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Selecting a Consultant

This page has been prompted by our intent to illuminate the importance of selecting a consultant with the requisite ethics, adaptive, interpersonal, and technical skills to work effectively with you. We offer these guidelines in the hopes that it gives first time and experienced selectors of external consultants more perspective about the process of selection and how to generate better results. Whether you use these guidelines is up to you.

We would rather share this information in the hopes it will be applied. We benefit if you use it because the odds are better that we won't be facing the detrimental damage to trust before we can get to the heart and soul of working with you... helping you shape and sustain your desired future.

When Do You Use Consultants?

The four primary reasons why most organizations decide to use an OD consultant are:

1. You need to expand capability rapidly. When time is limited and there's a significant amount riding on the outcome, for example a crash project that requires an external consultant to engage and deliver results in a short period of time with the least possible disruption or involvement of the work force. You need an extra set of experienced hands.
2. You need one or several specialists who really have an expertise that can't be accessed internally in the short term. It often is very cost effective to pay, usually on a per-project basis, external professionals with specialized intervention, process or instrument design skills than to recruit, develop and maintain that expertise in house.
3. You really want some objectivity. Some external perspective, credibility and neutrality, can lend considerable political advantage in many organizations. The assets of objectivity and neutrality by external consultants usually grab the attention of senior management and can help get things done.
4. You are willing to take the long view. You choose to engage in a long term contract or retainer with a seasoned OD professional who can help provide you with private counsel, critical feedback, and process expertise about strategic visioning, learning organizations, and alignment.

Some Pre-selection Questions to Consider

Before you begin your search for the right consultant, take the time to thoroughly prepare and think through what you need. Here are a few questions to help you consider your purpose for selecting a consultant, your terms and requirements for the assignment, your expectations, and how you will be evaluating the consultant's performance.

• What kind of credentials are you seeking in a consultant? What level of experience and education is important? What particular area of expertise is most relevant to your assignment? What industry experience may be needed?
• What kind of support staff does the consultant have?
• How will you assess the consultant's products and services? Will you begin with performance objectives? If so, who will be responsible for preparing the objectives?
• What kind of work would you like the consultant to perform? Will the work be divided into segments to include an assessment, recommendations, action plans, implementation, evaluation and follow-up.
• What will be client responsibility and what will be the consultant's responsibility? Will you share some of the work or function as a sponsor of the consultant as change agent?
• What are the obligations of both parties? What kind of assistance will the client and the consultant provide each other? Who on the client's staff will work with the consultant? What specific roles will these people have and how much time will they be allowed to be assigned with the consultant?
• What is the completion date for the project? Can the consultant accomplish what needs to be done within your time frame? Will you schedule due dates for each segment of the project?
• What are the consultant fees for the project? What is the payment schedule (bi-weekly, monthly, per segment, etc.)? Will billing include travel and out-of-pocket expenses for printing, overheads, professional voice-overs, or will these costs be billed separately?
• Will the contract include performance bonus and penalty clauses for early, late and/or extraordinary work? Will performance criteria and measures for terminating payments be spelled out in the event the consultant fails to deliver the services agreed to by both parties?
• Will the project require the consultant to carry professional and general liability insurance?
• Will the project necessitate the consultant signing a nondisclosure, non-compete or no publishing agreement?
• Who will have copyrights on work product?

Some Rule of Thumb Selection Guidelines

• Carefully review the consultant's credentials. Look at attitude, background, experience, education, performance and outcomes.
• Ask for a client list and references, and interview the people noted. Ask about the consultant's work quantity and quality, communication style, interpersonal skills, level of expertise, and successes.
• Request and review work samples. Look at design plans, responses to requests for proposals, and other kinds of written communications.
• Seek consultants who you can trust. Be sure that the person has a reputation for ethical behavior. Confiding confidential company information to someone who's professional conduct is questionable isn't wise.
• Choose consultants wit topnotch solution skills. Pay attention to the kinds of questions they ask, their methods of inquiry about your assumptions, company needs, their manner of listening, probing, analyzing, and summarizing are key indicators of competency.
• Carefully assess the consultant's ability to listen to your presenting issues, opportunities, needs, constraints, and resources. Competent consultants reserve judgment until they have listened to the client and gathered their own data. If they start out with solutions...stories of success, proven methods, and key staff...it is likely they have missed the first step...listening and researching.
• Find out how the consultant proposes to reduce the risks you face. Solutions to an issue can cause others to surface.
• Ask how the consultant plans to develop benefits as well as reduced risk. Find out how they propose to accomplish both and have them explain how they envision assessing progress, successes and failures.
• Take note if consultants try to steer the discussion away from results and successes, and toward the products and services they provide.

Guidelines For Effective Client-Consultant Relationships

• Define the relationship. Establish your expectations of the consultant(s) and understand what their expectations of you are as a client.
• Clarify that the consultant understands that he or she has full responsibility to deliver the product or service. Consultants should understand that they are an extension of your organization.
• Document expectations in a clearly stated contract.
• Provide support and critical real time feedback. Give each other the benefit of the doubt, obtain the facts before reacting and explain what you are or will be doing before hand whenever possible.
• Create an environment for collaboration with consultants. Engaging socially to discuss project status, learning and next steps can be very helpful.
• If you expect the consultant to keep organizational information confidential, expect them to keep individual participants' comments confidential. Respect their professionalism and don't ask about individuals or for offhanded performance appraisals. If you want to know about participants' opinions ask for descriptive behaviors and general impressions. (Example: 60% said their managers are resisting the change.)