Evaporating the Consultant’s Dilemma

7 Minute Read

In October of last year, I was a speaker at the TOCICO conference in Bad Nauheim, Germany. I presented on what I call the Consultant’s Dilemma.   

This subject is highly relevant not just to TOC consultants, but to anyone who has hired or is considering hiring a consultant. After all, how do we, as business owners and managers, put ourselves in a position to make the most out of the advice we’re paying for—advice that, if sustained, could truly benefit our businesses? 

Even though a consultant’s ultimate goal is to help their client achieve meaningful lasting results, the very people who need to act on their guidance don’t always embrace or implement it. 

To combat this phenomenon, TOC consultants have evolved their strategies regarding the role they play in the client’s implementation and the basis for their fees. In today’s newsletter, I’ll focus on the shift in the role of the TOC consultant, I'll analyze why the change still yields short-lived results for too many organizations, and I'll offer a direction for solving the underlying dilemma.

The Dilemma

A dilemma involves two compelling but seemingly conflicting strategies. 

On one hand, a consultant can jump in and manage the change for the client, guaranteeing quick wins in the process. Go in, choke the release, things get better quickly. In this scenario, the consultant measurably improves outcomes in a short time, demonstrating clear value. 

On the other hand, the consultant may focus on educating the client, giving the client the reigns to manage their own change. This strategy is focused on teams developing the understanding and emotional investment to sustain the changes they implement.

Do we want quick, consultant-driven results, or do we want results whose success depends on client understanding, buy-in and diligence? 

Can we have both?

Let's dive in and clarify what the consultant's dilemma is, and how we might evaporate it.

Assumption Hacking the Conflict

1. Clarify the Conflict

The consultant and the client both want the engagement to achieve meaningful and sustainable results, yet face two competing approaches: 

Consultant as Project Manager: The consultant leads the change. The primary focus is on action to achieve fast, measurable wins which build credibility, momentum, and immediate ROI for the client. 

Consultant as Educator:  The client leads their own change, and the consultant's role is to provide TOC education.  The primary focus is to cultivate client competence and enthusiasm, so improvements survive after the consultant departs. 

Both options serve the same overarching goal—helping the client achieve meaningful, sustainable, breakthrough results—but each brings its own drawbacks. 

For readers expecting to see the conflict written as a traditional Evaporating Cloud, here you go: 

2. Uncover and Challenge Underlying Assumptions

Q: Why would fast results depend on the consultant leading the implementation (being the project manager)?

A: Because the TOC mode of operation is based on a framework for thinking and decision making that is quite different from the framework for thinking and decision making found in most organizations.

Implementers therefore assume that:

• Left to their own devices, clients may misinterpret TOC, make mistakes, and not get those needed quick wins.
• There is enough commonality across organizations for an experienced TOC consultant to guide the client and get results without in-depth knowledge of the intricacies of the client's environment.

Q: Why would long-term sustainability depend on the client leading their own implementation, utilizing the consultant as educator?

A: Because the TOC mode of operation is based on a framework for thinking and decision making that is quite different from the framework for thinking and decision making found in most organizations. Yes, the same reason, but different concerns when viewing the need for long-term sustainability of the change:

• When the cause-effect relationship between a change and its results is not clearly understood, it becomes easy for the client to backtrack once the consultant is gone.
• The client won’t fully commit unless they discover the solution on their own. The "emotion of the inventor" is powerful.

For those organizations that seek consulting assistance, too little consultant leadership can put at risk the lightning-speed breakthrough results that come from the first steps in a typical TOC implementation.

But too much consultant leadership prevents the client from developing essential capabilities needed to sustain the change and fuel more performance improvements over time.

Hacking the Assumptions

While the TOC mode of operation is in fact based on a different framework for thinking and decision making, perhaps as you read the assumptions above, you recalled exceptions. For example:

• Consider the people who read The Goal, implemented what they understood from that book, and achieved breakthrough results in no time without any outside help.
• We all have habits that we developed without understanding why they work. Breathing, for example.
• Millions of people understand that what they're eating or drinking or smoking is unhealthy and actually causes ill-health over time, yet they do it anyway.

3. Evaporate the Conflict

Expressing and then finding exceptions to the previously stated assumptions give us hints on how to get out of the dilemma.

So which hat must the consultant wear: the project manager hat or the educator hat? Perhaps unsurprisingly, I don't believe it is either/or. I believe one can fulfill both the roles of "implementation project manager" and "client's teacher", but in different amounts at different times.

The key to evaporating the conflict is to recognize when along the client's journey the client needs more of one than the other from the consultant.

So if you're a consultant reading this, here is my call to action for you: design your engagements in a way that each step gets both results AND enhances the client's knowledge and passion.

Help your client understand the two different roles you will play and why, so that when it's time to shift from one to the other, it won’t be a surprise.Remember, your client is trusting you to not only deliver the short-term results, but they are also hoping that those results will stick and lead to their next jump in performance too.

And if you can't effectively wear both of those "hats", find another consultant to work with who can complement you in the process, who can be the "educator" to your "project manager" or vice versa.

Remember the TOC Focusing Steps

I believe that The Goal of any TOC consulting engagement is to help the client achieve more of their goal, now and into the future. TOC’s Focusing Steps can help us TOC Consultants too:

1. IDENTIFY the system's constraint. It is the client's capacity for attention, know-how absorption, and habit making. Remember they are juggling between the current situation and the future state that the implementation is intended to create.
2. Decide how to EXPLOIT the system's constraint. Be very clear on what to have the client focus on that will make progress toward their goal AND enhance their knowledge and passion to continue. Don't try to push more change than they can absorb.
3. SUBORDINATE everything else to the above decisions. What should you do, what should leaders do, what should teams do, and not do? Remember the perils of bad multitasking! Be sure to make underlying assumptions visible at each stage and collaboratively address concerns about timing, workload, or measurement. 

And of course, always remember Step 5 - don't allow INERTIA to become your constraint! Assumption Hack early and often!

Wrap Up

TOC consultants don't need to choose between the project manager hat and the educator hat. We need to focus on the true goal of our engagements and wear each of them based on where the client is at in their journey.

We can solve the consultant's dilemma.

- Lisa

P.s. If you're a consultant who has experienced this dilemma before and you want to work on solving it in your own practice, I have three coaching spots I'm offering over the summer. Interested? Fill out the form here and my team will send over full details.

Whenever you're ready, here are a couple more ways I can help you:

• Assumption Hacking Essentials. If you’d like to strengthen the human side of your TOC practice, sign your team up for Jenrada’s course Assumption Hacking Essentials. It’s designed to highlight how individual and group assumptions drive (or block) sustainable results, offering tools and strategies to ensure your improvements truly stick. You can learn more about the course here. →
• Jenrada Programs. Customized workshops and longer engagements to help you create an organization of aligned problem solvers delivering extraordinary results. Complete this form,  send me an email, or schedule a discovery call.