When does external organisational consulting help?

Organisations do not see what they do not see. From the impulses coming from outside, their established routines pick out those that confirm the existing picture of the environment. Divergent impulses are filtered out, the unexpected is reinterpreted as the expected. Nor can an organisation be changed directly from outside through targeted interventions. It either takes up an impulse as relevant information or ignores it.

This is where the benefit of outsiders comes in. They unsettle routines, thought patterns and things taken for granted and thus open up new perspectives. They design reflection so that the organisation arrives at new insights itself.

When conflicts and decision problems recur despite various attempts at a solution, an outside perspective can open up new questions. It helps to test one's own explanations and bring different points of view together.

Some development questions concern the roles and cooperation of the leadership team. An external framework can support the work when those involved are at the same time responsible for the existing pattern.

Outsiders are not part of internal politics. They can voice uncomfortable truths, facilitate conflicts and resolve decision blockages. This neutrality counts especially when competing goals or conflicts block a decision. In addition, there is methodological competence: systemic models, process architectures and structured conflict facilitation are rarely available internally in this depth.

Insiders are also often under operational pressure. External process leadership beyond day-to-day business creates focus, structure and consistency and stabilises the change over time. Outsiders can also establish new connections, roles and decision paths across units because they are not caught in established patterns of cooperation. The need becomes clearest in a transformation that goes beyond optimisation.

Classic expert consulting delivers an expert solution. It understands change management as accompanying the implementation of this solution. Classic process consulting uses the same term for its understanding of organisational development. Both types of consulting have tools for organising participation.

The third mode of consulting differs fundamentally from classic expert consulting. In addition to the factual dimension, the social and temporal dimensions are taken into account on an equal footing from the outset. In the factual dimension, a task-related problem of the organisation is worked on. In the social dimension, the quality of cooperation and the decision-making capacity of those involved develop further. The temporal dimension observes and shapes development over time and keeps acceleration and deceleration in balance in the decision process.

transformis works in this mode and does not act as a pure process consultancy. The approach links the expert knowledge of the key people in the company with a systemic view of organisation and strategy and with the concepts and methods of classic expert consulting.

Consulting can contribute process architecture, facilitation, diagnosis or specialist methods. Knowledge of the company's own business and responsibility for decisions remain in the company. A good assignment describes the cooperation of both sides.

In an engagement, organisation and consultants form a joint consulting system. At transformis, all working sessions are facilitated and the results are recorded jointly during the session itself. Every session ends with minutes that everyone present accepts. Each meeting is then evaluated, and the insights feed into the preparation of the next one. This produces not concepts for the drawer but development processes that connect with the leadership system and enable decisions.

A specific example, the occasion, steps already taken and the decision ahead are helpful. It can then be clarified which people need to be involved and which next step creates sufficient insight for the further assignment.

Industry-specific consultants give companies in an industry the same or similar recommendations on market, competition and trends. This tends to intensify competition rather than open up new market opportunities. Those who orient themselves exclusively towards competitors and benchmarks will at best become as good as the comparison and will not stand out. Consulting that is independent of any industry brings in perspectives and experience from other industries. Viable solutions then emerge from within the organisation and not from external blueprints.

Consulting supports the capacity for one's own development. An outside view can be helpful when different units interpret the same situation differently, a strategic decision is stuck or a change affects several levels at the same time. This does not yet imply a particular method. First, the occasion, those involved, the decision-making mandate and the expected work result are clarified.

Equally important is which information the company contributes itself and which work it wants to continue independently after the support. A good assignment clarification names limits: which questions belong to the project, which to specialised legal or financial advice and which decision remains with leadership? The benefit of external consulting can be assessed on the basis of this specific assignment, not on a universally valid promise of success.