1.1What is consulting?

There are many definitions of consulting, and of its application to problems and challenges faced by management, i.e. of management consulting. Setting aside stylistic and semantic differences, two basic approaches to consulting emerge.

The first approach takes a broad functional view of consulting. Fritz Steele defines consulting in this way: “… any form of providing help on the content, process, or structure of a task or series of tasks, where the consultant is not actually responsible for doing the task itself but is helping those who are.”1 Peter Block suggests that “You are consulting any time you are trying to change or improve a situation but have no direct control over the implementation… Most people in staff roles in organizations are really consultants even if they don’t officially call themselves consultants.”2 These and similar definitions emphasize that consultants are helpers, or enablers, and assume that such help can be provided by people in various positions. Thus, a manager can also act as a consultant if he or she gives advice and help to a fellow manager, or even to subordinates rather than directing and issuing orders to them.

The second approach views consulting as a special professional service and emphasizes a number of characteristics that such a service must possess. According to Larry Greiner and Robert Metzger, “management consulting is an advisory service contracted for and provided to organizations by specially trained and qualified persons who assist, in an objective and independent manner, the client organization to identify management problems, analyze such problems, recommend solutions to these problems, and help, when requested, in the implementation of solutions”.3 Similar more or less detailed definitions are used by other authors and by professional associations and institutes of management consultants. According to the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI), for example, “management consulting is the provision of independent advice and assistance about the process of management to clients with management responsibilities”.4