THE CONSULTANT AS A MODEL
Another important issue is whether change
agents are willing and to practice what they
preach. In the area of feelings, e.g., the consultant
may be advocating a more open system in which
feelings are considered legitimate and their
expression important to problem solving and at
the same time suppressing his or her own feeling
about what is happening in the client system.
This problem is frequent for less experienced
practitioner and it usually has an impact on this
person’s competency.
THE CONSULTANT TEAM AS A MICROCOSM
The consultant – key client viewed as a team or client working as a team
can profitably be viewed as a microcosm of the organization they
are trying to create:
1. The consultant team must set an example of an effective unit if the
team is to enhance its credibility.
2. Practitioner need the effectiveness that comes from continuous
growth and renewal processes.
3. The quality of the interrelationship within the consulting team
carries – over directly into the quality of their interventions. To be
more explicit about the last point, unresolved and growing conflict
between two consultants can paralyze an intervention. Or lack of
attention to team maintenance matters can produce morale
problems that reduce spontaneity and creativity in planning
sessions or in interacting with the client system.
THE DEPENDENCY ISSUE AND
TERMINATING THE RELATIONSHIP
Consultant can be internal and external person.
When internal expert takes on the duties of
the facilitator, he identifies the problem,
selects appropriate OD interventions and
implements it. He also carries out the analysis
of the desired improvement and at the later
stage reverses back to his assigned job. The
problem of continuity or reversion does not
arise if the consultant is insider.
Following issues should be considered for analyzing
dependency factor while utilizing services of the facilitator/
consultant.
1. The consultant is in the business to improve the client system to
identify problems and evolve problem solving capabilities rather
than to create a dependency relationship.
2. The consultant should be clear in his mind about the notion of being
expert or the facilitator.
3. Argyris suggests that if the consultant intervention is to be helpful in
an on- going sense, it is imperative for the client to have “free,
informed choice’. And to have this free choice, the client requires a
cognitive map of the overall process. Thus, the consultant will have to
be quite open about such matters as the objectives of the various
interventions that are made about the sequence of the planned
events.
4. The consultant should not seek
personal importance. He should not
work for improving his personal
resourcefulness, longer utility and
feel needed in the organization.
Gradual reduction in external
consultant use as OD efforts reaches
maturity. His skills can be best
utilized at highest possible levels like
universities or professional
organizations and to set the renewed
higher standards of skills, value
system and innovations for other
organizations to emulate at a later
stage.
5. There may be a situation when consultant feels
that his utility is declining and the progress of the
OD efforts are not encouraging; in such situations,
the consultant should raise the issue with client
and ask for more details about the dynamics of
the OD efforts, and not shy away even if
consultants approach appears to be self-serving.
He must maintain the momentum of OD efforts by
involving client system.
Sometimes the organization may simply be temporarily
overloaded by externally imposed crises occupying the
attention of key people. Under such conditions, the best
strategy may be one of reducing or suspending the more
formalized OD interventions and letting people carry-on
with their enhanced skills and returning to the more
formalized aspects at a later date. If the dynamics of these
and the other circumstances were more defined, the
resolution of the problem of what to do when the OD
efforts seems to be running – out of steam might take
directions other than reducing or terminating the
involvement of the change agent.
