Part II: Is There Room for Disruption in Consulting?
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Part II: Is There Room for Disruption in Consulting?
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By Aparupa Chakravarti, Director, Botho Emerging Markets Group
December 15, 2020
This is the second part of a series in which Botho Director Aparupa Chakravarti explores what a paradigm shift in how consultants consult could look like in the 21st century, especially given our tendency to superimpose linearity on a world that is, more often than not, circuitous at best.
Let’s talk about design thinking. A few years ago, I wanted to participate in a 5-day design event in Accra that was run by a very cool Brazilian firm called Mesa. My boss was not convinced of its utility, while I thought it was exactly the kind of methodological kick we needed to push our client work to the next level. Fast forward to today: Botho has successfully run design sprints and incorporated design thinking into our strategy consulting practice for a whole spectrum of clients - from start-ups to governments. (Notice my complete lack of pettiness in not adding, “I told you so,” to my boss. Oh, wait…)
Here’s what we know: design sprints work. They’re a hyper-effective way of solving big problems in very tight time frames. That’s why they are so popular in the consulting world. I have run sprints that have ranged from a few hours to a couple of days and each time we started with chaos and ended with something tangible and - as us consultants like to say - actionable.
But here’s the rub. Should our ultimate objective always be to tame chaos and package it into something neat, tidy, and easily decipherable? Sure, if chaos refers to something that defies reason or logic or interpretation. But what if chaos refers to heterogeneity? Are we helping our clients or actually doing them a disservice by constraining or evading plurality instead of finding ways to productively harness it?
Take, for instance, a sprint I ran back in 2019 for an East African government agency. The sprint involved over two dozen participants, representatives from the local private and public sectors, as well as a few international experts flown in from various countries. We had under 2 days to come up with a project plan for an annual initiative targeting a pan-African, potentially even international audience. No pressure.
Truth be told, I ran that thing like a bit of a despot. Don’t get me wrong, it worked - we were on time for our final presentation to a panel of judges, the client was happy, and the participants, for the most part, were energized by both the process and the outcome.
But after the dust had settled, I came to the uncomfortable realization that, as Botho continues to interrogate, curate, and shape increasingly ambiguous and experimental spaces and conversations, we can no longer rely solely on design processes that are “neatly delineated with a start and finish in bounded workplaces, identifiable sites, stakeholders and contexts.” Specifically, we need to transition from a persistent compulsion to achieve alignment to being comfortable with navigating and channeling multiplicity and discord.
Hindsight being 20/20, I see now that this need served as an underlying theme for the entirety of this particular sprint. In running a tight, efficient ship that allowed us to meet our client demands in time and up to snuff, I wonder what important nuances and insights I failed to capture and account for in a way that may have ultimately enhanced our overall methodology and its final outcome.
Making room for socio-cultural diversity
For instance, there were at least half a dozen nationalities represented during that sprint. While we did spend some time setting context, including providing key information about the country whose government we were supporting, this was more so from an economic, commercial, and demographic standpoint, rather than a social or cultural perspective. On top of that, aside from passing - albeit pertinent - comments from participants of other nationalities regarding their “markets”, we were not deliberate about making room for the potential influence of multiculturalism on the overall dynamic of the group. For a company such as ours that works across borders and interacts with people and organizations from all over the globe, we cannot afford to deploy a methodology that isn’t responsive - to some degree, at least - to socio-cultural diversity.
Alignment vs. discord
Another inevitable byproduct of a heterogeneous group of people is tension, which can sometimes bloom into outright conflict. Among the 25 or so participants in this sprint, there were peers and competitors, there were young influencers and established heavy-hitters, there were type-A extroverts and smart, but somewhat reticent introverts. And then at the helm of it all, there was me - an extroverted, likes-to-take-charge, results-focused Indian woman, who had a very clear target that she was going to meet, come hell or high water. The result? A sharply honed methodology that did not leave any room for disruption, because, quite literally, ain’t nobody got time for that.
That being said, conflict and tension are often crucial ingredients for shifts in the status quo that can lead to truly novel thinking or approaches. Instead of bulldozing, circumventing, or immediately diffusing disagreement with the view to gaining a very linear notion of alignment, how can we create methodological room for incompatibility and discord in a way that is productive and meaningful? What if I had allowed that one minor argument to simmer for a few more minutes? What if I had let those two clashing ideas continue trying to vie for supremacy for just a bit longer? I have no counterfactual, of course, but there is a possibility that it could have led us in unexpected and potentially pathbreaking directions.
Empathy vs. distance
Finally, in that pressure cooker environment, how do I as the facilitator strike the right balance between distance and empathy? In this context, I don’t mean distance simply in the sense of neutrality. Rather, I am referring to an “analytical distance” supported by checks and balances that can help me understand and account for the way(s) in which my presence could disrupt the overall dynamic. This disruption could be either positive or negative, as an empathetic facilitator is likelier to create an environment where participants will also have greater empathy toward each other. In the context of this sprint, in particular, I may have overplayed the distance and underplayed the empathy, given my unwavering focus on method and outcome, sometimes at the expense of the emotional barometer and the interpersonal dynamics of the people who were central to the whole process.
And maybe that - making people central to the process - is the answer to my original question: What could a paradigm shift in how consultants consult look like in the 21st century? In particular, doing so in a way that doesn’t diminish or gloss over people’s complexities, contradictions, and socio-cultural particularities, but, rather - forgive the consultant speak - leverages them towards perhaps uncomfortable, but likely trailblazing ends.