The same side of the table

It’s easy to think of our clients as the people who sit across the table from us, who we have to present to, convince, even perform for. Especially if the relationship began with a pitch, which is the height of performance and theatre. Worse, pitches rarely afford us the opportunity to be curious, to really dig into a client’s motivations and personal ambitions - so much of which are what drives their decision-making. In a pitch we just can’t be as curious as we’d like in order to crack some really revealing insights, or as vulnerable as we need to be to build a relationship with our client. Strategists are hamstrung by the pitch process.

I coach strategists to try to view the client differently - to see them as someone who sits on the same side of the table, not opposite Instead of you against them, it’s you and them collaborating against some common obstacle. Sometimes that obstacle is external - a competitor, a shift in the market, a disruptive technology. Sometimes it’s internal - inertia, insouciance, intractability.

This simple visualization helps remind us that collaboration is almost always more likely to result in action. And that if we want to be a true partner to our client (we do), they need to see strategists as working with them, not for them. And certainly not against them.