Power consulting helps clients make decisions to improve their situation. Yet many difficulties and barriers arise during developing, delivering and disengaging from a client engagement.

Have you ever experienced any of these?

All too often we blame the client without accepting some responsibility for the situation or even understanding why it exists.

By exercising more flexible thinking, consultants can improve client-consultant relationship as well as the quality of decisions.

Research at Harvard’s Graduate School of Business, studied decision making by top Fortune 500 CEO’s who were identified as being the most highly skilled thinkers and decision-makers in their respective fields. The CEOs exhibited behaviors associated with three types of higher-level thinking:

What the study revealed is that top leaders use all three modes of thinking at a very high level and rely on each form of thinking fairly equally. In other words, top leaders balance the way each looks at challenges. Remarkable differences emerged between the manners top leaders behave to make decisions when compared with a cross section of 5000 adults from all walks of life.

Top leaders exercise reason to identify the pros and cons of a course of action. On complex issues they often relied on a team approach and had a small number of colleagues with whom each worked closely. Moreover, rather than churn issues around in their heads—they write down and assign importance of pros and cons to move forward. While they don’t let the decision process lag, leaders don’t rely solely on logic.

Top leaders assess the impact on others.

By using insight, they looked at a course of action not only from a logical viewpoint, but also engaged feelings, impressions and intuition. They again sought other opinions to verify their hunches—top leaders talk through insights, use sounding boards, and have a small group of trusted advisors.

This may sound like common sense; leaders know where they want to go and who they are. They use personal space for thought and reflection. Self-knowledge and the ability to communicate this knowledge are other strong suits. They maintain a strong sense of personal space, but also openly discuss feelings and opinions. Leaders are clear thinkers who communicate what they are thinking, feeling and what outcomes are needed for success.

Individuals high in self-knowledge tend to accept responsibility, keep promises; they achieve goals each personally develops, tackle new challenges and complete tasks that are not among natural strengths.

In regards to others, individuals who operate at a high self-knowledge level, encourage others to make decisions. High self-knowledge individuals direct normal emotions in proactive and productive manners. They are less bothered by personal criticism and can both follow and lead.

Organizations lead by individuals strong in self-knowledge are purposeful and mission oriented. When purpose is aligned with employees’ self-interests, organizations report high morale, commitment to goals and high levels of working satisfaction. A "brand" exists. Southwest Airlines would be a popular example.

Individuals strong in insight make decisions with less "hard" data than others. These individuals understand the impact of decisions to others. They follow up on hunches and respond quickly and creatively to new situations.

Typical behaviors associated with insight are positive, future oriented, and open to new perspectives and ideas. Individuals high in insight don’t obsess over difficulties or negative emotions, and rarely worry. These individuals allow for others’ opinions and ideas. They don’t overly react to personal criticism.

Individuals strong in insight may move too quickly for others to follow. If other thinking skills are under-used, individuals strong in insight may seem impulsive and ill logical. These individuals may have difficulty learning from mistakes and often repeat unproductive behaviors.

Expect those who over use insight to change course frequently and adopt new ideas and programs superficially.

Organizations lead by individuals strong in insight may have "flavor of the month" programs. By using quick fixes, these organizations never quite achieve potentials. Organizations suffer if insight is not balanced with purpose, focus and planned allocation of resources.

Whereas insight is intuitive, reason is logical and concrete. Individuals strong in reason are careful, dependable and make extremely logical statements. They learn from mistakes. When reason is the only strong thinking domain, individuals over-rely on "hard" data and are slow to make decisions. Change may be resisted. Others may consider them narrow-focused and "bean counting."

Individuals, who use reason, may regard other forms of thinking as inferior and not objective. Because they are good planners, individuals strong in reason respond well to concrete goals.

Gray areas and ambiguity may bother them.

Leaders and organizations that overuse reason have difficulty responding quickly to change and may be uncreative in finding new solutions or "thinking outside the box." Overuse of reason can result in analysis paralysis and inability to take risks.

High use of thinking and balance of the three thinking domains are the key elements of power thinking.

When consultants exercise balanced and objective thinking is when their expertise is truly useful to clients. If a consultant and client gain the trust to be candid and honest, a partnership forms to make the client’s situation better—not just sell an engagement—the engagement sells itself. The key is your prospect has to believe your ideas will improve his situation and are valuable.

Power consulting results when a client believes you bring value to change his situation. Clients talk when value is perceived. However, if the consultant is unable to engage the client to view his situation in a new manner, no differentiation occurs. Clients buy insight. The ongoing challenge for the consultant is to support and/or challenge the client to think differently.

Frankly, the methodology of most consultants is not unique—especially to the client. It’s how we work with the client and sustain him to improve. Clients look for consultants who collaborate with them to view things differently. What happens when a client does not believe the consultant will change the client’s situation? The client doesn’t buy.

Consulting services are bought, not sold. If a client doesn’t perceive he needs what you offer, no amount of "salesmanship" will move him. Helping a client arrive at a high quality of decision is a time commitment so make sure you’re dealing with someone who can buy by signing or authorizing the check to you.

Conventional thinking views sales as a straight-line process. Today too many factors and people influence a sale. Have you ever lost a sale because the situation changed? Much more getting, giving and probing is necessary to develop agreement to sell the engagement. An essential skill for client success is the ability to engage the prospective client to be open and unguarded. Clients have definite ideas of what is needed—they quickly identify the symptoms of a situation or self-diagnose. What clients generally lack are the insights and/or resources to resolve their situation. That’s why clients need consultants: fresh perspective, objectivity and ability. Our challenge is to genuinely improve the client’s situation: to help the client apply power thinking.

Start with the end in mind. Discover what your client really wants to achieve. When I did recruiting I called this discovery: "the windmills of the mind" a phrase taken from a popular song. It’s really the knowledge of discovering what exists in the client’s mind; his vision of what the improvement would look like, how he would feel.

In taking this step, the consultant helps the client to develop "Client Self-Knowledge."

Elicit objectives and outcomes at the outset.

Help your client elucidate what he wants to achieve and how he’d know it was achieved. By really probing what the client needs, you can help your client unearth what’s important and what he doesn’t want to see happen. You’ll obtain important insights into what the client values, how he sees the process moving forward and if and where you could provide insight. Helping the client identify how valuable this potential project is to him or her will help you to move the project forward and manage the engagement. Often what is valuable comes out in the most off-handed manner.

This client had experienced something truly valuable—what was important to her.

What keeps the client talking is seeing value to your helping him think and view the situation differently. Use your models and tools to help the client view his situation differently.

After you’ve engaged the client with probing questions that show you know what you’re talking about, you’ve gained a level of professional trust. Professional trust will keep a client talking with you because they see value, but it won’t close a sale unless the client develops belief that you will change his situation for the better. Developing belief is not what we say, but what we do. How skillfully can you keep the client thinking through his situation? Do you apply models, provide means to choose alternatives and really utilize what the client already knows—clients buy insight because he gains belief you will change the situation. The client sees his situation differently.

Clients buy insight yet we often fail to really dig into the root causes of a symptom. The client thinks he needs sales training so we give it to him. Consulting is helping make the client’s situation better, not just taking his money. If you can’t provide insight beyond what the client already knows, you’re selling a product, not consulting. Be straight with the difference. Let the client know how far a method will take him to achieve the established objectives.

The good news: the need for consulting is higher than ever. The bad news is that client’s disenchantment with consultants is higher than ever. Clients feel finding a consultant who is truly objective and really wants to improve their situation is the exception.

Distinguish yourself! Use reason and the client’s priorities and values to decide the pros, cons, and weight of the situation with the client (not for them). Write it down.

You’ll quickly discover the client’s commitment to the project and whether you’ve achieved a level of agreement. This will also help you to develop truly custom solutions and agreements that really meet the client’s needs. You’ll also unearth whether you need to move on or fine-tune your approach to bring value to the client.

Client Dissatisfaction. Why some clients don’t "get your message." Often, as consultants, we think that sales end when delivery begins.

Being a manager or business owner does not always mean power thinking ability. Just because someone hired you does not mean he understands or listens to what you say.

Your clients have varying thinking and listening capabilities. The key to making powerful decisions is a balance at a high level of reason, insight and self-knowledge.

However, if you don’t communicate with alternative forms of thinking, you and your clients will stay stuck. For example, your client may overuse reason and become stuck in analysis paralysis. This is much more likely if you are overusing reason yourself.

Don’t kill your clients with logic. As a whole, consultants are notoriously narrow thinkers—the expert in a subject who can’t see the impact on the client.

Some clients are always looking for the quick fix or the new idea that will "save the company." However, the resources, plans and discipline to implement the initiative never "get grounded." Legitimate concerns are ignored or assigned to resistance to change. The initiative overrides the purpose. We’ve found some organizations can’t remember the purpose for the initiative.

If your client keeps making the same mistakes, this may be from under-using reason and relying on hunches without fully understanding the situation or acting before thinking. This is a difficult problem. This type of manager frequently has a low attention span and/or patience. If someone lacks in reason, using it initially will not result in an educated client.

Moreover, a climate of departmental or organizational expedience frequently develops from this type of behavior—employees are rewarded for doing something versus doing it right.

If you do not understand this individual’s values, you won’t be able to get his attention. Showing that you care what happens with a short, direct, and confident message that is charged with emotion usually works followed up by the message in writing.

Personal dissatisfaction with your work or the assignment’s progress may result from low consultant’s self-knowledge. He may also lack collaborative abilities to gain insight into the client’s needs. The consultant may fail to establish a peer relationship with his client.

If you are having trouble collaborating with your clients, poor self-knowledge and unrealistic skills assessment may be the reason. Can you stand your ground with a client without creating an adversarial situation? Can you tell a client tough news without making him feel foolish or inept? Emotions are what cause action or inaction. Do your clients move or stall out?

It required the self-confidence to stand ground without assigning blame or making someone feel foolish. When you understand that your success in consulting depends on clients understanding and embracing your ideas, much of the battle is won. Gaining self-confidence helps you to stay cool to get results through others.

Self-confidence is also demonstrated in how you respond to failure.

Self-confidence emanates from self-knowledge and living by what you value. Don’t take an engagement if you and the client have a conflict of values. An example, two consultants walked away from a diversity assignment because the client did not want a consultant, she wanted legal CYA (cover your assets) to protect poor management practices from litigation.

The New Body of Knowledge for Consulting adopted by the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes in 1998 identifies three key areas where consultants must excel and uses the acronym ACT.

Abilities are the multitudes of ways a consultant can act for a client such as: objective observer, coach, technical expert on certain subjects, or project manager.

Communication is oral, written, listening, body language—the overall impression a consultant presents.

Regarding thinking the New Body of Knowledge states, "It may seem obvious, but thinking is the single most important and fundamental competence that consultant must be extremely good at. The consultant’s mind should be capable of nurturing thoughts and ideas on several different planes simultaneously to enable flexible and contingent thinking. Lateral thinking and the ability to look into the future, ‘to view the end from the beginning’ are also important."

What are your thinking abilities and skills? New performance assessment technology exists to compare your higher level thinking skills with outstanding thinkers and decision makers. Moreover, these assessments help you to pinpoint what small behaviors may be impairing your consulting assignments with clients—how you behave and communicate with clients.

I have found the assessments extremely insightful and very practical to apply—these insights have made me money and helped work through some sensitive client situations successfully.

Using assessment to improve. We have conducted several Power Thinking Workshops with handpicked participants with reputations for leadership within their fields -- both in the for profit and non-profit sectors and in all sizes and types of ventures. Numerous participants have commented on how very small, insignificant behaviors were impeding individual effectiveness. All were completely unaware of them.

Numerous female participants have gained new insights into how thinking may cause negative perceptions of females in predominately male groups, and how to overcome those perceptions more effectively and confidently.

Each was able to develop a practical plan to improve thinking—it’s a developed skill. Some ways to improve higher-level thinking follow.

To improve reasoning, write out the pros and cons of a situation and weigh the alternatives. Develop more objectivity—stand back from the situation. Write your thoughts. Draw your pictures. Apply models to a problem. Really stretch and apply various models to the same problem. More carefully make connections and spell out your solution logically.

To develop insight, learn to gather "soft" forms of data, to discover how a situation impacts others and to apply thinking that helps test assumptions and identifies root causes. Apply more creative, less hard data intensive methods.

What is unobvious and not accepted?

= Improved Client Situations.