The Mind-Set Factor ◾ 157
but not another? And how do you behave differently towards someone
you trust versus someone you do not? Without an element of trust, how
could you take on an assignment, make a contract for services, or make
appointments? With trust, you enter into friendships, marriage, partner-
ships, and consulting agreements. Clearly, trust and its cousin trustwor-
thiness are the essential ingredients in setting and meeting expectations.
2. Effective communication
Effective communication is all about listening, observing, questioning,
verifying, and explaining (all learnable skills) to bring clarity to the vari-
ous roles and goals within a client organization. Errant assumptions are
the root cause of most misunderstandings, communication breakdowns,
stress, and frustration within any group of people. Unfortunately, many
consultants do not formally clarify or discuss expectations around an
engagement, which often results in grey areas emerging during the proj-
ect. This oversight can then go on to sabotage the overall outcome. It is
important that the consultant sets up a forum to discuss unmet expecta-
tions and any “undiscussables.”
Conflicting Expectations
The exceptional consultant understands that conflicting expectations mani-
fest themselves at all levels of society, business, and life.
As high as 70% of all mergers and acquisitions fail over time because the
key participants engage in hard financial numbers negotiation on a win–lose
or lose–win basis. The legal and financial merger becomes an end game in
itself, and minimal consideration is given to the human and cultural merger
that must also take place. When two cultures come together, new under-
standings and expectations must be clarified, or a clash of wills is inevitable.
Expectations management is what makes the merger work after the merger
sign off. This is bread and butter territory for a consultant.
Expectations in relationships and personal partnerships have changed
dramatically over the years. At the same time, implicit expectations around
the roles of partners vary significantly depending on the context. A mul-
titude of expectations are evident in a personal relationship and family
situation.
Parents’ expectations—perceived or actual—make one of the most pow-
erful psychological impressions on life choices and career path development.
To what degree are your parents’ expectations of you—perhaps set decades
158 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
ago—determining your ceiling as a consultant? One Odyssey candidate told
us, “My mom and dad programmed me for hard work, not smart work. I
find myself measuring success from the hours I put in, whether they gener-
ate value or not.”
Expectations about yourself represent one of the most powerful
manifestations of this principle. Certain fundamental expectations are
essentialto successful consulting competency. These essentials include
high levels of self-confidence, self-responsibility, self-respect, and
self-actualization.
Key influencers, such as teachers and supervisors, can have a lifelong,
profound effect on the scope of your self-fulfilling prophesies as a consul-
tant—if you let them. We tend to build expectations around what the boss
expects us to do. If we are not careful, we let the client become our new
boss, and this limits the relationship to this mode of interaction. For mutual
benefit, the client–consultant relationship needs to be a peer-level relation-
ship based on mutual respect and trust.
An organization’s expectations may center on productivity, a psycho-
logical or cultural buy-in, and a sense of loyalty to the objectives of the
organization. However, the expectations between client and consultant are
not always clear. When implicit or explicit expectations are broken, there
is inevitably a ripple effect of adverse consequences. Whenever different
departments, teams, or people from different disciplines interface, you can
expect conflicting expectations.
Meeting and exceeding expectations has been the customer service
mantra for more than a decade. Delivering outstanding customer care can
only happen if deep-seated cultural principles are present in the organiza-
tion. Loudly proclaiming, in promotional or marketing campaigns, that “we
are the best” and “the customer is king” can have a boomerang effect if
the expectations of customer and company are mismatched. This is fallow
ground for the consultant, who can assist in the embedding of values and
customer service delivery practices.
“Under promise and overdeliver” is a powerful way of managing client
expectations. For example, if you promise to deliver a proposal by Friday
and do so on Monday, your client will be disappointed. If you deliver it on
Thursday, you have risen in their estimation.
Consultants often feel the pressure to promise and get caught up in
urgency mode, although, in fact, rapid delivery may not be necessary.
Consulting propositions are rarely life-or-death scenarios and, in fact, often
benefit from gestation time.
The Mind-Set Factor ◾ 159
Broken promises shatter trust, and trust is an essential ingredient of
expectations management. Conflicting expectations around goals and roles
is a major cause of ineffective or poor performance consulting.
Four Possible Causes of and Solutions to Unclear Expectations
There are four possible causes of unclear expectations that lead to under-
performance in any consulting situation. Each expectation shortfall can be
solved by a different competency solution or practice, as follows:
1. The consultant is unclear about what is expected of them in a client-
facing role.
They have not considered the boundaries of the consulting profession
for themselves, or how to contract properly with their client. Always
determine the scope of the project with absolute clarity.
2. The consultant is unaware that they are not meeting expectations.
They are blissfully soldiering on, and neither client nor consultant
raises the issue. Learning to ask for and receive feedback is the solution to
this expectation gap. To restate, feedback is the breakfast of champions.
3. The consultant is unable to meet expectations.
The complexity of the problem, as it unfolds, may be different than
diagnosed, or perhaps external factors have arisen, which materially
change the issue. The solution here lies in acceptance of that fact and
then disclosing it fully to the client. New consultants frequently try to
be all things to all people, and overstretch or misdiagnose.
4. The consultant and the client may lock horns because of lack of clarity
around approach or best outcomes.
The courage to engage in a conflict with your client is the measure of
how far you have come as a consultant. Some consultants underperform
for the client and themselves simply because they like harmony and are
afraid of tackling relationship issues. Weak relationships always live ten-
tatively, and mediocrity is the inevitable result. The advice is to be brave;
name the true issues and invite the client to engage in a workable solution.
Implicit and Explicit Expectations
Expectations can be broken into two distinct areas. Implicit expectations
relate to psychological issues, and explicit expectations relate more to perfor-
mance and career factors.
160 ◾ Odyssey—The Business of Consulting
Implicit expectations are your unspoken hopes of, or desired outcomes
from, a client assignment. Often, an implicit expectation is an imaginary
map or a projection of how things should be.
Explicit expectations are usually defined in written form, such as legal
contracts, key performance indicators, or some form of feedback loop. Like
all contractual obligations, they are negotiable and are generally entered into
freely by both parties.
Your primary task as a consultant is to meet and then exceed clients’
expectations. When you manage expectations successfully, you influence
how your client collaborates with you.
The Timeless Principle of Attraction
The principle suggests that your predominant attitudes attract into your life
a sequence of events, circumstances, and people that reflect those attitudes.
In other words, birds of a feather flock together. Everything seems to start
with your thoughts, which trigger your feelings, which, in turn, lead to your
words and actions. This inevitably leads to recurring patterns of behavior
and outcomes.
How does it work? Your thoughts have a mental energy that you transmit
in the form of body language, tone, words, and movement. However, on a
psychological level, this transmission is even more powerful in that it seems
to connect with others who are like you. This principle links perfectly with
the principles of expectation and belief.
Here are two key factors related to attraction:
1. The halo effect
Coined by psychologist Edward Thorndike in the 1920s, the halo
effect is a positive judgment based on a single, dominant aspect of your
personality, such as your speech, dress, posture, or behavior.
2. Stereotyping
The second factor is stereotyping, a term first used by Walter
Lippman, also in the 1920s. It captures the tendency for your client to
group you with all other consultants who seem to have similar charac-
teristics as you. The mental construct or picture in their head gets trig-
gered when they meet a consultant. This overgeneralization is bound
to be wrong at times and tends to be more negative than positive. Your
challenge is to be different enough to be distinctive and “attractive.”
The Mind-Set Factor ◾ 161
Great Consulting Mind-Sets
◾ “Being” a great consultant is your own personal mind-set challenge.
◾ “Doing” what is necessary to be a great consultant is a learned
competency.
◾ “Having” personal consulting revenues in the top 5% plus category is
the result of the “being” and “doing” steps.
Is this the classic chicken and the egg dilemma? Which comes first,
“being” the great consultant, “doing” the activities necessary, or “having” the
million dollar personal revenues?
First, make a decision “to be” a great consultant. Learning how “to be” is
a fundamental commitment to being the best in your field. You deserve to
be everything you can possibly be. Decide.
Second, dedicate yourself to learn how “to do” the practices necessary
to achieve consulting excellence. Learn the consulting models and how to
acquire the portfolio of solutions that allow you to leverage yourself into the
high-income consulting bracket. Learn.
Third, “having” an independent consulting practice that generates excel-
lent personal revenues on a consistent basis is the result of being that great
consultant in your field and doing the appropriate activities.
Top performing consultants think differently. This allows them to charge
higher fees because they appreciate the real worth of their own contribution
and bask in the glow that benefits from their advice and expertise.
Odyssey in Action I
Kathleen Caldwell, Caldwell Consulting Group, Woodstock, Illinois
Making Change Stick
When I go into a client workplace, the first thing I do is analyze the cur-
rent situation with the team. What are they experiencing in their daily work?
Almost always, there is inconsistency with results, skepticism about change,
and more work with less satisfaction.
It’s all about understanding their current reality. I do individual, anony-
mous surveys and then instigate a group session to begin the process of tell-
ing the truth about their experiences in the organization.
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