Empathy is a trait crucial for a Search Consultant, both in client and candidate contacts. It is "the" key to personal effectiveness. What empathy allows is :

1. Understand the character, values, perceptions and personality of individuals, and the context they're embedded in.

2. Build deep and meaningful relationships

3. Give an appropriate response to others

Empathy allows to learn about the crucial intangibles in people; as such it enables a consultant to manage expectations efficiently and appropriately. It is the tool par excellence to develop client loyalty because it delivers a unique insight in the personal and professional context surrounding an executive. How are his or her relationships with peers and boss ? How skilled is this person politically ? What makes this person tick, motivated, passionate ? How does he  perceives the marketplace and its pressures ? Will he fit within the corporate culture of the client company ?

Empathy is enabled through:

1. Listening skills

2. Self-awareness and control

3. Humility - which unfortunately tends to diminish when one's success grows.

Empathy means business because it is at the core of succesful relationship building and management. It is the skill most prominent in great (search) consultants and trusted advisors, and in executives at the top of their game. It is the best indicator of the depth of trust people are able to generate and maintain.

Therefore the ability to empathize is directly correlated to what what search consultants in common parlance designate as "seniority"; and why emotional and social intelligence are becoming so much more important than technical skills when climbing the corporate ladder.

Have you ever been in a situation where despite communicating in the clearest, most confident and transparent manner to a client, you just can't get through?  You fully understand the problems causing the pain points in his organization, and you can provide the right the solution for the mess he finds himself in. Despite explaining yourself at length you can't seem to show him the light. Incomprehensibly, that light seems more to blind rather than to illuminate.

A teaching story from Sufism (the mystic tradition of Islam often maligned as too liberal, compromising or outright heretic by most of its hot-headed followers) can explain the quagmire. Its a parable that makes a lot of sense to any consulting profession, because it puts a finger on some of those intractable, nasty hidden problems during assignments experienced as impossible to manage.

Once upon a time, there was a man who strayed from his own country into the world known as the Land of Fools. He soon saw a number of people flying in terror from a field where they had been trying to reap wheat. "There is a monster in that field," they told him. He looked, and saw that it was a water-melon.

He offered to kill the "monster" for them. When he had cut the melon from its stalk, he took a slice and began to eat it. The people became even more terrified of him than they had been of the melon. They drove him away with pitchforks, crying, "He will kill us next, unless we get rid of him."

It so happened that at another time another man also strayed into the Land of Fools, and the same thing started to happen to him. But, instead of offering to help them with the "monster", he agreed with them that it must be dangerous, and by tiptoeing away from it with them he gained their confidence. He spent a long time with them in their houses until he could teach them, little by little, the basic facts which would enable them not only to lose their fear of melons, but even to cultivate them themselves.

An experienced Search Consultant can quickly see the naked truth about a management problem in the clients organization: lack of leadership, vision, a culture-values mismatch, various forms of organizational dysfunctionality, and so on.

This truth, so obvious to the consultant, does not make the client free, because he  often cannot  or does not want to perceive the issues as the consultant does. If consultant pushes further, all what he will evoke in his clients is their stubbornly resistant insistence on clinging to their disbeliefs and attitudes that at least provide the security of known misery, rather than openness to the risk of the unknown. Therefore, facts do not change attitudes and associated cultures. Right: facts do not change attitudes, less cultures.

Though the above does not pertain to all situations, the Search Consultant should absolutely avoid directly revealing the naked truth about a clients pain or problems. He should use images, metaphors, allegories, figures, wondrous speech, or other hidden, "roundabout ways".

A search process and closure can teach a client a lot about his own organization, culture and attitudes. The great Search Consultant knows this process starts with the very first prospective meeting, and the learning process he initiates continues further through the relationship. This is why patience, tact, respect, discretion, and a sniff of wisdom are critical ingredients for a successful client engagement and relationship development.

To paraphrase W. Churchill: while most clients won't have an issue to learn something,  they will never like to be taught. The challenge for the consultant is to have his ideas, vision or perception originate on the clients' side, so the client will take ownership and partner with the consultant to assure succesful implementation.

My collegue Martyn Wickens was so kind to share this story from the advertising industry. It describes a situation everyone of us encounters when particular prospects try to convince you to work for nothing. Ever heard of contingency or "succes" fees ?

India Media Agency Head Les Margulis Sends Message to Unilever and Marketers Looking for Free Work Article by Les Margulis, President of Media Direction India in Mumbai

India Media Agency Head Les Margulis Sends Message to Uniliver and Marketers Looking for Free Work:

The crème de la crème of India's advertising world was either in attendance or on the podium at last month's Exchange4Media Conclave in Mumbai last month.

One of the principal speakers was Rahul Welde, VP of media at Unilever for Asia, Africa, Middle East and Turkey. He focused his remarks on three key issues: 1. The necessity of having procurement running the business, as media is a commodity and there is no difference in the value or quality of GRPs; 2. The advantages of the disengagement of the agency (both media and creative) from the brand process and the future of essentially free servicing by posting all briefs on the internet (which is now called "crowd sourcing"); and 3. The virtues of screwing all costs down to zero, so if a supplier does not want to work for zero, he will find someone else who will.

I wish to address my comments to Mr. Welde. I confess that, as a foreigner in a strange land, his remarks were so alien to what I was taught in business school -- that is, that all suppliers (or "business partners" as they are called on the Hindustan Lever website) are entitled to make a reasonable profit. I daresay that Rahul or his managers would never dream of handing out free samples of their products 365 days of the year, so therefore why should I or the 100-plus people in my company work for nothing?

Perhaps one reason for your position is that you do not understand the agency business. According to your public resume, you apparently have spent your entire career at Unilever and have never worked for either a full-service or a media agency.

I assume also that you take pride in being "a difficult client." But from my point of view, it is important to know the value of any client in terms of dollars and cents and in terms of the servicing cost, which is something entirely different. And from my point of view, it may not be worth the revenue to service a difficult account.

So we have a decision: either we walk away or we "manage" them.

But as I see it, the problem with these "difficult" clients is that they will become agency "energy suckers." These are the types that will also usually give you a less than adequate brief. In the not too distant past. a local client threw one of his products on the conference table and said, "I want to sell more of this. How do I do that?" And that was the brief.

So in a similar fashion, the major fast moving consumer goods manufacturer with whom you are dying to work may end up as a burden that will suck you dry and affect your capacity to serve your other clients. Therefore, sometimes it just may be wise for the overall good of your agency to tell them to go elsewhere.

I must be naïve, but I don't believe professionals on the client side want to behave in that manner. If only clients knew that this bad behavior hurts more than helps their cause.

Agencies that are treated with respect give more than they take. Agencies that enjoy open, honest lines of communication and professional partnerships with their clients produce better work. Deep down, I believe most clients understand that.

Make no mistake: I believe that every agency has to go above and beyond for their clients in both good times and especially bad times. It's not only the smart thing to do; it's the right thing. But clients also need to understand the care and feeding of an agency.

In India, a major client, Reckitt Benckiser, has begun to charge agencies almost $10,000 for the right to pitch an account. How much times have changed! In the good old days, clients would pay agencies because pitches cost both money and time. Now, other multinationals such as Lever in India have begun to review a similar proposition. I say let's nip this in the bud pronto.

So Rahul, please be advised that I don't fawn to "difficult" clients. I work as a partner. I expect to be paid for my labor. If those points do not fit into your playbook, then I don't want you as a client. And for sure I would not pay five lakhs (about $10,700) as a submission fee, as you had suggested, for the privilege of working my team to the bone for two weeks for a Lever pitch.

No, thank you, sir. You are definitely a pass.

If you want to sell search service succesfully, give three different answers to the following questions:

1. Why does a company need your service at all ?

2. Why should they buy the service from your organization ?

3. Why should they buy that service from you personally ?

Great Search Consultants have  3 * 3 convicing answers to the above questions.

Do you ?

Drucker writes:

The most important thing is that the person and the assingment fit each other.

 An assignment is not a job description. Contrary to job descriptions, assignments change all the time, and can only be understood in a wider context of time and requirements. An assignment can be to diversify the business, accelerate revenue growth, increase profitability....  It points to what the managerial action needs to achieve. Furthermore, qualifications, such as seniority, particular experience, skills or diploma's are only a starting point. Their absence disqualify candidates for a particular assignment. I look at strengths in terms of a past performance record that can be verified, because what is of great importance is what people can do and achieve - not the titles they held. Does the particular manager have the right strengths for what the organization needs to achieve ?

Most important is the personality of a candidate. Do the character, personality type and style of a candidate fit the culture of a corporation and his future peers in the organization ? Personality will define how managerial action will turn into results. This points to the universal truth that truly senior managers always exhibit superior social and emotional intelligence. Qualifications and personality are the two sides of the same coin.