We All Have a Consulting Style: Why Yours Matters
As SMEs, aka consultants, we aim to influence internal and external client thinking, perceptions, and decisions by sharing our expertise and aligning with their needs: How we deliver that expertise is crucial. Your consulting style reflects who you are and how you prefer to utilize and deliver your knowledge.
It's easy to fall prey to "fatal flaws" in our consulting approach because these often reside in our blind spots and rarely receive feedback, making them difficult to change. So, what is your consulting style and why is it so important?
Understanding Different Consulting Approaches: The Consulting Style Inventory™
In the CSI, there are three main ways you can use and deliver your expertise:
Expert/Prescriptive Style (Bulldoze): involves pushing your agenda and believing you know best.
Good Soldier/Acquiescent Style (Withhold): is about denying your voice and agenda, believing the client knows best.
Process/Collaborative Style (Engage): involves blending agendas and expertise, believing it’s most effective path forward.
The Power of Flexibility and Collaboration
Three key questions to ask yourself is:
"How flexible is my style?
Can I handle a wide range of client situations?
Does one size fit all?"
By honing your collaborative skills, you can confidently answer "Very," "Yes," and "No!" to these questions.
While a collaborative style should be a consistent part of your approach, there are exceptions:
You might need to be prescriptive and "tell" if a client is completely lost.
You may need to acquiesce or be a "good soldier" when the client's way is the only option and you can't add value.
However, guard against clients attempting to push you into inappropriate consulting styles; e.g., when they pressure you to “tell” when they need to be part of the solution, or when they simply want you to take orders, when you need to be engaged. Neither serves the client, nor you. So, strive to maintain a collaborative diet.
Why Your Consulting Style is Important
Your consulting style showcases your ability to actively listen and genuinely focus on helping the client solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity.
Your style is on display! People are acutely aware of how they are treated. They willingly engage, and if resistance exists, will let it go, if you show interest in learning about their story and want to help.
Identifying Your Dominant and Back-Up Styles
On the CSI, once your three scores are tallied, you can identify your:
Dominant Consulting Style: your highest score and reflects your client-facing values.
Back-Up Consulting Style: your second-highest score and the style you might revert to when you are under pressure, challenged, passionate, or impatient.
In high pressure, time-sensitive, and demanding situations, it is often difficult to maintain a collaborative profile. If collaboration is your dominant, go-to style, under these conditions you might exercise your back-up style… prescribing or acquiescing. Having this vital self-awareness enhances effective client engagement.
Think about it…How often are you in high pressure situations? How have you handled them? What worked? What didn’t? What could you have done differently?