Chapter 5: The Experience of Being Changed Through Consulting

The chapter draws on our research and thinking about management consulting, with reference to several narrative inquiries. The discussion begins with a critique of the prevailing literature, highlighting the extent to which it ignores the potential for evolving identity formation as an aspect of consultant–client relationships; through the elucidation of the interdependence of human beings. Unpacking the implications for the consultants and their clients, the chapter explores how power relations pattern conversations, highlighting how identities form and are formed, and delving into our experience to exemplify this process.

The first author recently completed a doctorate in complexity and organizational development. Drawing on experience as a management consultant for the past decade, the consultancy practice served as the focus of the research. The theoretical context guiding this work draws on complex responsive process thinking (McIntosh, MacLean, Stacey, & Griffin, 2006; Shaw, 2002; Stacey, 2005), which challenges systems thinking through the premise that organizations are ongoing patterns of relating from which further patterns of relating occur. As these ongoing interactions constitute an organization, there is not something, some separate entity that stands outside these patterns of relating. This perspective encourages us to focus on the processes inherent in human interdependence (Stacey, 2005, pp. 2–12). In our research, a guiding question focuses on the interdependence of human beings—“How can a consultant be fundamentally unaffected by his or her interaction with clients?” In pursuing this question, we use narrative inquiry to elucidate our thinking and illuminate relevant theory. The approach taken was reflexive, social and emergent (Stacey & Griffin, 2005).