Consulting Journal: Techniques - Keeping assignments relevant

Techniques: Keeping assignments relevant

by David Blakey

Can the left-handed polar bear cause your assignments to lose their relevance?

[Monday 2 December 2002]

Consider this.

Butterflies taste with their feet.

That, to most of us, is trivial. It may be of interest to a lepidopterist, of course. To the rest of us, it is a fact that we are unlikely to find of any use at all through our entire lifetime.

You may have known this fact before you read it above. It may have been a fact that you did not previously know. You know it now. You might remember it for the rest of your life, even though it unlikely to be of any use to you.

Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people.

If you are right-handed, you might be happier for knowing this piece of trivia. If you are left-handed, you might be less happy. This example is about people, so it may appear to be more relevant than a fact about butterflies. It is, in fact, just as irrelevant. It is just as trivial.

Imagine, however, that you were writing a report on the impact of being left-handed. The butterfly's feet would still be irrelevant, but the longevity of right-handed people would now become useful. How about if you added the following.

Polar bears are left-handed.

Would you add this to your report?

If you think so, then think again. The report that you are writing is about the impact of being left-handed. The fact of polar bears' left-handedness does not present an impact. There is nothing in the statement that tells us how being left-handed affects the lives of polar bears. It is still irrelevant.

This thinking should apply to consultants' reports. If you were writing a report that was a compendium of facts about left-handedness, then the polar bears could be included. But this is rarely the case. Consultants are not usually asked to report in such broad terms: their reports are usually tightly focused on an aspect of the subject, such as the impact of being left-handed. Consultants need to take care that they include only relevant facts and omit any trivia. This may be easier said than done.

On an assignment, we discover interesting facts. Often, we discover interesting facts that, if acted upon, could benefit our clients. Sometimes, these facts are not relevant to the assignment. Officially, these facts have no place in our report. Unofficially, they may be too interesting to just dismiss.

If we run our assignments like ‘black boxes’, then we may have a problem. If we do not communicate with our clients during our assignments, then it may be difficult for us to let our clients know of the interesting - but irrelevant - facts that we have found. I recommend continuous communication between consultants and their clients, so you should not have a problem.

As part of your regular reporting of progress, you should report your discovery. You should state the facts, explain why they are especially interesting, and then add that they are irrelevant to your current assignment. The client will then have a number of options. In case your client asks you what options there are, here they are.

Nothing

This is the weakest option for you and for your client. Any further examination of the facts will be initiated at some unknown date in the future, if at all.
Plan

The client can prepare a plan to investigate the facts and their implications. You should get involved with this plan if you can. If you can prepare the plan, there is probably an opportunity for you to implement it. There is a danger that the new assignment will be awarded to some other consultant, however.
Add

The client may add the investigation of the facts to the current assignment. This gives you additional business, but it does broaden the terms of reference of the assignment, which is not good.
Do

The best option for you - and probably for your client - is for your client to commission a new assignment to investigate the facts. This gives you the opportunity to prepare a separate plan of time and costs for this work.

If your client does ask you to advise of the available options, you should present them all. You should state which will benefit the client and which will benefit you. If the client decides to do nothing, you should accept that decision. At least, the client will think of you as honest. Even if your honesty is not rewarded now with a new assignment, the client will be inclined to award future assignments to you. Clients value honesty and openness in their consultants. And an ability to focus on the matter at hand.

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