The Top Line
With an agenda to sell more business, can a consultant really serve a client’s best interests? Do sales objectives create an ethical dilemma for a consulting industry sometimes known to recommend deliverables based on what the consultant has to sell and what the client can afford to pay? If consulting is indeed an ethical profession, then consultants must focus on providing help suited to the client’s particular needs, not on generating the next sale.

An Ethical Dilemma?
In our work supporting advisors and consultants to executives for over a decade, The Clarion Institute has become concerned about the role that business development and sales play in client work and its impact on the integrity of our industry. Those at the top of the consulting food chain earn enormous salaries based on sales. An already hefty salary base can double with sizable sales bonuses. Their senior position in the firm is awarded due to their ability to land large projects such as global systems conversions. To that end, they may write off the cost of initial client strategy work wagering that they will get the more lucrative follow-on systems integration.

But can a person be in service to another with a secondary agenda to sell more work? Do sales objectives create an ethical dilemma? Do they in any way adversely impact one’s own promise to do what’s best for the client? Can a client trust the consultant who is trying to sell more business?

These questions really lie at the heart of our profession’s integrity. Most professions make their paramount concern the interests of their clients. Lawyers and doctors take an oath to serve others. True, business realities force legal and medical practices to walk a fine line between service to others and continued economic viability. Stories abound with practices that seemingly crossed that line, leaving the interests of those they serve in second place. On the other hand, tales of professionals who never lost sight of client needs and who put their interests first also exist.

Furthermore, there is a danger that work may be sized by what the client can pay rather than by what the client needs. Even though a consultant can produce good deliverables, they may not be the right deliverables for the client. For instance, the client may pay for three consultants on company premises full-time for a week in order to conduct a thorough needs assessment, to "get into the client's skin." Yet, the client may have gotten 80% of the same information from two intense work sessions, a less costly route and a better economic benefit.

Consultants sometimes are driven by the system they have to sell. They focus their analysis on how well the system might work, not on its practicality for the client. Especially in the case of large systems integration work that can bring in tens of millions of dollars, a consultant must consider the serious consequences of selling only what the client needs instead of the full methodology even when the latter doesn't make economic sense for the client. It is not surprising that a consultant would hesitate to jeopardize both the firm's revenue stream and also his own career goals by not making the big sale. Because of sales incentives, consultants can face a clear conflict of interests that strain professional ethics.

Rarely does one hear senior consultants talk about delivery or the joy of working with the client. Involved at the beginning of project work, the senior partner who made the sale typically spends decreasing time in managing the existing account and moves on to the next sale. Less focus on relationship management at the senior level can create a question of who "owns" the deliverables. While junior consultants may gain valuable experience from client projects, they take on a surprising level of responsibility for managing people and getting quality results, responsibility usually associated with a more senior level.

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