iStock-1356372715This post is about the beginning of a Client and Consultant interaction. Maestro-level leaders have learned to use consulting relationships as a normal course of developing the organization and its people.

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Over the years, we've made it a point to respond to all client inquiries helpfully and graciously. RFPs, as typically written, get in the way. We usually pick up the phone to call you and find out more before we choose to respond. Our experience is that many organizations decide who to hire for consultative assistance for reasons not expressed in the RFP. Further, critical factors that indicate organizational alignment are usually not visible. In my conversations with other organizational development firms, I find we are far from alone in our response.

Here are the reasons:

  1. It is a rare organization that can articulate its objectives well enough to put them in an RFP. Too often, the organization puts presenting issues in the RFP. Still, the real and hidden matters need to be addressed. They ultimately drive the hiring decision and any real possibility of success, regardless of what the RFP says.
  2. The expectations in the RFP are usually more significant than the organization is prepared to pay to achieve. When this happens, some of the most competent firms are immediately overpriced, and the hiring organizations sign the cheapest operator–someone who needs the work rather than someone who can perform the job. All too often, the result is not achieving the objectives of the RFP and poisoning the organization's opinion of consulting in general.
  3. Many RFPs seek a contractor rather than a consultant without realizing it. Contracting work is good, but it usually comes after we have worked with our Client(s) to figure out what needs to be done, when, and who should do it. Many organizations put out their RFPs with specific objectives and strictures on the work. This is good when there is particular work to be done that addresses a problem. It is not good when the organization is trying to figure out the problem and how it might be addressed. Consulting usually comes before contracting, and many RFPs expect the reverse. 
  4. Many RFPs expect the consultant to check their expertise at the door. A lot of consulting expertise is inquiry, research, probing, conversation, and developing ideas alongside those closest to the issues. The RFP process holds prospective consultants at such a distance that they cannot do their most important work, diminishing the value of following through on the RFP. How can an RFP achieve its purpose if it declares that discovery or breakthrough strategies are unwelcome? Or worse, if it states that it wants the consultant to do what the organization has already repeatedly done and failed, but this time to do it successfully?
  5. The RFP is a consumptive rather than collaborative approach to organizational development. Yes, too many consulting firms are also consumer-oriented, which means the organization and the consultant use each other mutually for their own ends. The attitude seems to be" no one got hurt," so we assume this is the ordinary course. But when the organization and consultant treat each other as disposable and interchangeable, how can creative, contextualized work get done that grows a specific organization within its specific market with its unique niche? The RFP process needs to provide an opportunity to develop trust so that the real work can be identified and completed–done on time, according to the objectives, and at the cost the organization is prepared to pay.

We are happy to consider the RFPs that come our way, but our integrity does not let us respond to those that come to us in the form of balls and chains. We would rather receive packets of seeds.

-mark l vincent

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Mark L. Vincent
Post by Mark L. Vincent
July 28, 2022
I walk alongside leaders, listening to understand their challenges, and helping them lead healthy organizations that flourish.

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