Credibility with the business
·
10 min read
Key findings
An internal contract always has at least three parties, because the practitioner's own boss has expectations of the work.
The practitioner's own wants, such as access, time and a rule on who sees findings, belong in the first meeting.
Block advises refusing or postponing work with less than an even chance of success, with an alternative attached.
A one-page written contract names who receives the findings and when the work ends.
A regional director who is said to support the work has agreed to nothing until the practitioner has heard it from them directly.
Contracting in internal consulting is the first meeting in which an HR practitioner and a line manager agree what the work is for and what each of them will provide.
The same meeting settles who else has to agree, what will be delivered, and how the work will end.
For an internal consultant the contract always has a third party, because the practitioner's own boss has expectations of the work too.
Peter Block defines a contract as an explicit agreement on what the consultant and the client expect from each other and how they will work together.
The Contract Defined
Block borrows two ideas from legal contracts and applies them to working relationships.
Mutual consent. Both sides enter the agreement freely
Valid consideration. Each side receives something of value from the other
Internal practitioners are practised at one half of the consideration, the service they give the line manager.
The other half, what the practitioner receives in return, is usually assumed and seldom discussed.
Block lists what a consultant needs in return.
Influence over what happens, and news of significant events
Access to people and information in the line
Time from the people who will carry out the changes
Permission to try something new, openly
Block reads an instruction not to take up line managers' time as a sign that the contract is unbalanced.
How Internal Contracting Differs
Block gives four reasons the internal version carries more risk.
The practitioner has a boss to satisfy and departmental targets to meet
All potential clients work in one organisation, so one failed job travels fast
The practitioner's grade is known, which limits access to senior people
Line managers may see HR as part of the same system they struggle with
As a result, Block writes, internal consultants often work more by mandate than by choice.
A practitioner who responds to that pressure with caution ends up used only as a pair of hands.
The term comes from Edgar Schein, whose three consulting roles Block adopts.
Expert. The practitioner supplies the answer and the manager accepts or rejects it
Pair of hands. The practitioner carries out a plan the manager has already drawn up
Collaborator. Diagnosis and decisions are shared between the two
In the pair-of-hands role the practitioner depends entirely on the manager's diagnosis, and when that diagnosis is wrong, the practitioner who delivered the plan takes the blame.
Each role suits some requests, so the practitioner chooses one in the first meeting and says which.
Triangles And Rectangles
The line manager is only one party to an internal contract.
Every internal function has priorities of its own to advance.
Block therefore places internal consultants in at least a triangular contract, with the client and their own boss on two of the corners.
When the practitioner's boss and the client's boss agreed the work between themselves first, the triangle becomes a rectangle.
In a rectangle neither the practitioner nor the line manager chose the engagement, and both are already committed to it.
Block's instruction is to explore each side of the shape before any diagnostic work begins, and to meet each party where that is possible.
The sponsor who asked for the work and the manager who has to live with it are often different people.
Block's test for who counts as a client is practical, and it covers anyone who does one of five things.
Attends the first planning meeting
Sets the objectives for the work
Approves any action taken
Receives the report on the results
Is significantly affected by the work
Block's ground rules add that nobody can contract with a person who is absent from the conversation.
A regional director who is said to support the work has agreed to nothing until the practitioner has heard it from them directly.
Before The First Meeting
Block recommends a short call to set up the meeting, with five questions.
What do you want to discuss?
Who is the client for this work?
Who else will attend, and in what role?
How much time will we have?
Has the decision to start been made, or is that still open?
When someone else told the manager to call HR, Block reads the referral as a sign that the manager may be under pressure to proceed.
Before the meeting, run a short root cause analysis of the request.
The conversation can then start from the business problem instead of the solution the manager has already chosen.
Contracting Meeting Steps
Block sets out the contracting meeting as a sequence that ends either in an agreement to work together or in an agreement not to.
Acknowledge the person. Asking for help is uncomfortable for most managers, so say something direct about the meeting itself
Restate the problem briefly. Short sentences show the manager they were heard, and the analysis waits
Give a tentative yes. Say the problem looks workable, without committing to any particular form of help
Ask what the manager wants from you. Separate what they want from the work from what they want from HR
Surface the constraints. Time, budget, who may be interviewed and who hears the results
State what you need. Separate essential wants from desirable ones
Reach agreement. Or agree that the work will not go ahead
Ask about control and commitment. Ask for reservations about the plan and about you
Restate the actions. Who does what next, and by when
Block puts the question at step four bluntly, in the words “So, what do you want from me?”
Managers are usually clear about what they want from the work, such as lower attrition in a contact centre, and much less clear about what they want from the practitioner.
Block also advises asking how both sides will know the work has succeeded, and leaving twenty minutes at the end for the manager's reservations.
Essential And Desirable Wants
Internal practitioners find the sixth step the hardest, because they see themselves in a service role with no standing to ask for anything.
Block's answer is that the practitioner's wants exist to make the work succeed, and an unsuccessful project does more harm than no project.
An essential want is one without which the practitioner should not proceed.
For internal HR work, the essentials usually include five items.
Access to the people who are part of the problem
The senior leader's stated commitment to proceed
Time from the line manager and the team
Agreement that HR will not rate individuals from the work
Agreement, in advance, on who receives the findings
The fourth appears on Block's own list of essentials.
It matters most in team work, where a manager may later ask the HR business partner which members of the team were the problem.
Desirable wants improve the work without deciding it, such as the manager explaining the project to the team in person.
Block's method is to state the want in plain language and stop talking.
Any question gets a two-sentence answer, followed by a wait for a yes or a no.
When a proposal would break an essential, he advises a three-minute break to check it against the list.
The practitioner then says plainly that the proposal does not give the work what it needs.
A Worked Contracting Conversation
A head of operations in a distribution business asks her HR business partner for a two-day offsite for her eight site managers, in six weeks.
The request arrives as a solution with a date attached, and her regional director suggested it.
The partner's side of a forty-minute contracting meeting might run as follows.
Restating the problem. “You want the eight sites working to one plan before peak season, and last quarter's results suggest they are not.”
The tentative yes. “I can help with that, and I want to check an offsite is the best way to do it.”
Her wants from HR. “What should be different by the first week of December, and what do you want from me in particular?”
Constraints. “Is anyone off limits for a conversation beforehand, and who sees what I hear?”
The partner's essentials. “I need forty-five minutes with each site manager first, you opening the first morning, and agreement that I will not report back on individuals.”
The third party. “Your regional director suggested this, so I would like fifteen minutes with him on what he expects.”
Reservations. “How do you feel about this plan, and do you have any doubts about me running it?”
The actions. “I will send a one-page note today, and we meet again once I have spoken to the site managers.”
By the second meeting the offsite may have stayed as requested with a stated purpose, or become a one-day working meeting on two decisions the site managers keep avoiding.
Either outcome is defensible, because the head of operations agreed the purpose before the design began.
Managers are usually clear about what they want from the work, such as lower attrition in a contact centre, and much less clear about what they want from the practitioner.
Saying No To A Senior Client
Block's position is that a practitioner should say no to, or postpone, work that has less than an even chance of success.
His arithmetic is that a refused manager is one unhappy client, while a failed project gets described to five other managers.
When refusal is not possible, Block offers two fallbacks, which are to postpone the start or to narrow the scope and visibility of the work.
He also advises telling the practitioner's own manager plainly that the work is starting on weak foundations.
Three refusals can usually be made to a senior leader without lasting damage, provided each one comes with an alternative.
No to the method. Another method answers the same question better
No to the timing. The date would make the work worthless
No to the role. HR is being asked to carry a decision that belongs to the manager
The alternative goes in the same sentence as the refusal.
“I cannot run this well in two weeks, I can run it in six, or I can give you a one-hour working meeting on Friday.”
Requests for a coach are a common case of the third refusal, and the screening test for coaching requests sets out when to decline one.
When the leader has already decided and the practitioner thinks the decision is wrong, the conversation becomes one of advising a leader you disagree with.
Mandated Work
Some internal work reaches the client by mandate, through an audit, a policy rollout or a decision taken above both parties.
Block's sequence for a client with little appetite for the work starts with the option of not doing it at all.
If the work must go ahead, the sequence continues in four steps.
Ask whether the manager feels under pressure to proceed
Suggest the manager renegotiates with whoever applied the pressure
Agree a small first step, so the manager can test the process
Ask how the work could run with less loss of control or exposure
Where HR is the source of the pressure, as with a mandatory policy, Block advises saying aloud that the manager has no choice about working with HR.
The Contract Upward
An unclear agreement with the practitioner's own manager weakens every contract made with a client.
Block observes that internal consultants in that position give in to clients too easily and struggle to walk away from projects with little chance of success.
His remedy is an exchange of lists, in which the practitioner and the boss each write what they want from the other and then agree a balance.
In an HR function the lists usually cover how much live work a business partner can carry and which requests they may decline.
The Written Contract
Block recommends putting the contract in writing for clarity, in a form that is brief, direct and almost conversational.
For internal work it fits on one page and goes to the manager the same day.
The problem, and what is out of scope
The objectives, stated as business results
The information and people the work needs
The practitioner's role, named in one line
The product, with its form and length
What the manager provides, including their own time
The schedule, with a first milestone
Who receives the findings
How and when the work ends
The line on findings needs particular care inside an organisation.
An internal practitioner may be required to send some findings up the line, and Block's advice is to tell the client in advance who will receive a copy.
Block's ground rules require every contract to carry a specific deadline or duration, and note that most contracts are broken through neglect.
Resistance In The First Meeting
Block treats resistance as a normal response to being helped, and describes the forms it takes.
Requests for more and more detail
Flooding the practitioner with detail
One-word answers and changes of subject
Pressing for solutions before the problem is clear
Low-energy agreement to everything
Block calls compliance the hardest form to see, because the practitioner is getting exactly what they hoped for.
His three steps are to identify the form privately, name it in neutral words, and then stop talking so the manager can respond.
A partner might say, “You have agreed to everything so far, and I am not sure what you think of it.”
Recontracting During The Work
Block's ground rules treat every social contract as open to renegotiation.
Three events should reopen an internal contract explicitly.
A change of sponsor, which resets the decision the work serves
Growth in scope with no change to the date or resources
A finding the sponsor will not welcome
At the third, agree before the feedback meeting how the finding will be presented and who will hear it first.
When the work needs money, the agreed problem and objectives become the first section of the HR business case for the programme.
Early Signs Of A Weak Contract
The request names only a solution and a date
The sponsor has not been met
Nobody has asked what the manager wants from HR
The practitioner has asked for nothing in return
No line says who receives the findings
The work has no end date
Where The Tools Sit
Trusted Talent Advisor covers the contracting conversation and its written record in its component on stakeholder conversations, and the positioning that makes a refusal survivable in its component on credibility.
Its template pack includes an engagement contract and a scope note.
Sources
1. Block, P. Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used. Pfeiffer.
2. Schein, E. H. Process Consultation Revisited: Building the Helping Relationship. Addison-Wesley.
From the system
Trusted Talent Advisor sets out the full method: seven components, 51 tools, The Talent Template Pack and The Prompt Library.
See the system
Questions this answers
What is contracting in consulting?
Contracting is the first phase of a consulting assignment, in which the consultant and the client agree what each expects from the other and how they will work together. Peter Block treats it as the stage that sets the terms for everything that follows, including who owns the results.
How is contracting different for internal consultants?
An internal consultant has a boss and departmental targets of their own, so every contract has at least three parties. All the clients work in one organisation, refusal feels riskier, and some work arrives by mandate, so the practitioner has fewer choices and must make each one explicit.
What are Peter Block's contracting steps?
The meeting runs from a personal acknowledgement and a brief restatement of the problem, through the client's wants and the consultant's wants, to agreement. It closes with a check on the client's concerns about control and commitment, some support, and a restatement of who does what next.
What should an internal client agreement include?
The problem and what is out of scope, the objectives as business results, the information and people needed, the practitioner's role, the product, what the manager provides, the schedule, who receives the findings, and how and when the work ends. One page is enough.
How do you say no to a senior internal client?
Decline one specific part of the request, such as the method, the timing or the role HR is asked to play, and put an alternative in the same sentence. Where refusal is impossible, postpone the start or narrow the scope, and tell your own manager the work is starting on weak foundations.
What do you do when the sponsor and the client are different people?
Meet the sponsor directly before any diagnostic work begins, because a sponsor who is only reported to support the work has agreed to nothing. Agree with both what the work is for and who receives the findings, and record the sponsor's expectations in the written contract.
Keep reading
Measuring HR impact
Internal Mobility Metrics Without A Platform
Seven measures an HR adviser can build from existing records, each with a stated definition, a base and a way to read it.
7 min read
Workforce and future skills
Job Rotation As A Talent Gap Strategy
A job rotation programme closes a talent gap when the role, the person, the cover and the evidence are agreed with both managers before it starts.
8 min read
Talent reviews and succession
Seeing Talent Below The Top Team
Visibility of leadership potential drops below the top team. A cross-unit forum, run on one page per unit and a written evidence standard, is the method for seeing it.
8 min read