The worth of any outside consulting firm lies in the outsider’s perspective and unique worldview, creativity and capabilities it brings to its clients. The full value of the firm’s services comes to fruition when it can establish functional, respectful relationships with the key people inside the client company, especially the person they work with regularly, the chief client liaison.
A meeting of minds must take place early in that client-consultancy relationship, and a level of respect for one another established that recognizes the value and talents that each brings to the relationship and how best to work together to maximize the benefit to the company.
However, that kind of trusting relationship is virtually impossible when one side, without just cause, casts the other in a disparaging light.
“Pete,” an acquaintance of mine, told me the story of his former employer, a small advertising agency. As his story unfolded, I soon understood why he had left.
His former boss, “Mike,” president of the agency, was uniquely talented at scouting and landing new business. That was his gift, and he knew it, though he wasn’t very skilled at dealing with the nitty-gritty of servicing those clients and fulfilling the promises of his sales pitches. Fortunately, he was also conscious of that weakness and handed off that responsibility to others, including Pete, who was in charge of client service.
As agency president, Mike had to maintain some client contact, especially early in the relationship, which meant leading the initial strategy meetings with the client liaison. And that’s where the trouble often cropped up.
Pete says that, over the course of his three years at this agency, he cannot think of a single client liaison that Mike did not belittle – that is, once he was back in the shop away from client ears.
One was “incompetent.” The next was “an idiot.” Another was a “perfect example of the Peter Principle.” Yet another “didn’t have a clue” about marketing, even though in that case he was Chief Marketing Officer of his company.
What bothered Pete the most and what eventually drove him from the firm was the poisonous effect Mike’s continuous bad-mouthing had on the firm’s general attitude toward its clients.
Pete would hear a junior staffer mocking his client liaison using Mike’s terminology, and would pull that junior person aside and patiently explain the downside of such attitudes.
Pete had a couple of private chats with Mike, urging him to tone down the client criticisms, or at least to keep them to himself, because he was creating negative attitudes within the agency towards its clients. He reminded him that it was they who helped the firm meet its payroll and allowed them to make a profit.
The negativity would abate for a time, but would soon be seeping back into the general agency buzz.
While it may be okay to disagree with a client contact’s approach or his/her interpretation of the facts, it’s not okay to disparage that person’s intelligence or competence, regardless of how you may feel. It’s best to keep those thoughts to one’s self.
Sure, I’ve worked with clients where the chemistry wasn’t right from the outset and the relationship never quite gelled. Consequently, we felt constrained, prevented from doing our best work. Conversely, I have been in client relationships that I hated to see end, where the chemistry was fantastic and, together, the client and firm did superb work to the benefit of the client’s company.
So why would Mike feel compelled to badmouth every client liaison? Surely not every one of them was a lemon. Pete says he asked himself that question all the time, and even went so far as to ask it directly of Mike himself. There was no clear or obvious answer and Mike brushed off the question.
Perhaps it was some deep-seated personal insecurity that led him to disparage clients. Whatever it was, it really didn’t matter because the effect was the same.
How can we do our best work, get engaged in the client’s challenges and opportunities, if our boss thinks the guy is an incompetent fool? We can’t. He has poisoned the well and every sip we take thereafter is contaminated. We find ourselves privately second-guessing the client and his/her input and opinions, seeing them through Mike’s tainted, negative lens, no matter how hard we try to look past it.
I’m not suggesting the opposite: rose-colored glasses, pretending everything is wonderful and the client is a genius or a saint. I am suggesting instead that we tamp down the negative attitude and strive to cultivate positive, mutually supportive working relationships.
People do their best work in a positive environment, one in which they feel engaged and connected to others on the team, particularly the client liaison. It behooves us all, both the outsiders and the inside liaisons, to do all we can to cultivate the relationship and to be positive in our quest for excellence on behalf of the client company.
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