Can Clients & Consultants Work Together?

                Teamwork - The Tough Nut for Integrators to Crack

I rarely ever see anyone write about the difficulties consultants and integrators have when asked to incorporate clients into their project teams. Herewith are some observations, hints, tips, strategies, etc. for working with same:

• Some clients will try to fob off some of their worst personnel onto you and your team. They know these folks are more than problematic but they can't figure out how to terminate them. They're secretly hoping you'll run them off for them. It's a pretty snarky thing to do but it happens frequently. They'll not only give you their less than stellar staff but they'll also give you a top executive who's currently 'without portfolio' or on 'special projects'. This isn't to say that everyone you get is a problem waiting to happen. In fact, most will be great assets. However, you need to budget for extra care and feeding for those who might become productivity killers.
• Some team members have a culture or work ethic that's totally counter to that of a consultancy. Many client people have lives, families and time off. While concepts like these (and celebrating holidays) are foreign to consulting personnel, client personnel want a different lifestyle than that chosen for road-warriors. They don't live for frequent flier miles and first class upgrades. They'll never spend 20 nights in hotels in their entire lifetime and you'll do that in a month. Deal with it! Plan your work and expectations knowing this as you won't have any luck changing their ethos or work ethic to fit yours.
• Many team members you'll receive will be older workers. When you assign a 23-year old consultant to supervise a 50-year old client veteran, make sure this person has the people, managerial and diplomatic skills to pull this off.
• Clients don't dress like consultants. Except for a couple of CXOs, they don't wear shirts with French cuffs and monograms. They don't get custom made suits or have their shoes shipped in from England. They also don't wear school ties or class rings. Wearing a Harvard tie (and reminding everyone you have a Harvard MBA three times a week) is really off-putting to most people (myself included). I'm not suggesting you dress like clients but be sensitive to the way they dress and the pay they receive. They may not be attired as nicely as you because their employer doesn't pay them as much as you get. Over-dressing can be really insulting to clients. Play this carefully.
• Clients hate to be excluded from any sort of meeting. Anytime you meet with your 'team' it looks like you have an us vs. them opinion of the project composition. If you absolutely have to meet with your personnel, do it off site. Meetings at client sites or nearby restaurants should be avoided at all costs. In small towns, this is really hard to do but necessary nonetheless.
• Clients should be allowed to contribute to your staff's evaluations and vice-versa. It can't be a team if it's two groups working loosely together. Furthermore, it's really hard to get someone who works for another firm to do something you need them to complete if you have no say in their performance reviews.
• Make everyone's performance transparent. Hold frequent status meetings and make sure everyone knows who is contributing and who isn't. You don't need to belabor this but make it clear to all.
• Incorporate the strictest personnel guidelines from each firm into a consolidated set of team policies. If your firm doesn't allow the dating of clients, no one dates anyone from either firm. I can't tell you how many times I had to give the "Keep those zippers, zipped" speech to new consulting team members. They never seemed to think that a boundary like this should exist or that it's important until it's too late. Love affairs can really mess up client work especially when these relationships end. What too few people appreciate isn't the warmth of the blooming love connection but the enmity, anger, disgust or embarrassment that failed relationships bring to the project team.
• Adopt one calendar. Agree at the onset which holiday schedule will be honored and follow it.
• Don't work them to death.  Some projects can feel like death marches. Client personnel won't do you any good if there aren't any of them left to get the work done. Treat them like colleagues. Treat them with respect.
• Celebrate success with the client team members. This is a no-brainer. Everyone loves a party and clients are no expection. If a key milestone is met, everyone deserves the celebration that follows.

Comments

[Naomi Bloom]

Brian, I couldn't have said this better myself. One further note. Avoid at all costs taking calls/emails/IM whatever during team meetings unless it's in regards to a family emergency. Too many consultants carry on their bus dev responsibilities while the rest of the project team waits for their attention. Clients shouldn't do this either, but they're paying you.

[christianhauck]

Brian, just a simple plain question: do you really mean that, is this a complete parody, or a mix with tongue-in-cheek?
I'm not a native speaker (german), so I might just not get the fine details.

[Brian Sommer]

Thanks Naomi - I agree. The mixing of one client's business activity while on-site with another client is just plain bad form. While a bit of it is often unavoidable, it must never become commonplace or else clients will think you disregard their concerns (or worse, discuss their issues in front of people in other firms). I know you'd never do this. Thanks for the note/tip.

[Brian Sommer]

Christian -
While my remarks weren't meant to be satire, I re-read them and could see a bit of that in my text. Actually, I've seen all that and more in mixed project situations. Having been both a client and a consultant, I've seen both sides. Thankfully, the examples I used are the more extreme and not the normal mode often found in projects. I wasn't suggesting most projects have these issues. Thanks for the comment.

[christianhauck]

Thanks Brian for the clarification.