3 Reasons Why Organisations Don't Implement A Consultant's Recommendations
3 Reasons Why Organisations Don't Implement A Consultant's Recommendations
There are some common reasons why your recommendations aren't being implemented. Here is what they are and what you can do about it.
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Is It Your Fault If Clients Aren’t Doing What You Advised?
There are certainly occasions when it could be the client’s fault if they don’t use the recommendations you’ve made.
Maybe they changed their mind about the project, or the economic situation suddenly changed, or there is a major internal upheaval.
Outside of those circumstances though, it’s likely the recommendations themselves were the problem.
Let’s explore the common reasons why recommendations aren’t implemented in consultancy projects and what you can do about it.
1) Lack of Resources
I recently participated in a discussion where a consultant discovered a client didn’t implement his ideas because they lacked the resources to implement them.
He was worried this would make him look bad.
Surely the bigger problem is he’s making recommendations the client doesn’t have the resources to implement?
How helpful is it to tell a client they should do something they can’t afford?
Imagine you hired a growth consultant for your consultancy and they recommend you spend $500k on social ads. Would you be happy with that recommendation?
Any consultant can recommend that a client spend more money (or come up with ideas if money isn’t a constraint). But who does it help to pretend that money isn’t a constraint?
The role of the consultant is to help the client deploy limited resources as effectively as possible (not live in a fantasyland of unlimited resources). A strategy that doesn’t specify the resources required (and where those resources will come from) isn’t a strategy…it’s a dream.
If you’re making recommendations the client lacks the resources to implement, you’re not providing the client with what they need.
If you want your recommendations to be utilised, you usually have to specify what an organisation will stop doing to have the resources for what it will begin doing.
You should always know and check the resources available before making recommendations.
2) Overlooking The Implications
Many years ago I worked at the United Nations in Switzerland.
The fundraising group decided to bring in a digital consultant. He studied all the different work we were doing in the digital sphere and came up with a clear recommendation.
He recommended instead of having digital engagement activities spread amongst several groups (fundraising, communications, IT etc…), he recommended there should be a single digital team. This team should have a head of department which cut across the entire organisation.
Theoretically, it was a good enough idea. Practically, it was a non-starter.
There were simply too many competing interests and internal issues to make it a reality. For example, everyone’s contract, payment structure, career path, would be impacted. The consultant had ignored the messy situation on the ground and just assumed he could ‘blow it up and start again’.
That’s not a viable option.
I’ve seen several strategies in my sphere which recommend entire groups or units report to a new ‘head of community’. Nice idea in theory, but a terrible idea in practice. It’s simply too big of a leap from where the client is today.
It’s relatively easy to make these kinds of ‘change everything’ or ‘design from scratch’ recommendations. But if your recommendations affect multiple departments, you need the support of those different departments to make it happen. If you don’t have that support, it’s not going to happen.
These kinds of recommendations most frequently originate from consultants who don’t spend enough time ‘with the troops’ on the ground. It happens when a consultant doesn’t fully think through all the implications of their recommendations at a very deep and tactical level.
Strategies like this often require new staff contracts, create new hierarchical relationships among peers, and require a total realignment of budgeting. And that’s just the start. It could also impact morale, cause internal confusion over new roles, and require staff training etc…
It’s not that the idea is impossible, but if you’re creating a ‘change everything’ kind of strategy you need to do three things.
Make sure you’re reporting to someone who has power over all the units affected. If you’re making recommendations which affect another department over which your primary contact doesn’t control, it’s a non-starter.
Make sure you know all the implications and ramifications of what you’re suggesting. I can’t stress enough you have to run through the idea with people first and understand all the ramifications of implementing it. Trust me, it will be far more complex than you imagine.
Have widespread support for the idea from all the units involved. If you drop an idea on people who don’t already support it, they’re quite likely to reject it. You have to gradually build support for it.
Ultimately, if you’re making impractical recommendations, that’s not the client’s fault - it’s your fault.
3) Lack Of Support
Another common reason why your recommendations weren’t implemented is you failed to build support for them.
You’re not likely seen as a neutral person when you are brought into an organisation. You are the consultant hired by your primary contact. Your primary contact works within a deep web of relationships. Hopefully, most of them are positive, but some might be negative. But either way, the expectation is you’re ‘someone’s’ person.
The recommendations you come up with are seen as coming from your primary contact as much as they are from you. i.e. it’s not likely you would present them if your primary contact didn’t agree with them.
A critical part of working within any organisation is building positive relationships throughout the organisation. If you have a call with a stakeholder, you should stay in touch with that stakeholder. Bounce ideas off them. Gather their feedback and support.
You should have a stakeholder map and have a good idea of which stakeholders need more engaged to bring them up to the right level of support. Much of the time, you need to make sure stakeholders feel listened to and their ideas have been adopted into the project.
No one should be surprised by your recommendations in a meeting. Your recommendations should simply be the natural outcome of all the discussions you’ve had and facilitated. Everyone should feel their opinions were listened to and carefully considered.
We spend a huge amount of time on any client project engaging with a wide range of stakeholders. The goal isn’t just to solicit information, but to build relationships too. Everyone needs to feel they were heard and had input into the recommendations you make.
You Can’t Tackle Every Situation, But You Can Tackle The Majority of Them
It’s never going to be possible to tackle every possible reason why a client might not implement your recommendations - so cut yourself some slack.
However, it is possible to anticipate the most common reasons why your recommendations might not be implemented in advance. If you keep your recommendations within resource constraints, attuned to the realities on the ground, and ensure they have broad support, you should be doing better than most.