ICG Professional Code of Conduct and Ethics

Internal Consulting Group unites experienced consultants and change agents around the world and then empowers them to support clients through our application of a new technology called Industrialised Adhocracy®.

This technology allows you and them to combine labour, IP, office and methodology resources to create powerful teams to implement any type of change or intervention in ways that were previously unimaginable in traditional pyramid-based firms.

Every one of ICG’s Accredited Professionals signs a comprehensive legal contract after they affirm ICG’s market leading Code of Professional Conduct.

This code is published below for the benefit of our potential Accredited Professionals, clients and competitors in the hope that ICG will continue to lead the professionalisation of the global consulting industry. To this end, we publish our Code of Conduct and Ethics here for the benefit of others who share our mission.

MISSION

The Mission of the Accredited Professional in every client interaction and engagement shall be to significantly advance the interests of the client and so to create value for the client through the presentation of quality advice or production of quality deliverables.

CLIENT FIRST

An Accredited Professional’s first duty is to the client. In considering any position or course of professional action (outside the payment of appropriate fees), the interests of the client will come first, followed by the interests of ICG or other Accredited Professional stakeholders and then the interests of the Accredited Professional.

QUALITY

Accredited Professionals will accept only those engagements in which they believe they have the competence to complete the work to a high standard of quality and with a reasonable and realistic degree of certainty that the work will complete on time and within the agreed budget.

CREDENTIALS

Accredited Professionals must be meticulous and accurate in the presentation of their professional credentials, laying claim to expertise only in those areas where the claim may be reasonably substantiated by other knowledgeable authorities.

INDEPENDENCE

Accredited Professionals will always ensure that advice is impartial and aligned with Client best interests. Specific decisions, opinions or recommendations must be supported by referenced evidentiary material, in the form of fact-based quantitative analysis, or will be accompanied by a statement indicating that such support is lacking.

CONFIDENTIALITY

Accredited Professionals will operate with the utmost discretion, understanding that their position will regularly require them to view privileged and commercially sensitive information, or to become privy to a client’s internal (and therefore confidential) operations, decisions and strategies. Accredited Professionals will never disclose information obtained through a client engagement without the written consent of that client.

RECOMMENDATION

Accredited Professionals will recommend to clients only other management consulting professionals or industry specialists who they believe will uphold this or a comparable standard of professional conduct and ethics.

COMPORTMENT

Accredited Professionals will behave in a manner appropriate for a professional advisor, including appearance, speech, written communication and interactions appropriate to the engagement context. Accredited Professionals should be particularly aware of the potential for social media technologies to blur the distinction between the private and public realm and to consequently act conservatively in any quasi-public forum.

UNITY OF INTEREST

Accredited Professionals will remain vigilant regarding the potential for real or perceived conflicts of interest to arise in the performance of their professional duties. Such conflicts may arise in a myriad of ways, with the common theme that the Accredited Professional may, however indirectly, gain some personal benefit or avoid a personal loss by advocating a course of action.

COLLEGIALITY

Accredited Professionals will operate to create and maintain a collegial and supportive relationship with other ICG Accredited Professionals, extending to them not only professional courtesies but genuine assistance when required, within usual professional limits. The cooperative ICG network provides professional and social benefits to the ICG membership and also operates as a source of competitive advantage relative to other organisations.

RISK

Accredited Professionals must take seriously their duty of care to the client and ICG and must make clients aware of any foreseeable risks associated with following any recommended course of action. In all cases the Accredited Professional must pro-actively identify and mitigate client risk. This clause specifies an ethical obligation and should not be interpreted to expand the legal liability of the Accredited Professional or of ICG.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Accredited Professionals are ethically bound to maintain the currency of any expertise to which they lay claim and to broaden and deepen their experience generally as a management consultant, in order to better assist their clients and to advance the state of the profession. In addition to considerable self-study, this will typically involve attendance at ICG sponsored events that are designed with this purpose in mind.

FEES FOR SERVICE

Accredited Professionals will maintain transparency and clarity regarding the specific basis for charging professional fees to the client. This basis for charging will be agreed ahead of time and in writing and with reference to a written engagement agreement (such as the ICG Client Agreement) that will govern the commercial and legal elements of the interaction.

RECORDS

Accredited Professionals will keep meticulous records of activities undertaken for the benefit of clients, in order that they may fully substantiate any claim to professional fees. Any request for payments made by the Accredited Professional (for example, in the form of an invoice) shall be accompanied by relevant and detailed timesheets showing both time accrued and deliverables produced in that time.

INSURANCE

For all consulting work they undertake, whether through ICG or independently, Accredited Professionals agree to maintain adequate levels of professional indemnity insurance – either by taking advantage of the cover provided through their relationship with ICG, or by making other arrangements.

PROPRIETARY INFORMATION

As a knowledge professional, Accredited Professionals must show a strong respect for intellectual property rights and to always fully respect the ownership or licensing conditions of any intellectual property in their possession.

Accredited Professionals of ICG are required and expected to uphold the highest standard of professional conduct and to adhere to a firm code of professional ethics, as outlined above.

Conformity to the above principles is a condition of membership and of Accredited Professional status with ICG and any evidenced breach of these principles will provide grounds for termination of an Accredited Professional’s relationship with ICG.