Consulting: Discuss the Nature of the Client-Consultant Relationship (Essay Sample)

Nature of Client-Consultant Relationship
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Nature of client-consultant relationship
The client is an individual who buys the services of the consultant; the consultant is the person that renders his or her service to the client at paid rate, and the client-consultant relationship is the path through the services is provided. The relationship is driven by a common goal that is to be achieved at the end of consultancy, that is, the solution to the problem or the challenge faced by the client (Kipping and Clark, 2012).
Illustrating the nature of the client-consultant relationship is quite challenging without the help of the models that is developed to describe the relationships. The following models can be used to illustrate the relationship.
The expert model
The model views the consultants to be the pathways through which idea is developed and generated to the clients concerning a particular problem. The work of the client or the organisation is to receive the plan that is developed by the consultant (Czerniawska, 2003). The model is applicable in situations that are difficult to handle, unpredicted conditions and problems arising from an invention of a certain framework that has failed to work well in an organisation. The nature of consultancy as shown in this model is that it is based on professionalism and expertise such that the consultant is given the authority and responsibility of handling the problem alone without the help of clients. The nature of the relationship in this model is that the clients describe or narrate the issue to the consultant and the consultant find ways to solve the issues and give recommendation basing on the level of the problem. The responsibility of the client is to take the suggestion as it is and make implementation mitigate the problem as well as diagnosis of the information McKenna, 2006).
The social learning model
The models describe that the client and the consultant share 50/50 contribution to the problem-solving process. The process of problem solving involves learning from the association, change of attitudes and carrying out research on what could have initiated the problem. The nature of consultancy in this model is that there exist a combination of understanding, knowledge and expertise in both the client and the consultant in diagnosing the problem facing the organization. The solution ranges from ideas from their opinions and what they have researched on. The idea contributes to the concept of the process of learning while solving the problem (Schein, 2002). Sturdy, Werr and Buono.( 2009), argues that the nature of the relation is shared responsibility between the consultant and the client. The power is half shared. Thus, no one idea dominates over the other. The advantage of the model over the others is that; the problem can be solved by employing different techniques since it involves a series of discussion and agreement on various points. Therefore, the problem can be broken down and explained using different strategies from the clients view and the consultant view, and there is no an expected and fixed process to be followed (Sturdy, Werr, and Buono, 2009).
In conclusion,...