The Deliverable Deadlock: How to Create Collaborative Consulting Engagements

Consider the following scenario: The leadership team at a higher education institution, grappling with declining enrollment and shifting market demands, convenes to strategize. Frustration mounts. Answers remain elusive. Terms like innovation, transformation, and change are tossed around with no clear direction. The discussion stalls. Predictably, someone asks, "Should we hire a consultant?"

Heads nod in agreement. Emails fly. And soon, a well-credentialed expert arrives on campus armed with slides, frameworks, and the promise of answers. Months later, the consultant returns to present their findings and offer recommendations and next steps. It's all very insightful but destined to collect dust on the shelf.

And the cycle repeats itself again and again, delivering little value in the end.

This pattern is common, but it doesn't have to be inevitable.

The Deliverable Deadlock: A Value-Creation Problem

In my doctoral research, I studied the education consultant's role in supporting college and university leadership teams. Over several months, I interviewed more than a dozen institutional leaders and consultants, asking questions about business models, ways of working, problems, and frustrations with current paradigms.

One theme emerged: Consulting sometimes fails to deliver not because consultants underdeliver (though that does happen) but because higher education institutions and their consultants get caught in what I call the deliverable deadlock—a vicious cycle of rigid, results-driven exchanges that overshadow much-needed opportunities for deeper, more meaningful collaboration.

Often, consultants scope projects of limited value, while colleges and universities consume consulting services without establishing structures, commitments, and ways of harnessing the value consultants can create. This dynamic creates a two-sided problem. On the one hand, consultants prioritize generic deliverables over customized solutions to keep costs low and maintain efficiency. On the other hand, institutions fail to truly open their doors to provide consultants with meaningful access to the organization's deeper realities. The result is a surface-level engagement that prevents consultants from seeing beneath polished narratives to messier realities that could drive genuine transformation.

To understand this problem more, consider the Collaborative Value Creation (CVC) framework:

• Transactional collaboration: The most common and limiting form of collaboration is when the consultant delivers the report, and the engagement ends. The relationship is efficient but shallow, with little impact on institutional change.
• Integrative collaboration: Here, consultants and higher education institutions work as thought partners, co-creating solutions through iterative problem-solving. This approach fosters deeper learning and stronger internal capabilities.
• Transformational collaboration: This is the highest level of partnership, where consultants and institutions fully integrate their expertise to drive systemic change with lasting, industry-wide impact.^Footnote1

Why College and Universities and Consultants Stay Stuck

In my research, I observed two tensions. First, college and university leaders want deeper collaboration but feel trapped by rigid consulting models and, of course, costs. Second, consultants desire collaborative partnerships but are usually limited to narrowly scoped projects and, again, costs.

Both parties crave more impact, but the structures they default to prevent it.

How to Break Out of the Deadlock: Recommendations for Higher Education Leaders

To move from transactional to integrative or transformational collaboration, college and university leaders must shift their mindset from consumer to co-creator. Here's how:

• Build internal structures for collaboration: Form a transformation team to manage consulting engagements from scoping through implementation. This team should ensure that external insights translate into institutional action.
• Choose partners who are committed to co-creation: Seek consultants who use participatory approaches like design workshops, persona building, prototyping, and customer journey mapping. Prioritize consultants who are willing to act as thought partners, not just as service providers.

How to Evolve the Consulting Model: Recommendations for Consultants

Consultants must move beyond rigid, deliverable-driven models to become true thought partners. Here are key actions to support that shift:

• Offer flexible engagement models: Consider scoping engagements in phases, using outcomes-based pricing, or adopting shared-risk models that encourage iterative problem-solving to deepen relationships.
• Lead with collaborative methodologies: Use strategy sprints, design-thinking workshops, scenario planning, and other tools to co-create solutions with college and university leaders.
• Position yourself as a thought partner: Do more than deliver reports. Provide insights that challenge assumptions, spark new thinking, and inspire action.

The Path Forward: Co-Creation as the Future of Consulting

The future of higher education will require more co-creative partnerships built on trust, shared learning, and a commitment to systemic impact. College and university leaders and consultants must break free from the deliverable deadlock and redefine success as transformation, not just output.

When they do, consulting deliverables will stop collecting dust—and start creating change.

Note

1. James E. Austin and Maria May Seitanidi, "Collaborative Value Creation: A Review of Partnering Between Nonprofits and Business. Part 2: Partnership Processes and Outcomes," Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 41, no. 6 (September 2012): 929–968. Jump back to footnote 1 in the text.↩

Brian Fleming is a Researcher, Author, and Founder of Designs Futures LLC.