Client-centred consulting is very much like counselling.
Unlike the traditional consultant-is-the-expert model, the client-centred approach acknowledges the client as the expert of their business, their unique circumstance, and their industry.
The consultant brings expertise in making inquiries, spotting pattern, facilitating ideation, easing communications and connecting the client to a wider range of subject matter domains and experience.
Who is the consultant? Image courtesy Shutterstock.
Client-centred consulting is not about pushing a change that the consultant sees fit. But rather to co-develop bespoke approaches for each client with each client.
Any solution the consultant imposes will be less effective than a solution the client has come up with themselves – ie where they were intimately involved in its genesis.
Another downside of an externally imposed solution is that it renders the client dependent on the consultant. It is practically impossible for the client to own such a solution. And without ownership, the solution is rendered practically I effective.
A good counsellor or therapist avoid giving advice for the same reasons. The client must be involved in co-designing their own action plan. Otherwise when things go wrong, and they will, the client would simply blame the therapist and absolve themself of all responsibility.
