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This is my opinion, and is one of the few parts of this site that actually has anything about me on it, so I thought that I should explain a few things about myself, and one of the things that I feel very strongly about is that cultures should be preserved rather than melded with another (just as long as you can see where one culture starts and another ends), and that one people should not ape another.
I have this thing against cultural assimilation, particularly when one culture goes around and proclaims “I am great, you should be more like me” or if it tries to persuade other people to be more like it.
I came from a traditional background and was raised with a distinct set of morals and the belief that just because one thing is right for one person or country, it doesn’t mean that it is right for another.

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My first Consulting Job

Changing gears from my prior post (PSU to Private) on the overall character of solution building in management consulting, I thought I would skip around a bit to cover the client interview. It is a very important topic in management consulting.

One benefit of bringing in certain types of advisory and management consultants is that they can float up and down the chain from the CXO-level to the trench-level worker. I find it important to gather both hard data and soft information in the interview. Here are some examples of quotes I have experienced in the trenches :
"I feel like I have failed. It's hard to ask for help in this environment."
"There are no one to guide and to measure me to whom I m looking for."
"I don't have those reports. So every time I have to start from the scratch"
"I have no idea. So I have to go to processing to get that information."
"People that deal with our personnel say that our competitor has a higher-class of industry expertise and it shows."
"Morale is really bad. We've tried everything but continue to show bad service."

Our client at Shillong usually used to conduct interviews with our three management consultants at a time. I can see how this could be of benefit as it is hard to both ask questions and take notes at the same time. That said, I have generally conducted with interviews by myself or with one other person under special circumstances.
Preparation helps, and the amount of prep is a bit sensitive to how familiar one is with the industry and functional area you are working with. I often use a spreadsheet or Microsoft Word document that covers the main questions and topics that I want to cover.
The real key to a client interview in my mind though is getting seated properly. This is the question I get asked most by client prospects and business acquaintances. How do you get people to open up? I find it is one of the biggest risk points in a project. If you cannot get on the same side of the table as the client, project risk goes way up in being able to deliver.
I don't have a formula for getting on the same side of the table as the client, but here are some things that have worked for me.

It is important that everyone up and down the chain know that you are there to help. You need to go in with the attitude that the client comes first, even if that means putting yourself out on the street. Your client sponsor has a right to "fire" you at any time if you are not adding value. You must be sensitive to fact that people are people and not just a bunch of names or boxes on an org chart.

You must establish trust. If people confide in you, you must not violate trust.

You must make it clear to the people that you talk to as to who you are working for and what your goals are.

You should be there to solve problems without passion, prejudice, or politics. You should have enough fortitude to tell the client when they are wrong, but you should have enough sense and ethical grounding to admit when you are wrong, don't know something, or can't add value and need to redraw subproject scope boundaries.

You must realize that clients, in many situations, know their business better than an outside consultant does. The consultant brings other value to the table, such as being independent and less connected to politics, having structured analysis tools and specific functional expertise, bringing additional bandwidth to get over hurdles, providing an opportunity for change, and drawing in experiences from other companies.

You must strive to get concurrence with the client throughout the project - regular communication and working sessions.

You must learn to develop capabilities to become a servant-leader (some of the same capabilities required for an executive or chairman of the board).

The aspect of not playing politics is very key. Although you may feel that it is ingratiating yourself with the client, clients are not paying money for that. Playing politics can also create bad side effects and factions within the company. Take no part in that.

Finally, I have found that blogging has helped provide a personal side to my practice of consulting. In many cases, I want and believe that a client will read my blog to figure out what I'm all about, what values I represent, and what kinds of business methods I believe in. I want that to happen. In the words of a famous song, "You're so vain. I bet you think this (blog) song is about you". Perhaps it is. Whatever it takes to help the client. That's my style of effective change management consulting.