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The Roles Consultants Play

Richard Beckhard, considered a founder of organization development, remarks (in conversations December 19, 1994, and March 31, 1995) that he typically plays at least four roles in working with the chief executives, boards, and senior managers of organizations:

• as expert, like a plumber or TV technician, to provide solutions or action recommendations;

• as consultant, to help the client work on a problem, provided that the problem remains the client’s responsibility;

• as trainer or educator, to teach the client what he knows, so the client can apply the learning himself; and

• as coach or counselor, to help the client learn and to teach the client how to learn. (For a look at case examples where these roles play out, see Beckhard & Pritchard, 1992.)

The balance of this paper is about this last role—that of executive coach.