The presenting issue is a starting point
A client asks for a workshop, a restructure, a new system, or a report. Treat the request seriously, then inquire into the work it is meant to do. What prompted it? What has happened before? Who sees the issue differently? What would change if this went well?
‘The problem behind the problem’ and ‘the client behind the client’ are useful prompts. They become unhelpful if they license the consultant to announce the hidden truth. The client may understand political and practical constraints that you do not. Test interpretations together.
‘What makes this the useful thing to do now? What would you want people to do differently afterwards?’
Four kinds of information
| Look at | Ask |
|---|---|
| The technical or substantive issue | What is happening? What evidence supports that account? What works already? |
| How others contribute | Which relationships, rules, incentives, and dependencies sustain the situation? |
| The client’s own contribution | What do you do, or avoid doing, that may help keep this pattern in place? |
| How the work with you is managed | Does the way we are relating reproduce something important about the wider situation? |
Attend to facts, emotions, and interpretations without conflating them. Compare accounts, observe work where possible, and look for evidence that would challenge your emerging explanation. Inquiry includes strengths, exceptions, aspirations, and possibilities as well as deficits.
Make the framing visible
A system is a way of organising attention to relationships, purposes, boundaries, and consequences. People can reasonably construct different accounts of the same situation. Ask whose purpose a description serves, what it includes, what it excludes, and what history makes it intelligible.
Distinguish sought purposes, espoused purposes, and purposes suggested by what repeatedly happens. A stated aim of local responsiveness may coexist with approval rules that reward compliance. That is something to investigate, not proof that the stated aim is dishonest.
Move between five worlds when it helps: the citizen or person whose life is affected; the service encounter; the management of operations; leadership and wider direction; and the work of learning and change. An improvement visible in one world may create difficulty in another.
Methods offer particular ways to see. Ask when a method is useful, what it obscures, and what complementary inquiry is needed. The work is to choose and adapt a repertoire, not to impose a complete model on every client.
Discovery with people
Detached research has its place. Consulting discovery also builds the understanding and relationships needed for action. Involve the client in questions, interpretation, and choices. Where third parties hold essential knowledge, make their participation meaningful: explain the purpose, what will happen to their contribution, and what influence they have.
Whole-system discovery broadens who can contribute and see the interdependencies. It does not literally include everyone, abolish hierarchy, or require agreement. Design a defensible boundary, explain it, and leave a route for challenge. Attendance at a workshop does not remove someone’s right to dissent afterwards.
Analysis with discipline and humility
Earlier consulting teaching includes hypothesis-led analysis, structured questions, evidence, and clear argument. These are useful disciplines. A neat issue tree or a mutually exclusive category set can help organise inquiry, but it may also exclude relationships, history, and conflicting purposes that matter.
Build a shared, revisable picture. Separate observation from interpretation, identify uncertainty, and show what alternative explanations would imply. Do not make a polished presentation carry more certainty than the evidence allows. A ‘single version of the truth’ can silence the differences the client needs to understand.
Feedback is an intervention
The feedback meeting should enable understanding and choice. Give people a manageable account of what you have found, how you reached it, where the evidence is limited, and what decisions follow. Describe patterns rather than labelling people. Make room for reaction and disagreement before asking for commitment.
- What do people recognise, reject, or need to qualify?
- What have we missed, and who should help test it?
- What choices are now available, with what consequences?
- What will the client do, what will you contribute, and when will both review it?
An evidence report and a meeting for action have different jobs. You may need both. The quality of the work includes whether people can use the findings, not just whether the analysis is technically sound.