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Every consultant has different perspective on effective consulting. In this article, I wish to share with you the guidelines that you might find useful as you reflect your own principles:

1. The solutions to every problem lie between you and your clients. Contrary to popular beliefs, consulting is not a process where clients will talk about their problems and consultants will provide solutions or recommendations right away. The involved parties need to think it through, weigh their options, and go with the best one that will benefit the organization or the company as a whole.

2. Consultants should recognize and even encourage diverse values and perspective within an organization. Every employee is unique and they see issues in the organization in a very different manner. As a consultant, you must know how to accept this fact and use it to your advantage. Keep in mind that different perspective might dramatically help in problem solving.

3. Get all angles of the problem. Start from where your clients are at the moment. Ask about their pressing issues/struggles and their causes, what they have tried so far, what worked and what didn’t work, and their ideas as to what could be done now. Although this might take some of your time, this can keep you on track when designing your action plans.

4. Consulting isn’t about blaming. It is very rare that a client or a consultant is out to hurt somebody in an organization. Although some people might be the reasons why the problem occurred, blaming them will surely not help solve the problem. As a consultant, your focus should be to help your clients find the solutions to their problems.