Improving a current consultant relationship — or selecting a new one — starts with understanding the environment, not just the consultant.

Summary:

Most organizations don’t take the time to understand the conditions that caused a consultant relationship to work well — or struggle.
Instead, they move into a selection process armed with proposals, presentations, and data… but not with the insights that actually predict whether the next consultant will succeed.

That’s the gap Docent helps close.

Yet most organizations skip this step.

They review proposals.
They listen to presentations.
They analyze fees and deliverables.

What’s almost never examined?

The conditions. The conditions?

The internal realities — communication, expectations, access, alignment, governance, pace, structure — that shaped the relationship in the first place.

And without that understanding, even the most thoughtful selection process is missing the one thing that actually determines success.

Here’s a quick (balanced) example that illustrates why:

A client once believed their consultant “wasn’t proactive” and began exploring alternative firms.
But when we walked through the timeline, the real story surfaced:

Internal priorities shifted repeatedly.
Leadership transitions disrupted decision-making.
The consultant adjusted unevenly — sometimes cautiously, sometimes reactively — and the relationship drifted.

The client felt unsupported.
The consultant felt unclear.
The conditions — not the competency — created the gap.

Yet without this clarity, the organization would have entered a new consultant selection process carrying only the symptoms, not the causes.

This is exactly why Docent’s approach matters — whether you’re:
🔹 resetting your current consultant relationship, or
🔹 evaluating multiple proposing firms in a selection process.

We don’t formally create a 'Cause Map' (yet) - 
but Root Cause Analysis thinking naturally shows up in how we:

• Ask sharp, clarifying questions
• Identify patterns on both sides
• Understand what was happening internally at key moments
• Interpret communication and access dynamics
• Align expectations between HR and Finance
• Differentiate consultants based on compatibility with your conditions
• Support transparent, defensible decisions
• Launch the new relationship with clarity, cadence, and structure

Even without using the label,
you can see RCA-style logic in our process, our questions, and our results.

And here’s the key:

When you understand the conditions behind your past relationship,
you enter a consultant selection process with all the facts —
not just the ones in the proposals.

That’s how you confidently decide whether to improve the relationship you have…
or select the consultant who will thrive in your actual environment.

If your organization is preparing for a consultant review, reset, or selection, I’m happy to share how this approach changes everything.