Chapter 2: Inside the Client–Consultant Relationship: Consulting As Complex Processes of Relating

Complexity based approaches to organizations fall into two main categories—those based on a systems view and those taking a process perspective. This chapter takes the latter perspective to incorporate insights from complexity science while taking account of human intention and involvement in communication through Mead’s (1934) pragmatist philosophy and Elias’s (1978) process sociology. The chapter presents a consultant’s reflective narrative account of a consulting assignment as the basis for an exploration into the client–consultant relationship in situations of complex change. This is not a case study of an unproblematic project or obstacles overcome on the way to success. Taking the perspective of complex responsive processes (Stacey, 2001), the chapter proposes a view of effective consultants as having paradoxically detached involvement in client affairs, a perspective that is different from how consulting is seen in systems thinking or in Schein’s (1988, 1999) process consultation work.