Welcome to Constructive Consulting

Constructive Consulting is a research effort, focused on the development of an alternative approach to business consulting, combining practical experience with relavant organizational theory. Our approach is not 'client-centered' nor 'expert-led' but instead places organizational problems/issues and the actions taken to resolve them 'in the center.' Below are a few of the key premises on which Constructive Consulting is based. This site provides information on our approach, as well as readings, writings and a forum for discussion on topics we hope will be of interest to three main groups: clients, practicing consultants, and researchers.

Changing is the norm, stability the exception
Organizations are continuously changing--with or without our active involvement. This is not a new idea, and actually pre-dates the assumption behind most change management initiatives: that organizations exist in stable eqilibrium, punctuated by periods of turbulent change. For those organizations willing to embrace it, change can be a stabilizing rather than a destabilizing force, by helping dynamically maintain alignment with the ever-changing demands of markets and customers. Rather than expending time and energy to control change, firms can rely on the constancy of change as a kind of engine for innovation and creativity.

A plan is not a solution
One important implication of continuous change is that the outcomes of organizational change initiatives are not fully predictable or controllable. A plan alone, therefore, is not a solution. In turn, a 'solution' is not a product for sale, but rather the retrospective judgement of a project that turned out well. Rather than separate phases of planning and implementation, operating amidst continuous change calls for iterative cycles of action and evaluation, until the problem is resolved, to the satisfaction of those involved.

From 'finding' problems to 'designing' them
Traditional methods of problem solving, such as root cause analysis, focus on 'finding' the problem. But the nature of any problem depends on the perspective from which it is viewed. In other words, what we will treat as being 'the problem' is, at least to some degree, a matter of choice. And our choice as to what the problem is, has a significant impact on our ability to solve it. Our approach is focused less on 'finding' the problem, and more on 'designing' the problem to be more actionable and solvable in the first place.