CMCE Virtual Showcase: Mastering the complexity of client-consultant relationships

As a management consultant, do you feel that the relationship with your client could do with moving to a new level?

As a user of management consulting services are you frustrated by your supplier’s ability to understand what you’re really trying to do?

Relationships – we all know that they are at the core of excellent management consulting, but they are tricky things to get right. But what if we could bring the entirety of management consulting research over the last 30 years to bear on this question? Might that help?

In our June showcase, that’s exactly what we did. We were pleased to welcome Dr Szilvia Mosonyi from Queen Mary University of London who was the winner of the CMCE Client Consultant Relationships Research Award in 2020. Dr Mosonyi introduced the framework that emerged from her study of all published management consulting research literature since the early 1990s.

The Influencing - Resourcing - Controlling (IRC) framework can help global consulting firms and boutiques alike navigate the interpersonal links that bind consultants with their clients. The IRC framework identifies three themes that inform all client and consulting relationships: knowledge, identity, and power. Learning how to navigate these areas and understanding the processes that connect them will help you build more powerful and valuable relationships.

A synopsis of the event is available below and a video of edited highlights of the session can be viewed here: