Developing Confidence

Consultants are natural critics-much of their work involves finding out what is wrong. This critical faculty is not turned off when attention is directed to their employer. Consultants may therefore have strong and valuable views on how their development should proceed. As indicated at the beginning of this article, our research shows asymmetric perception processes that were seen by supervisors to be adequate were not so well regarded by the consultants for whom they were designed. The research also showed a need for a legitimate dialogue on this topic. The case mentioned above, in which profiles were used as a basis for development discussions, had a spin-off benefit: much better communication between consultants and supervisors ensued.

Nor is the consultants' critical faculty turned off when they look at themselves, which can-in the extreme-have a devastating effect on confidence. A powerful way of dealing with this is using reflective review to assess performance: What did 1 notice or learn on that project that will help me perform better as a consultant next time?

But there are two difficulties with this. First, consultants are rarely good completer finishers-they are stimulus junkies. By the end of one assignment-the occasion when reflective review is particularly needed-the next one is beckoning to them alluringly. Most consultants are therefore poor at closure activities; they like to move on to the next project.

Second, consultants' first love is selling and executing consulting projects. The task of management is a poor second (which perhaps is why they are consultants!). So managerial tasks rarely get the attention they require from consultants. One of these is managing the development of other consultants, and again, there needs to be some organizational discipline to ensure that this is carried out well. One way of addressing this is to appoint consultants as supervisors with a clear mandate not only to manage the project but also to manage the development of their consultant team. One can personally testify to the effectiveness of this: I learned my trade as a consultant through what was in effect an apprenticeship.