walk all over me,” Bauer notes. To decline requests from clients that fell outside the scope of a
project, she used a combination of advocacy and relational accounts. Starting with advocacy, Bauer
began to think about herself as an agent for the consultants on her team. “Givers have a protective
side. In negotiating with a client, I feel a lot of responsibility for my team, and it makes me more
willing to draw a hard line.” Then, she developed a habit of articulating this responsibility to her
clients: “When a client makes an unreasonable request, I explain that it’s going to stretch my team, or
kill them working crazy hours. The client knows I will bend over backward to do what’s right for
them, so when I do push back, it has a lot more impact: there’s a good reason for it.”
michael s
(Michael S)
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