Flawless Consulting, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 14Whole‐System Discovery

MOST OF OUR DISCUSSION on discovery so far has been written from the perspective of a third‐party approach, the third party being the consultant, engineer, IT specialist, or support person who is doing the data collection, analysis, and feedback. Although this is the most typical expectation clients have when using support people, and also the way we have traditionally seen the consultant role, there is an alternative.

The option is to involve the whole client system much more directly in redefining the problem, naming a desired future, outlining alternative actions, and deciding how to proceed. This is a first‐party or whole‐system discovery strategy, and the methodology has come a long way in the past four decades. Many consultants and support people have adopted the whole‐system approach and redefined their role to be one of convening people to collectively develop a change strategy.

What is significant about this approach is that the people doing the discovery and making the recommendations are the same people who will implement the change. In other words, people from the whole system are involved early in the process and are active at every step.

The name whole system, though, is a little misleading because it is not literally the whole system that is involved. You can have representatives from all parts of a system in the room but not really everyone. It means that at least a large sample of those who will be acting on the recommendations ...