Business Psychology in Practice is a
compilation of writings by Principal Members of the Association of
Business Psychologists. The Thinking Partnership's Mark Loftus, a
founding member of the ABP, contributed a chapter exploring
The Psychology of the Consulting Relationship. The
book is available to buy on Amazon.
Mark says: "The ability to create and sustain relationships with
clients is one of the keys to building a successful consulting
practice. This much is self-evident, and yet out of all the
differing kinds of relationships, the consulting relationship is
one of the most difficult to get right. There are many potential
sources of complexity, such as ambiguity about who the client is.
Is it the company that is paying the bill, or the person who is
commissioning the work, or the person who will benefit from the
work, or all three? And what if there are conflicts of interests
between these groups? Or again, the tension between selling and
consulting: we all need to sell our services, whether as internal
or external consultants, but if we get this dynamic wrong, our
clients can feel suspicious about whether we are selling to them or
consulting to them.
"The good news is that psychologists are, in many ways, ideally
placed to understand and manage these complexities, given that we
are typically drawn to psychology because of our interest in people
and in interpersonal dynamics. But by the same token, our clients
typically have high expectations of us. 'I would expect a
psychologist to be more insightful/ be better at this/ be able to
manage this stuff - after all, you're not Process Excellence
consultants, are you!'
"My chapter in the book uses The Thinking Partnership's
Relationship Management framework the Relationship
Q® as a foundation to identify:
- the dynamics of the consulting relationship at different phases of a consulting assignment
- the principles of 'what to do and how' in order to achieve excellence
- what to do when things are not going well
- a behavioural 'self-audit' to identify strengths and limitations of personal practice.
"From this, readers will get an invaluable practical guide to this key aspect of their consulting life."
To email Mark Loftus click here.