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Enjoying Your Work Richard Brislin |
Consultants should
be asked to improve
specific concernsWhen a company's executives find that they cannot solve problems with internal resources, they often turn to consultants. Without direction from the executives, however, consultants are likely to stumble about and develop unhelpful recommendations.
If they are given the general and unhelpful goal of "suggest ways for improving the company," consultants may make recommendations only because they are familiar with certain aspects of organizations. If consultants are well read in organizational structure, they will suggest that the company should reorganize. They will draw impressive-looking organizational charts with arrows indicating who should report to whom. They will also complain that the current structure is unwieldy and that company employees spend too much time writing memos and e-mail messages to each other.
If the consultants have a background in organizational behavior, they will suggest a training program aimed at changes in employee behavior. Such training can include better communication skills, sensitivity to people from other cultural groups, or programs dealing with motivation for better customer service. The danger is that the recommended training programs will be "off the shelf." That is, the training will consist of commercially available programs with which the consultants are familiar because they have used them before in other organizations. Such programs may not meet the needs of a specific organization with its unique challenges. One executive recently complained, "Consultants too often have a Band-Aid that they want to offer my company. Talking with colleagues in other organizations, I find that the same Band-Aid is being touted as a cure-all for all kinds of problems."
Overly general recommendations that may or may not meet company needs lead to predictable responses from executives. If they find a rose within the thorns, executives can tell employees that they found a recommendation helpful and that they will be making organizational changes. If they do not approve of the recommendations, they can say that the consultants may have good ideas but are unfamiliar with local conditions. Executives will continue, "Given this unfamiliarity, recommendations which might be reasonable in other places are inapplicable in Hawaii given our unique culture and circumstances."
These potential difficulties, while always a threat, can be lessened if executives are clear about their goals. Rather than ask consultants for the general goal of ways to improve, executives should identify specific targets. The best consultations I have seen deal with such specificity: employee classification systems to insure equitable wages; the integration of deaf employees into the workplace; ways of working with the media to improve communications with the general public. Such goal setting allows executives to check on the credentials of potential consultants, since specialists often belong to professional organizations where their reputations are well known. Another advantage is that consultants can match up their specific talents with company requirements. Occasionally, consultants will report to company executives that they are not the best people for a certain task and instead will recommend others who have more experience in specific problem areas.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
The purpose of this column is to increase understanding of human behavior as it has an impact on the workplace. Given the amount of time people spend at work, job satisfaction should ideally be high and it should contribute to general life happiness. Enjoyment can increase as people learn more about workplace psychology, communication, and group influences.
Richard Brislin is a professor in the College of Business Administration, University of Hawaii. He can be reached through the College Relations Office: cro@cba.hawaii.edu