Are you impressed?: An exploration of the pressure to perform and impress from the perspective of an organisational development consultant

Are you impressed? is a doctoral thesis that explores processes of organisational development and the pressure to perform and impress. Being caught up in trying to impress clients and avoid disappointment might have negative implications. Consultants might be reluctant to contest and challenge customers in honest ways because consultants are dependent on clients to hire them. However, clients are also dependent on consultants. Consultants and clients are interdependent, and they are all involved in impressing each other. This stands in stark contrast to thinking of consultants as neutral facilitators, a view that dominates the descriptions of consultancy within organisational development. It is argued that impressing others in ethical ways requires self-awareness and taking a position which means to enter the fluctuating paradox of constancy and change which can be very disturbing both for consultants and for the client. The alternative to reverberating to this paradox is to get lost in the other and therefore to lose oneself at the same time.