ORDER is a methodology founded on some key beliefs;
- that we, the consultants and you, the client, want the same thing; a successful solution that meets your needs,
- that intent counts more than technique; you are more successful when you concentrate on the success of others and enter in to a relationship with no preconceived ideas,
- that solutions have no inherent value; it is the outcome that the solution provides that has the value and to get to that you need to move away from any focus on the solution and concentrate on intelligently exploring the problem to be solved and getting answers to assumptions,
- methodology matters; it is a fusion between critical thinking skills (business intelligence quotient, IQB), communication and relationship skills (emotional quotient, EQ) and process and executions skills (execution quotient, XQ) that provides the environment for consultant and client to be successful and
- world-class enquiry precedes world-class advocacy; through mutual exploration, consultant and client understand each other and the problem that needs solving to the point that the relationship can be successful. This is contrary to the guessing that often takes place in these engagements.
This engagement model is highly consultative and requires the consultant and the client to enter in to it mutually. It requires a lot of information sharing so that the exact solution can be defined allowing the engagement to be successful. It breaks away from what is considered to be a more traditional approach of telling the client what the solution is before gaining a full understanding of the problem, passively accepting what the client says they want as all the information needed, or guessing what is really needed because you haven’t been allowed to ask questions or haven’t thought that questioning is important.
The ORDER methodology allows the client, consultant relationship to move to a place where information is freely shared on the understanding that this allows the exact solution, which meets the need to be discovered and ultimately provided.
The ORDER methodology stands for;
- Opportunity
- Resources
- Decisions
- Exact Solution
- Results
In the next post, I’ll focus in on the first step: the qualification of the opportunity.
The reference for this material is “Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play”: Transforming the buyer/seller relationship by Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig available from Amazon here.
– Neil