Enhancing Change Capacity. Client-Consultant Collaboration and Emergent Change

Abstract

Companies, in every industry are increasingly challenged to build a capacity for change, both in response to and in anticipation of continuously changing competitive market and technological pressures. Client-consultant collaboration can be prompted to broaden change management repertoire, creating a culture in which organizational members understand and support different approaches to change, ask and respond to questions that stimulate change and, in general, develop a culture of change. Consultants, working and collaborating with the client, can prompt a broader appreciation of the range of appropriate change approaches and when turning a system ‘loose’ may be the most effective way to proceed. The goal is to work with clients to create organizations that are ‘built to change’.

Keywords

• management consulting
• consulting
• client-consultant relationship
• managing organizational change
• change management
• globalization