Counselling Skills for Consultants (April 2024)
Deri Hughes
Helping consulting team leaders develop exceptional teams | Tailored course design | Expert trainers | Lasting impact
Welcome to Consulting Skills Mastery! This month I'm going to share some great communication tools for consultants from our 3-part series: Counselling Skills for Consultants. We also have some free live sessions coming up - click to learn more & register for How to Write Compelling Consulting Recommendations, or Consulting Skills Accelerator: Add £500k per person profit to your consulting firm.
The role of a consultant will often flow beyond 'problem solver' into coach or mentor. We may be addressing business problems, but at the heart of it we are serving and helping people. The importance of developing your 'soft skills' cannot be underestimated if you want to become a highly regarded consultant.
Although I'm using the term 'counselling skills', this is nothing mystical. They are simply excellent communication skills which are the basics for any counsellor or therapist. I'll share three of my favourites and some links to our more in-depth articles on The Skilled Consultant for those who are left wanting more.
Empathy (and how it's different to sympathy)
Empathy is being able to walk a mile a someone else’s shoes. Allowing yourself to experience the feelings they are feeling and see the world from their perspective. By developing empathy with your client, you will much better understand the challenges and pressures they are facing, and what a good solution may look like.
It is important to distinguish empathy from sympathy, which is feeling compassion or pity for someone. Empathy involves a deeper emotional connection and understanding.
Imagine you come across someone who has fallen into a deep hole. Showing sympathy for that person would be shouting down to them, “Sorry you are in there, I feel bad for you from up here.” Showing empathy for them would be jumping down to sit next to them, and taking a moment to understand how it feels to be stuck there.
Empathy sometimes gets a bad rep. It can be associated with the idea of unwanted emotions, taking on an emotional state that isn’t yours, or somehow losing control of your own feelings. This fear could hold you back from jumping into the hole, particularly in a professional capacity when you may feel pressure to appear in control.
However, when you master empathy as a skill, you become able to separate your own life, thoughts, feelings, and emotions from those of the other person. You can jump down into the hole with them, but you stay aware that it’s not your hole and you are not stuck in it. You can choose to stay there as long as is helpful to develop understanding and connection. Both things that are key to a successful client relationship.
To read more about developing empathy and learn about the necessary state of unconditional positive regard (UPR), read our article: Super-charge your client relationships with empathy and unconditional positive regard
Body language matters
Consider these two men. Hopefully it’s clear that the guy on the left has better body language than the guy on the right. But why?
All subtle but significant differences which help his client feel at ease and more able to open up. Subtly mirroring the body language of your client can also help to create a sense of rapport.
Body language has long been seen as a starting point for good connection, but the digital world has upset this narrative. If you are meeting a client virtually, the impact of body language becomes much less relevant. The shift to remote and virtual working also means many of us are much less practiced and comfortable with in-person interactions. If this is you, it may be useful to become aware and conscious of your body language and the subtle messages you are sending to the person you are talking with.
Body language is one component of active listening - a critical skill to help develop an understanding of your client. More active listening tools are covered in our article: Mastering active listening to enhance your client relationships
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How to challenge using immediacy
When your communication skills are well-honed, you may sometimes notice inconsistencies in the person you are talking with. It may be that they say something which is contradictory to something they said earlier. It may be that they are saying one thing but their body language is telling a different story.
It can be useful to challenge an inconsistency if you spot one. Your client may not be consciously aware of it, so the challenge can help both of you reach a clearer understanding. Or it may help your client be more open about something they are struggling with.
It’s very important, however, that a challenge does not feel threatening or confrontational. A great technique for safely challenging an inconsistency is immediacy.
Immediacy encourages an exploration of what is happening in the present moment. Very simply, you should be transparent about your observations, reactions and interpretations. These must be bounded in the immediate - not delving into events that precede your conversation or concerning the future.
It might sound like this…
I’m hearing you say that new product development is your biggest growth opportunity, but earlier you were talking about your focus being market expansion…?
As you’re talking about the great relationship you have with your CFO, I’m noticing that you seem a bit tense and your fingers are tapping the table, so it’s making me wonder if there’s a bit more going on there?
You’re presenting these three options as equal in merit, but when you talk about option B you are much more animated, and that enthusiasm is affecting how I feel about it.
Hopefully none of these challenges feels critical or confrontational. In each case, the consultant is either playing back an observation they’ve made or sharing how the interaction has made them feel. There should always be space for the client to use or reject the challenge as they feel fit.
Immediacy is an advanced communication tool. If you feel confident with the idea of using it, you may also be interested to learn how to use self-disclosure and advanced empathy in our article: Advanced communication skills for the confident consultant
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👋 Thank you for reading. I’m Deri Hughes. I run a training business that helps consulting team leaders develop exceptional teams.
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8moParticularly in the context of initial exploratory or discovery meetings with clients, and when undertaking stakeholder interviews as part of consultancy project, empathy is hugely important. I’ve sometimes explained this in terms of the role of the consultant being part psychotherapist, part financial journalist and part facilitator… and most of all listener to what is said… and what is ‘in between the lines’.
Product Owner, Consultant, Polyglot
8moDealing with people with sympathy is much better; however, with empathy, you seem to understand them better. The truth is that when you are out of something, you have a more vast vision. You are not involved emotionally and are expected to give more logical advice and show more emotional intelligence. To help people, you don't have to walk in their shoes and put yourself in trouble. Sometimes, you just need to be wise enough not to repeat a mistake twice. Plus, holding a rope out of the hole for people to help them climb up is more logical than jumping in the hole and helping them out.