18.1 The human resource audit (data for the past 12 months)
- •18.3 Human resource planning
- •18.4 Recruitment and selection
- •18.5 Motivation and remuneration
- •18.6 Human resource development
- •18.7 Labour–management relations
- •18.8 New areas and issues
- •Box 18.2 Current issues in Japanese human resource management
- •Box 18.3 Current issues in European HR management
- •19.1 Managing in the knowledge economy
- •Figure 19.1 Knowledge: a key resource of the post-industrial area
- •19.2 Knowledge-based value creation
- •Figure 19.2 The competence ladder
- •Figure 19.3 Four modes of knowledge transformation
- •Figure 19.4 Components of intellectual capital
- •Figure 19.5 What is your strategy to manage knowledge?
- •19.3 Developing a knowledge organization
- •Figure 19.6 Implementation paths for knowledge management
- •Box 19.1 The Siemens Business Services knowledge management framework
- •20.1 Shifts in productivity concepts, factors and conditions
- •Figure 20.1 An integrated model of productivity factors
- •Figure 20.2 A results-oriented human resource development cycle
- •20.2 Productivity and performance measurement
- •Figure 20.3 The contribution of productivity to profits
- •20.3 Approaches and strategies to improve productivity
- •Figure 20.4 Kaizen building-blocks
- •Box 20.1 Green productivity practices
- •Figure 20.5 Nokia’s corporate fitness rating
- •Box 20.2 Benchmarking process
- •20.4 Designing and implementing productivity and performance improvement programmes
- •Figure 20.6 The performance improvement planning process
- •Figure 20.7 The “royal road” of productivity improvement
- •20.5 Tools and techniques for productivity improvement
- •Box 20.3 Some simple productivity tools
- •Box 20.4 Multipurpose productivity techniques
- •Box 20.5 Tools used by most successful companies
- •21.1 Understanding TQM
- •21.2 Cost of quality – quality is free
- •Figure 21.1 Typical quality cost reduction
- •Box 21.1 Cost items of non-conformance associated with internal and external failures
- •Box 21.2 The cost items of conformance
- •21.3 Principles and building-blocks of TQM
- •Figure 21.2 TQM business structures
- •21.4 Implementing TQM
- •Box 21.3 The road to TQM
- •Figure 21.3 TQM process blocks
- •21.5 Principal TQM tools
- •Box 21.4 Tools for simple tasks in quality improvement
- •Figure 21.4 Quality tools according to quality improvement steps
- •Box 21.5 Powerful tools for company-wide TQM
- •21.6 ISO 9000 as a vehicle to TQM
- •21.7 Pitfalls and problems of TQM
- •21.8 Impact on management
- •21.9 Consulting competencies for TQM
- •22.1 What is organizational transformation?
- •22.2 Preparing for transformation
- •Figure 22.1 The change-resistant organization
- •22.3 Strategies and processes of transformation
- •Figure 22.2 Linkage between transformation types and organizational conditions
- •Figure 22.3 Relationships between business performance and types of transformation
- •Box 22.1 Eight stages for transforming an organization
- •22.4 Company turnarounds
- •Box 22.2 Implementing a turnaround plan
- •22.5 Downsizing
- •22.6 Business process re-engineering (BPR)
- •22.7 Outsourcing and insourcing
- •22.8 Joint ventures for transformation
- •22.9 Mergers and acquisitions
- •Box 22.3 Restructuring through acquisitions: the case of Cisco Systems
- •22.10 Networking arrangements
- •22.11 Transforming organizational structures
- •22.12 Ownership restructuring
- •22.13 Privatization
- •22.14 Pitfalls and errors to avoid in transformation
- •23.1 The social dimension of business
- •23.2 Current concepts and trends
- •Box 23.1 International guidelines on socially responsible business
- •23.3 Consulting services
- •Box 23.2 Typology of corporate citizenship consulting
- •23.4 A strategic approach to corporate responsibility
- •Figure 23.1 The total responsibility management system
- •23.5 Consulting in specific functions and areas of business
- •23.6 Future perspectives
- •24.1 Characteristics of small enterprises
- •24.2 The role and profile of the consultant
- •24.4 Areas of special concern
- •24.5 An enabling environment
- •24.6 Innovations in small-business consulting
- •25.1 What is different about micro-enterprises?
- •Box 25.1 Consulting in the informal sector – a mini case study
- •25.3 The special skills of micro-enterprise consultants
- •Box 25.2 Private consulting services for micro-enterprises
- •26.1 The evolving role of government
- •Box 26.1 Reinventing government
- •26.2 Understanding the public sector environment
- •Figure 26.1 The public sector decision-making process
- •Box 26.2 The consultant–client relationship in support of decision-making
- •Box 26.3 “Shoulds” and “should nots” in consulting to government
- •26.3 Working with public sector clients throughout the consulting cycle
- •26.4 The service providers
- •26.5 Some current challenges
- •27.1 The management challenge of the professions
- •27.2 Managing a professional service
- •Box 27.1 Challenges in people management
- •27.3 Managing a professional business
- •Box 27.2 Leverage and profitability
- •Box 27.3 Hunters and farmers
- •27.4 Achieving excellence professionally and in business
- •28.1 The strategic approach
- •28.2 The scope of client services
- •Box 28.1 Could consultants live without fads?
- •28.3 The client base
- •28.4 Growth and expansion
- •28.5 Going international
- •28.6 Profile and image of the firm
- •Box 28.2 Five prototypes of consulting firms
- •28.7 Strategic management in practice
- •Box 28.3 Strategic audit of a consulting firm: checklist of questions
- •Box 28.4 What do we want to know about competitors?
- •Box 28.5 Environmental factors affecting strategy
- •29.1 The marketing approach in consulting
- •Box 29.1 Marketing of consulting: seven fundamental principles
- •29.2 A client’s perspective
- •29.3 Techniques for marketing the consulting firm
- •Box 29.2 Criteria for selecting consultants
- •Box 29.3 Branding – the new myth of marketing?
- •29.4 Techniques for marketing consulting assignments
- •29.5 Marketing to existing clients
- •Box 29.4 The cost of marketing efforts: an example
- •29.6 Managing the marketing process
- •Box 29.5 Information about clients
- •30 COSTS AND FEES
- •30.1 Income-generating activities
- •Table 30.1 Chargeable time
- •30.2 Costing chargeable services
- •30.3 Marketing-policy considerations
- •30.4 Principal fee-setting methods
- •30.5 Fair play in fee-setting and billing
- •30.6 Towards value billing
- •30.7 Costing and pricing an assignment
- •30.8 Billing clients and collecting fees
- •Box 30.1 Information to be provided in a bill
- •31 ASSIGNMENT MANAGEMENT
- •31.1 Structuring and scheduling an assignment
- •31.2 Preparing for an assignment
- •Box 31.1 Checklist of points for briefing
- •31.3 Managing assignment execution
- •31.4 Controlling costs and budgets
- •31.5 Assignment records and reports
- •Figure 31.1 Notification of assignment
- •Box 31.2 Assignment reference report – a checklist
- •31.6 Closing an assignment
- •32.1 What is quality management in consulting?
- •Box 32.1 Primary stakeholders’ needs
- •Box 32.2 Responsibility for quality
- •32.2 Key elements of a quality assurance programme
- •Box 32.3 Introducing a quality assurance programme
- •Box 32.4 Assuring quality during assignments
- •32.3 Quality certification
- •32.4 Sustaining quality
- •33.1 Operating workplan and budget
- •Box 33.1 Ways of improving efficiency and raising profits
- •Table 33.2 Typical structure of expenses and income
- •33.2 Performance monitoring
- •Box 33.2 Monthly controls: a checklist
- •Figure 33.1 Expanded profit model for consulting firms
- •33.3 Bookkeeping and accounting
- •34.1 Drivers for knowledge management in consulting
- •34.2 Factors inherent in the consulting process
- •34.3 A knowledge management programme
- •34.4 Sharing knowledge with clients
- •Box 34.1 Checklist for applying knowledge management in a small or medium-sized consulting firm
- •35.1 Legal forms of business
- •35.2 Management and operations structure
- •Figure 35.1 Possible organizational structure of a consulting company
- •Figure 35.2 Professional core of a consulting unit
- •35.3 IT support and outsourcing
- •35.4 Office facilities
- •36.1 Personal characteristics of consultants
- •36.2 Recruitment and selection
- •Box 36.1 Qualities of a consultant
- •36.3 Career development
- •Box 36.2 Career structure in a consulting firm
- •36.4 Compensation policies and practices
- •Box 36.3 Criteria for partners’ compensation
- •Box 36.4 Ideas for improving compensation policies
- •37.1 What should consultants learn?
- •Box 37.1 Areas of consultant knowledge and skills
- •37.2 Training of new consultants
- •Figure 37.1 Consultant development matrix
- •37.3 Training methods
- •Box 37.2 Training in process consulting
- •37.4 Further training and development of consultants
- •37.5 Motivation for consultant development
- •37.6 Learning options available to sole practitioners
- •38 PREPARING FOR THE FUTURE
- •38.1 Your market
- •Box 38.1 Change in the consulting business
- •38.2 Your profession
- •38.3 Your self-development
- •38.4 Conclusion
- •APPENDICES
- •4 TERMS OF A CONSULTING CONTRACT
- •5 CONSULTING AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
- •7 WRITING REPORTS
- •SUBJECT INDEX
Consulting and culture
The consulting firm’s culture
The characteristics of organizational cultures are present in consulting firms, as in any other organization. Their cultures encompass values and norms concerning a wide range of issues including consulting methods and practices, commitment to clients, responsibilities and rights of junior and senior consultants, career progression, transfer of know-how to clients, the application of a code of ethics, and many others. Thus, a consulting firm’s culture is a unique mix of organizational, professional and national cultural factors. It is essential to be aware of it, in particular if there is any risk of incompatibility and clash with a client’s culture.
5.3Facing culture in consulting assignments
The consultant’s behaviour
A great deal of useful guidance is available on how consultants should behave when operating in other cultures. Most of it concerns interpersonal relations and manners. For example, it is good to get advice on:
●how to dress;
●how to deal with people;
●punctuality;
●when and how to start discussing business;
●written and/or oral communication with the client;
●formal and informal interpersonal relations;
●the use of go-betweens;
●display or restraint of emotions;
●what language and terms to use;
●taboos.
Such things are relatively easy to learn and remember. Also, these days it is helpful that more and more clients are becoming tolerant of other cultures. Your client may know that a first contact with an American consultant will be quite different from a contact with a Japanese consultant. However, there is no guarantee that your particular client is “culturally literate” and culture-tolerant. It is therefore wise to find out beforehand how he or she expects a professional adviser to behave.
However important, questions such as whether to use first names and what topics must not be openly discussed represent only the tip of the iceberg in the cross-cultural consultant–client relationship. The less visible and more profound aspects of this relationship concern such issues as power and role distribution, decision-making, confrontation and consensus in problem-solving,
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use of teamwork, consultation with employees, religious beliefs and practices, and any criteria whereby management will judge the consultant’s work and suggestions.
Some consultants feel that they must try to identify themselves with a foreign culture, behaving as the client behaves (“When in Rome do as the Romans do”), and sharing the client’s values and beliefs in order to understand his or her environment and render an effective service. This may be impossible, and even undesirable, to achieve. It implies no longer being authentic and genuine, thus abandoning key behavioural characteristics of a professional consultant. Understanding and respecting other people’s culture does not imply giving up one’s own.
How to explore cultural issues
The consultant has to use all his or her experience and talent to learn about the cultural factors that may be relevant to the assignment. In some cases, direct questions on what values prevail, how things are normally done and what pitfalls to avoid will be perfectly acceptable, in particular if the client is personally aware of the differences between cultures. In other cases, tactful and patient observation of the client’s behaviour may produce an answer. A great deal can be learned by mixing with people and observing how they act and socialize, what symbols they use and what rituals they observe.
Discussions of cultural issues should be friendly and informal; formal and structured interviews are not well suited for dealing with culture. Judgement should be suspended until the consultant has learned more. Also, the consultant should try not to be nervous and uneasy in a new situation that appears ambiguous. To detect and overcome cultural barriers, it may be useful to team up with an internal consultant or another member of the client organization who is prepared to help.
A study of the client company’s history can be revealing. The roots of present corporate culture may be far back in the past – in the personality of the founder, in past successes or failures, in the growth pattern (e.g. many acquisitions or frequent changes of owners), and the like.
Establishing a climate of trust
We have already emphasized that it is important to establish as early as possible a climate of trust among all the parties in the consultant–client relationship. This can be difficult since in some cultures it is not desirable to trust an outsider. One way of looking at these relations is by comparing highcontext and low-context societies.
In a high-context society, relationships are based on friendship, family ties and knowing each other well. The context, the total situation, is essential to building relationships. The formation of these relationships happens quite slowly and includes many rituals or rites of passage. This can include
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eating certain kinds of food, or engaging in various social activities unrelated to work.
In a low-context society, the relationship is generally spelled out in a written contract. The client wishes to obtain a precisely defined piece of technical work and may not care much about the total relationship with the consultant. What is not in the contract is not part of the relationship. Of course, there are subtle forms of interaction even in a low-context society. Generally, however, the relationship is built first on the written document; the building of trust follows.
It is possible to develop trust in most cultures, but in some it takes time. This need for time should be recognized and built into the plan of the assignment. Also, the concept of highand low-context societies is a developing one. The consultant should be careful about applying it to an entire country or an entire people, since there are individual variations.
Criteria of rationality
In working for a client, a management consultant aims to find and recommend solutions that are in the client’s interest. To justify the proposed measures to himself and to the client, a consultant applies criteria that are rational by his standards. For example, he may apply economic effectiveness as a criterion and judge various alternatives by their impact on the productivity and financial performance of the organization. He may use cost/benefit analysis and return on investment as the main assessment techniques.
Yet the concept of rationality is culture-bound. Even in Western industrial economies, where the notions of efficiency, competitiveness and profitability have not only an economic but also a strong cultural connotation, economic rationality per se is not always the only or main criterion applied by top management in evaluating alternative decisions. Personal, cultural, social or political preferences may prevail. The desire to maintain the status quo, fear of the unknown, the company owner’s social image, or reluctance to make changes affecting collectively shared values, may eventually determine top management’s choice even in a European or North American enterprise. In several Asian countries, certain cultural values tend to be applied as criteria of rationality: to preserve harmony, to avoid dismissing employees, to maintain status differences and to respect feelings about ethnic groups may be seen as more rational than to optimize performance in strictly economic and financial terms.
Transferring management practices
Management consultants use their past experience in working with present clients. This involves transferring management practices from one organization or country to another organizational or national environment. Other items could be substituted for “management practices”. We could also speak about management techniques, technologies, methods, expertise, systems, concepts, patterns,
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approaches, and the like, but the question remains the same: to what extent and under what circumstances are management practices transferable?
There are factors whose influence on the choice of management techniques is evident – for example, the nature of the product, the technology used, the technical skills of the employees or the size of the organization. The influence of culture is more subtle and not so easy to perceive, but experience has shown that it tends to be very strong.
Some management techniques are value laden. They were developed for use in a particular culture and reflect its value systems and behavioural norms. They concern the human side of organizations: individual and group interests, interpersonal and intergroup relations, motivation and control of human behaviour. The possibility of transferring these techniques has to be carefully examined in each case. A value-laden technique may be difficult or impossible to transfer. Remuneration techniques stimulating individual performance rather than collective solidarity fail in collectivist societies; high wage differentials may not be acceptable in an egalitarian society; organization development methods based on confrontation cannot be used where harmony and conflict avoidance are strongly valued; problem-solving approaches built on democratic values are difficult to apply in a traditionally autocratic culture; matrix organization does not work effectively in cultures where people prefer the unity of command and want to receive orders from one single higher authority. Examples of failures caused by a mechanistic transfer of value-laden techniques are abundant.
Some other techniques were developed in response to organizational characteristics such as the nature and complexity of the production process, or the amount of data to be recorded and analysed; that is to say, they concern the technological, economic and financial side of organizations. Such techniques are relatively value neutral and their transfer across cultures is a simpler matter. However, while a technique per se may appear value-neutral, its application creates a new situation that may be value laden. A production control or maintenance scheduling technique required by the technology used may conflict with the workers’ beliefs and habits concerning punctuality, work organization and discipline, justified absence from work, accuracy and reliability of records, and the like. Every organization is unique, and the combined effects of national and organizational cultures are key factors of this uniqueness. Thus a seemingly universal and value neutral management technique may have to be modified to fit a different cultural context, or it may even be more appropriate to develop a new technique.
Culture and change
Values and beliefs concerning change have a prominent place in culture. Generally speaking, modernistic and optimistic cultures regard change as healthy; without it, business cannot flourish and society prosper. Cultures dominated by traditionalism value the status quo, stability and reverence for the past. They are suspicious about change and may perceive it as
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disturbing and subversive even if, in the consultant’s professional view, the need for change is self-evident. To realize and appreciate this may be particularly difficult for a consultant who has been used to working with dynamic clients, keen to apply quickly any changes from which the company can derive benefits.
The presence of cultural factors impeding or retarding change does not imply that change is impossible. Even the most conservative individuals and groups are able to reconcile themselves to change if they realize its necessity, in particular if change is imposed by strong external influences, such as the deterioration of material conditions of living. Better information, education, contacts with more dynamic cultures and new technology also affect the traditionalist societies’ attitude to change. However, the process of change may be slow and difficult.
When operating in an environment where resistance to change has cultural roots, a consultant will be well advised to bear in mind:
–the sort of change that is acceptable (refraining from proposals that the client will judge to be culturally undesirable or unfeasible);
–the pace of change (deciding whether to plan for a fundamental one-off change, or for gradual changes in a number of small steps; assessing the “acceptance time” needed by clients and their staff to convince themselves about the desirability of proposed changes);
–the client’s readiness for change (it is unreasonable to press for change if the client is not ready to face the cultural problems that change may cause);
–the level of management and the particular person (authority) by whom change has to be proposed and promoted in order to be accepted and implemented;
–the persuasion and educational effort needed to convince people that maintaining the status quo is not in their interest.
Consulting in social development
At the present time more and more management consulting is done for social development programmes and projects in sectors such as health, nutrition, basic education, drinking-water supply, sanitation, community development or population control. Many of these programmes are in rural areas of developing countries. There are, too, many programmes of assistance to small entrepreneurs and micro-enterprises in the informal sector (see Chapter 25). Management consultants, including those who have worked in developing countries and are aware of their cultures, are as a rule familiar with the cultural setting encountered in industry and central government administration, but the informal economy, and rural and social development, are likely to be new worlds to them.
In social development, the consultant’s clients are not managers operating modern enterprises or well-established administrative structures, but managers, social workers and organizers working with local communities, groups of farmers, or even individual families and persons. The technology used is simple
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