The Role of the Internal Consultant - Management & Business ...

The research highlighted how some organisations appear more equipped to gain value from theinternal consultant. Factors influencing this include having a clearly understood strategic reasonfor the development of the role, visible senior level support, and an understanding of the role bythe consultants themselves. The prevailing culture will, of course, strongly influence the role’ssuccess.Interestingly, the research shows that a strong ‘internal customer’ culture can make internalconsultancy practice difficult to negotiate, as managers continue to expect instant solutions tothe problems they define.Unlike external consultants, the shadow of internal consultants’ previous roles casts a heavyinfluence over their perceived credibility and access to particular types of work. This is nothelped by the way organisations ‘position’ the consultant role. The research found that, in manycases, existing central service units had ‘rebranded’ themselves as consultancy groups withoutsubstantive changes to personnel, skill levels, or modes of working. The survey identified thatover half of these internal consultants (62%) class themselves as middle or junior managers. Animpact of this is that more junior staff members are now asked to perform challenging andsophisticated roles, often to influence senior managers, without being perceived as having thecredibility or authority to do so. Against a backdrop of increasing organisational politics, newinternal consultants report feeling disempowered and unable to extend the range of theirinterventions.One of the key challenges facing the internal consultant is to influence cultural change. Beingpart of the organisation brings both advantages and disadvantages: whilst having a strongunderstanding of prevailing cultural norms, internal agents may also be ‘blind’ to them. Withoften only their own personal power and influence as tools, internal consultants may also fail toaccount for the extent to which they contribute to sustaining the culture, which they hope tochange. High self- awareness appears to be a key requirement of an effective internalconsultant.The research used a standard consultancy cycle to examine how internal consultant’s work withtheir clients. This identified the importance of the contracting phase in the success ofinterventions. However many internal consultants overlook the need for activity at this stage,tending to make assumptions about what the client needs, and how the need will be met. Andwhilst there are many examples of strong contracting at a ‘formal’ level, for example through theuse of Service Level Agreements, when problems occurred this was more likely to be due tomiscommunication, emotional reactions, politicking and power play. This is not surprising: thenature of contracting for the internal consultant is complex, often involving multiple contractingrelationships up and across hierarchies.The research also highlighted the challenges facing internal consultants in disengaging fromprojects. Consultants report the need to build strong relationships with clients, only then tofind it difficult to ‘say no’ to further requests for involvement. With resource limitations, theclients – busy managers, often overstretched – can begin to draw the consultant into thebusiness to deal with pressing operational needs, almost as an additional team member. Andwhilst this may be a legitimate role for the consultant to play, it has an impact on availability oftime for other projects and on the consultant’s perceived role.8