Organizational Reflections: Parallel Processes at Work in a Dual Consultation

This article explores the lessons extracted from the parallel processes enacted in the relationship between two consultant groups hired by Eastern (a large financial institution) to kick off a major culture change initiative. The inevitable conflicts between these two consulting groups, selected because they had very different missions and modes of operating, mirrored deeply impacted systemic tensions within Eastern, such as the desire to change and the wish to remain fundamentally unaltered. The consultants’ public struggles to overcome the obstacles to their collaboration helped Eastern surface several latent and intractable tensions threatening its culture change initiative. The processes highlighted here are pertinent whenever multiple organizations or groups attempt to assist a third institution.