Professional Approach for BA Consultants
1. Seeing the client as someone they have to please Your client hired you because you are the expert at what you do. They are the expert at the thing they do. And you have been brought in to add your expertise to the client’s expertise to help them accomplish their goal. (If you’re presenting work and unclear on what that goal is we have a bigger problem than this article is going to address.) What they didn’t hire you to do is make them happy, or be their friend. Your decisions should revolve around achieving that goal, not pleasing the client. And while you should do everything in a professional and pleasing manner, never conflate helping the client achieve their goal with making them happy. They will ask you to do things that run counter, in your expertise, to achieving the goal. Your job is to convince them otherwise. In the end, they will be better served if you see yourself as the expert they believe they hired. And while this may result in some unpleasant conversations during t...