Chiming in on the Debate About a Consultant
David Maister has a post about what a consultant should do in a particular situation and is asking for alternate opinions. Sweet!! I'm going to offer mine. Here's a brief synopsis as I read it:
A consultant is hired to do a project. There's a CEO who railroads the process and is making it difficult or impossible to complete it. The consultant wants to know if he should try to step in and help with the group dynamic (i.e. reign in the CEO) to get the project done successfully. Maister's advice is no, that's not what you were hired to do.
I'm in total agreement. However, I would add that the consultant should walk away from the gig. It appears highly likely the project is doomed to failure. You're just not serving your clients by sticking around. (From my reading of him, my guess is Maister would agree.)
Client service means doing what's best for the client. Always. One can only hope the short-term financial loss is more than compensated down the road by an impeccable reputation and a long list of successful projects.
Stay tuned for my upcoming book, Everything I Needed to Know About Dealing with Frustration I Learned from my CEO, complete with pretty pictures and one of those spongy ball-thingeys.
