Wants and Needs
(extracted from the upcoming book “The Alignment Doctrine”)
Understanding the difference between client wants and client needs is critical to professional success and safety. Failing to grasp and monitor the difference often leads to grief, while a clear understanding offers real opportunities for professional and business growth.
Client needs are those things the satisfaction of which is precisely in the zone of your professional expertise. An engineer’s client needs to know that the proposed bridge will be safe and durable. Patients need to know that the doctor is well versed in the kind of surgery they are about to undergo.
Client needs are exactly within your professional “wheelhouse”, the issues you were born and trained to address. Client “wants”, on the other hand, are not. “Wants” inhabit a wild territory not even well-known to the client and certainly barely-known to you. That territory is full of pitfalls and swamps and alligators and bottomless caves and unmarked precipices, and littered with the bones of the unwary.
Client “wants” are things which the client wishes to have, but which fall outside the proper purview of the professional’s expertise. The lawyer’s divorce client actually needs the lawyer to obtain a fair division of matrimonial property, but frequently wants to see the other spouse punished, impoverished and shamed. These things are clearly outside the ambit of the lawyer’s professional duties, and any lawyer who succumbs to a temptation to satisfy these client’s wants will pay a price.
Not all client wants, however, are taboo, and in fact a judicious and thoughtful attention to a client’s innocent wants can work wonders for the professional’s overall success. Let’s say, for example, that the client wants to build a bridge, but for sentimental reasons insists that all of the stone used is to come from Ireland. What harm can come from the engineer including that specification in the plans, all other concerns being equal? And even the angry, jilted spouse can and should be treated with understanding and given room to vent, but not allowed to turn the professional into a kamikaze fighter. Sometimes a mediation or a collaborative process can’t really gain traction until a wounded spouse has an opportunity to say his or her piece in a controlled fashion.
As professionals, we need to keep in mind that what for us is mechanical and routine, for the client is often novel and adventurous and the fulfillment of a dream. The real estate lawyer may think of her role as “closing” the purchase of Lot 34 on Plan 582, but the clients are buying a home, and their heads and hearts are full of dreams of kids’ parties and barbecues and and gardens. The extra five minutes it takes to let them share these dreams means the difference between a client who complains about your bill and a client who recommends you to their friends.
The thing to keep in mind about client “wants” is that they tend to be deep-seated and very close to the client’s heart, but not always articulated, or even understood by the client. Because of this, your discussion of actual professional needs is often fogged by the imprecision created by the unspoken wants. What you think you are hearing from the client may not be exactly what they mean, even if you go to great pains to clarify. This can later lead to grief.
In order to inoculate yourself from the risk that a client will later be dissatisfied with your work because you did not read his mind and his heart, it’s essential to have a carefully written and explained agreement between you and your client, setting out exactly what you have been engaged for, and the terms of the arrangement.