It hadn't really struck me before Thursday last week that the supervision of consultants is 'a good thing'. A few years ago David Birch and Erik de Haan wrote a piece arguing that ' consulting supervision is a distinctive field in its own right, significantly different to coaching supervision and in some ways richer.'
They suggest that the richness is due to a complexity stemming from consultants who work within 'an organisation while holding on to their outsider's perspective. Yet, as they engage with the client system, they gradually acquire an insider's perspective on the organisation's issues. Such a stance of being an 'outsider within' is not straightforward at all and carries with it all sorts of temptations, risks and limitations. On the one hand, there is a risk that staying overly analytical and detached may result in observations, ideas and solutions that are more relevant for the consultant – or for his previous clients – than for the case in point. On the other hand, consultants risk becoming over-involved if they identify too strongly with the organisation's agenda and issues, and can fall into the trap of trying to 'manage' the situation. One could call this the dilemma of 'aloofness versus collusion'.
What a great phrase 'aloofness versus collusion' and that's more or less what we discussed in our second group supervision session last week. It's an acute issue for particularly for internal consultants – as our team is - caught between aiming to develop their careers as an insider to an organisation and acting as 'critical friend' and challenger as an outsider to it. This is compounded by the fact that internal consultants are often more hierarchically junior to the people they are consulting to/with and they have perceived lower status than external consultants. It's often easier (less career limiting?) to collude than to challenge.