An English friend of mine had finished her studies in the most famous grande école of commerce in France. She did both her undergraduate and her MBA studies there and then she was hired by a well-known consulting firm in London. She worked there for four years and reached the level of senior consultant by the age of 33.
She was then given an assignment with an oil company based in Saudi Arabia. Until then she had had no problems in communicating with the client’s team members and had always produced successful results. However, with this particular client, she had enormous difficulties. She worked as hard as she could to figure out the structure of the company, its problems and possible solutions.
Despite her efforts, however, she could feel that her opinions were not being taken seriously, and that senior managers of the client usually tried to avoid discussing issues with her. Moreover, she had difficulty in getting vital information from employees lower down in the hierarchy, so she was unable to come up with the analyses she wanted.
Although she felt she could really help the company with her knowledge and experience, she found it difficult to persuade the client to put her ideas into practice. In fact, the better and more innovative her ideas were, the more difficult it was to get them over to the managers in Saudi Arabia. Source: adapted from Browaeys & Trompenaars, 2000: case 5. Questions and discussion
1. Which particular aspects of status relate to the consultant and to the company for whom she was working?
2. How do you think the consultant could try to improve her situation? Discuss your answer with your peers.
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