From consultant to trusted advisor final

Workshop for Consultants/Affiliates

From Consultant to Trusted AdvisorMay 25, 2011

Agenda• Welcome

•  Introductions /Ice Breaker

• Learning Objectives

• Profile of David Maister

• From Consultant to Trusted Advisor– Lecture– Videos–Group Exercises/Debrief

• Feedback

• Wrap up

2 | April 7, 2023

Introductions/Ice Breaker

•Name, Current Role, Client, Location

•How long have you been a consultant?

•What do you like most about consulting?

• Your expectations for this session

3 | April 7, 2023

From Consultant to “Trusted Advisor”

Learning Objectives:

•Understand the difference between being right and being helpful• Describe the “ten commandments” of a trusted advisor• Understand the “rules” of relationships• Learn how to use language to get what we want• Understand what forces drive you towards being a trusted advisor and those that hold you back

4 | April 7, 2023

David Maister

Widely acknowledged as one of the leading authorities on managing professional services firms

5 | April 7, 2023

From Consultant to Trusted Advisor

• Introduction: Why do Clients Buy?

•Traits of a Trusted Advisor

•Professionalism

•Rules of Relationships

•How to Give Advice

•How to Use Language to Get What You Want

•Dealing with Client Politics

•Closing Exercise

6 | April 7, 2023

Why Do Clients Buy?

7 | April 7, 2023

Insecure

Impatient

Worried

Skeptical

Concerned

Suspicious

Why Do Clients Buy?

8 | April 7, 2023

Understand

Care

Trust

industry, situation, company

to do the right thing

Clients want someone who will care!

Why do Clients Buy?

•Have you ever had a friend who was a trusted advisor? What made them so helpful to you?

•Have you ever hired a lawyer, accountant, physician? Why or how did you decide to choose them?

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What Traits Do Trusted Advisors Share?

•We can easily describe what we don’t want!

http://davidmaister.com/video.videocast/437/“What we hate about those people…”

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What Traits Do Trusted Advisors Share?

• Seems to understand us effortlessly, and is like us• Are consistent; we can depend on them• Always help us see things from a fresh

perspective• Don’t try to force things on us• Help us think things through (but make sure

that it’s OUR decision)• Doesn’t substitute their judgment for ours• Doesn’t panic or get overemotional; they stay

calm

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What Traits Do Trusted Advisors Share?

• Criticize and correct us gently and lovingly• Don’t pull punches; we can rely on them to tell

the truth• Are in it for the long haul (relationship is more

important than the current issue) • Give us their reasoning, not just their conclusions• Challenge our assumptions and help us uncover

the false assumptions we’ve been working under

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What Traits Do Trusted Advisors Share?

• Make us feel comfortable and casual personally (but take the issues seriously)

• Act like a person, not someone in a role• Are reliably on our side, and always have our

best interests at heart• Remember everything we ever said (without

notes)• Are always honorable; they don’t gossip about

others, so we can trust their values• Have a sense of humor to diffuse tense

situations

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What Traits Do Trusted Advisors Share?

What do you notice about the list of traits?• Few are focused on technical capability or

intellect• Many are related to social, interpersonal,

communication and emotional skills

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Breakout

• Create “Ten Commandments” for a TayganPoint Trusted Advisor.

• Provide real client examples for 2-3 traits on your list illustrating how you successfully exemplified those traits.

15 | April 7, 2023

In two groups, complete the following on a flip chart:

Professionalism

• Very few consultants are viewed by their clients as “great” purely as a result of their intellectual or technical abilities.

• The opposite of “professional” is “technician”

• Professionalism is an attitude, a demeanor, not a set of competencies.

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A real professional is a technician who cares!

Professionalism

Thinking about your recent work …

1) “God I love this work! This is why I do what I do”

2) “It’s OK; I can tolerate this; it’s what I do for a living”

3) “I hate this part – I wish I could get rid of this junk”

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Professionalism

20%

70%

10%

Big Consulting Firm Survey

I love this work I tolerate this work I hate this junk

Professionalism

•Clearly demonstrate both your ability and willingness to help

• Sustain the magic and excitement

• Energy, enthusiasm and drive

19 | April 7, 2023

Professionalism

The better you are at identifying “good” work (work you like to do) and getting hired to do it, the better your chances of

working on fun stuff with people you care about!

Tolerable, Acceptable, BORING…

Exciting, Interesting, FUN…

20 | April 7, 2023

Professionalism

21 | April 7, 2023

• Sincerity counts!

•Ultimately new business is won only when the client believes the consultant is interested, cares and is trying to help.

• Faking sincerity may work sometimes, but faking sincerity is a prostitute’s tactic, not a professional’s.

Professionalism

New business is won when the client believes you’re interested, you care and you’re trying to help.

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Rules of Relationships

• What characteristics help build strong relationships?

• Let’s see what else…http://davidmaister.com/video.videocast/452/

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UnderstandingSupportive

ConsiderateThoughtful

Sensitive

Rules of Relationships

•Make an investment•Demonstrate, don’t just assert•Deal with Clients as unique human beings

Share an example demonstrating how you truly valued a client and the relationship?

24 | April 7, 2023

Rules of Relationships

Our most common downfalls…

1. We listen for the things that we recognize and have met before, so that we can draw upon past experiences to use the words, approaches and tools that we already know well.

2. “Sometimes I feel like I’m explaining things to a child. My client can’t seem to grasp even the basic logic of what I’m saying. I feel like saying shut up; just accept what I’m telling you! I’m the expert here!”

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How to Give Advice

• It is not enough to be right; an advisor’s job is to be helpful!

• You must develop the skills to tell clients they are wrong in such a way that they will actually thank you for it.

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How to Give Advice

• All suggestions for improvement imply that not everything is being done well at this moment

• Effectively giving advice is crucially dependent on a deep understanding of the personalities involved

• Act as if you were trying to advise your mother or father!

27 | April 7, 2023

How to Give Advice

•Diffuse defensiveness

•Convey respect while making your point

• Focus less on the advice and more on creating the

dialogue/conversation that will help them see your

point.

• Pay careful attention to your choice of words

•Never say “you’ve got to….”28 | April 7, 2023

How to Use Language to Get What You Want

To get what you want from someone, focus on giving them what they want.

29 | April 7, 2023

How to Use Language to Get What You Want Successful consultants are typically driven, rational and meritocratic with a high need to achieve. It is natural for such people to be focused on their own individual performance and to constantly look for confirmation that they are right.

http://davidmaister.com/video.videocast/420/

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How to Use Language to Get What You Want

31 | April 7, 2023

Hard Phrases “Soft” Phrases

What are your problems? What is most in need of improvement?

Here’s my recommendation. Here are some options I’d like us to consider.

This is definitely the best solution. Other clients (companies in your industry) tend to do this…. Do you think that makes sense in this environment?

Using some examples from your recent client experiences, develop a list of Hard and then associated “Soft” phrases that can be used by colleagues to ensure more open-ended, effective communication.

How to Use Language to Get What You Want Consulting requires that we become effective teachers

A good teacher needs two key skills:• A really deep and solid understanding of the client’s current problem/state• An expert sense of what “success” might look like for this client based on your intellect and experience

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Socratic Teaching Takes Patience!

How to Use Language to Get What You Want Helpful questions that will advance your skills in Socratic teaching:

• Why do you think we have this problem?

• What options do we have for doing things differently?

• What advantages do you foresee in using the different options?

• How do you think the key stakeholders will react if we do that?

• How do you suggest we deal with the potentially adverse consequences of such an action?

• Many other companies have encountered difficulty with that approach. What can we do to prevent such things from occurring here?

• What benefits might result if we tried the following approach?

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Can you think of other questions to add to this list?

Dealing with Client Politics

• The advisor’s role becomes more difficult when dealing with more than one decision-maker. • Seek to build consensus – rarely is there ever just one client!• Learn and practice the skills and tools that will help bring different players with different agendas “on board”. • You cannot simply schedule a meeting and hope to facilitate all of the different points of view in “real time”

….So, what might you do???? 34 | April 7, 2023

Dealing with Client Politics

It’s tempting to think that conflicting agenda’s, priorities and “turf wars” are the clients’ issues– not yours.

However, unless you can learn to deal with these issues, your advice will not likely be acted upon.

35 | April 7, 2023

Break Out – Closing Exercise

Create a Force Field Analysis including:• factors/traits/skills/cultural forces that enable• factors/traits/skills/cultural forces that constrain

Then individually, determine actions to:• Reduce strength of opposing forces (Improvement Opportunities)• Strengthen forces in support (Best Practices)

36 | April 7, 2023

Force Field Analysis Exercise

Cu

rren

t Pra

ctices to

Su

pp

ort C

lien

t Work

Desire to be Successful

Driving Forces Restraining Forces

Competition

Earnings incentives

Etc. Etc.

Lack necessary skills

Work rules

Apathy

37 | April 7, 2023

Working in two groups, divide your flip chart paper in half and label the titles (underlined in red) as follows:

Brainstorm as a group what issues/factors/practices belong on which side. Try to align them so that one side is the “offset” of the other.

Feedback

38 | April 7, 2023

Open dialogue:–What’s worked–What should we do differently next time?

Volunteers/Suggestions for next session