Consulting

Seeking opinions, advice and guidance from other people prior to making a decision about the best way forward.

Consulting isn't the same as collaborating. When you invite someone to collaborate it is a wholehearted invitation for them to join you as equal partners in the decision-making process (Collaborating in decisions). Consulting someone, however, invites less involvement on their part. In effect, you seek their opinions, advice and guidance but reserve the right to ignore the lot and make up your own mind.

People often mistake consultation for collaboration and finish up disappointed when the decision is taken without them and/or when the decision fails to take account of the advice proffered. But that's par for the course with consultation. You can reduce the likelihood of disappointment by making it clear at the outset that you are consulting not collaborating and spell out the difference between the two, ie that the former is an 'I' decision and the latter a 'we' decision.

Whatever the outcome, the process of consulting people generates many learning opportunities. They learn that:

• you value their opinions and recognise that they have ideas to contribute
• the problems you grapple with as a manager are rarely straightforward and clear-cut
• it is OK to ask for help, even managers do it
• people have different perceptions of the problem and different points of view about the best way forward
• skills of persuasion are just as important as the quality of the ideas being put forward
• it is always worth having a go and trying to persuade someone to your way of thinking
• consultation isn't collaboration
• consultation is the basic building block in a democracy.

You can consult people singly or en masse as a group or in a meeting. The lessons learned from consultation tend to be enhanced if it is a group effort so long as there are ample opportunities for each person to have their say. If one or two strong minded vociferous people are allowed to hog the discussion, ideas from quieter people fail to materialise which diminishes the consultative process and the lessons learned from participating in it.

In summary, the more you consult people, the better they will become at responding and the sooner you will be able to move them on to full blown collaboration.