4. Understanding Our Business
The consultants must have an ability, patience and intelligence to understand our business in detail. Of course, they can’t be expected to know or learn everything about our business, but they must know the vital things.
Remember, if someone gives you a diagnosis or a solution to your problem, without even properly understanding the problem clearly, you are probably sitting with a wrong person.
5. Customization
A consultant must have the ability to customize her solution as per the need of the client organization.
In business problem solutions, one cap does not fit all. Unlike allopathic medicines, one formula does not work for all companies equally. Consulting is like homoeopathy. Detailed understanding and some degree of tweaking or customization is always required before suggesting or implementing any general solution.
Some entrepreneurs “shop” for consultants at seminars or lectures. They pick up speakers at such events as consultants. They assume that the person, who can speak so well about business problems and possible solutions, can solve our business problems also. But we must remember that an ironsmith should not be given a necklace to repair. Necklace needs to be carefully examined and tactfully mended. A big hammer may mutilate it forever. Check if the ironsmith has skills of a goldsmith also, where some painstaking customization will be needed.
Business situations are not all black or white. They are innumerable shades of grey and each situation is unique. If our consultants can’t see the greys between black and white, they will tend to spend a lot of time trying to bang square pegs into round holes. It will waste a lot of our time, energy and money. Also, it may compound our problems further.
Remember, many companies have burnt their fingers working with such color blind magicians who couldn’t decipher the real problems of the business, but still ventured into giving solutions blindly, which were implemented unsuspectingly, bringing disastrous results.
We may bring in some consultants to initiate some positive change in the company. If one such intervention fails, it may frustrate our people. Then, the employees may become reluctant to cooperate with such initiatives in future, very badly hampering our efforts to bring in evolutionary change. So, it is very important that any person that we bring in to initiate some change is capable to understand and customize his bag of tricks for us.
6. Integrity, Honesty, Fairness
A consultant must be true to her word. She must remember and keep her word.
Right from the first interaction, she must be punctual with her time. A person, who can’t keep her time, can’t be believed for her words.
A consultant should be fair and should not be boastful. She should not claim undue credit for something which she has not done. The organization existed before the consultant entered the scene and was growing at some rate already. Some consultants take full credit for the growth of the company with which they are associated. This is unfair to the entrepreneur or to the team who have put in years of labor to bring the business where it is today.
Also, she should be transparent in all money transaction and should not be cheating the company in any way. Misusing the company’s products or resources, overcharging the company by manipulating on unclear terms or indulging in some other unfair practices for some quick gains is a bad sign.
She should not give excuses or should not backtrack on her commitments of time, effort and deliverables agreed at the time of beginning the engagement.
7. Confidentiality
During their engagement with a company, consultants get access to a lot of information about the organization, some of which is confidential.
In their zeal to throw names, the consultants should not disclose sensitive facts about their existing or past clients.
If they can’t make the discretion of what to share and what not to share, if they can’t keep their mouth shut, they will cause damage to our company.
We may consider signing a No-Disclosure Agreement or a Confidentiality Agreement with the consultant, if we fear such a possibility or if we don’t want to take a chance.
(Expert advice to GROW your business wherever you are, whenever you want.
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