Step one: Stool

Consulting projects often fail because all the needs of the various stakeholders are not taken into consideration. This puts the whole project out of alignment because one group's needs are given priority over another's. Like a three-legged stool, the consultancy process must always be in balance, and the needs of the client, consultant and consumer (end user) understood and maintained.

All three have deep motivational needs and if one is left partially dissatisfied, the project is likely to hit problems. In any project that has failed this lack of alignment is likely to be a source of the problem:

• You have developed a good sense of rapport with the client, agreed a contract and are ready to start the implementation phase. However, you discover that in reality the client has instigated the assignment for personal or political ambitions and has not taken the needs of the consumer into account. Therefore, the project will possibly fail because of resistance from the end user. (Consumer mis-alignment)

• You contract with the regional director to implement a new customer service technique. However, as you start to role the programme out, the client takes on a new set of operational responsibilities. Therefore he offers figurehead support to the change but little else. (Client mis-alignment)

• You meet a client who has gained significant support for a change process. Although you agree to manage the change, the client has beaten you down on price and you are running at a loss on the project. This is because you have only taken it on as a stopgap until a more lucrative contract comes along. Although you deliver the project to the letter of the contract, your heart is not in it, so valuable opportunities to improve the outcomes are missed. (Consultant mis-alignment)

In these three examples the imbalance shows as a lack of energy on the part of the client, consumer or consultant. This mis-alignment arises because each of the three agents has a different perception of the purpose of the project. In a change programme, all three agents may think they have a clear and shared understanding of the change. But, when viewed collectively, it turns out that they are all thinking in different ways. This results in one of two situations. In the first, the different parties go into fight mode, each battling to assert their model over the other group. In the second, the weaker party decides to take an apathetic stance and let the others win (though often only in the short term, their vengeance may come eventually in more subtle ways).

Imagine a traditional personnel project where you have contracted to install and develop a new appraisal system. The client's view is that the line managers have been ineffective in appraising their teams because they do not have the necessary feedback and counselling skills. The client views this as primarily a capability issue and has contracted you to improve the organization's ability to manage its people. However, although you are building a whole system for the company, you believe that the need for a new appraisal system is merely a symptom. You feel the key issue is the poor morale created by the fact that managers have little desire to follow the procedural guidelines laid down by the personnel department. For their part, the line managers, or end consumers, think you have been employed simply to install another bureaucratic system, effectively changing the procedures that direct how the senior managers want the business to operate.

The problem is that the operational managers will ignore the new procedure because they prefer their own local methods. They are convinced that managers should be allowed to manage their teams as they think fit and that it is unlikely that any top-down mechanistic system will help them to deal with the problems they face at the operational end of the business.

Unless any imbalance is brought out and resolved early on, it will fester away behind the scenes only to explode later. It is essential that you take time out at all stages of the consulting cycle to review constantly and check with the client and consumer that a shared appreciation of the issue is being addressed. Unless this happens then problems will eventually arise, typically in the guise of political wrangling, deferred milestones, communication problems and even industrial action.