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Consulting methods summary chap 1-17 - Flawless consulting by Peter Block
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Consulting methods summary chapter 1-17. Book "Flawless consulting" by Peter Block (3rd Edition)
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Flawless consulting summaryChapter 1 “A consultant by any other name”
Every time you give advice to someone who is faced with a choice, you are consulting. When you
don’t have direct control over people and yet want them to listen to you and heed your advice, you
are face-to-face with the consultant’s dilemma. Managers have direct control and part time as
consultant want to influence but lacks authority to control.
Some definitions and distinctions
A consultant is a person in a position to have some influence over an individual, a group, or an
organization but has not direct power to make changes or implement programs. A manager is
someone who has direct responsibility over the action. The moment you take direct responsibility;
you are acting as a manager. Consultants support people by planning, recommending, assisting, or
advising. The recipients of all this advice are called clients, and is the person(s) whom the consultant
wants to influence. Clients for the services provided by support people are called line managers. Line
managers (client, direct control) have to labor under the advice of support groups (consultants, not
direct control).
When you act on behalf of or in the place of the manager, you are acting as a surrogate manager,
you are doing the manager’s job, not yours. “Complete this job for me”.
Your goal or end product in any consulting activity is some kind of change. Change comes in two
varieties. At one level, we consult to create change in the line organization of a structural, policy, or
procedural nature. The second kind of change is the end result that one person or many people in
the line organization have learned something new.
In its most general use, consultation describes any action you take with a system of which you are
not a part. All consultations are for the sake of change. The consultant’s objective is to engage in
successful actions that result in people or organizations managing themselves differently.
The terms staff or support work and consulting work are interchangeable, the people in a support
role need consulting skills to be effective. There are three kinds of skills you need to do a good job
and are necessary to effective consultation:
1. Technical skills: we need to know that the person is talking about. After acquiring technical
expertise, we start consulting. Otherwise people wouldn’t ask for advice.
2. Interpersonal skills: some ability to put ideas into words, to listen, to give support, to
disagree reasonably, to basically maintain a relationship.
3. Consulting skills: each consulting project goes through five phases.
Phase 1 Entry and contracting (first meeting, exploring the problem, expectations of both parties)
Phase 2 Discovery and dialogue (defining the problem and strengths) “Who is going to be involved in
defining the problem or situation? What methods will be used? What kind of data should be
collected? How long will it take? Should the inquiry(onderzoek) be done by the consultant, or by the
client?”
Phase 3 Analysis and the decision to act (planning, setting goals)
Phase 4 Engagement and implementation (carrying out the planning, workshops and running
meetings)
Phase 5 Extension, recycle, or termination (learning, ending relationship)
Consulting skills are grouped into four phases:
1. Contracting
2. Discovery
1
, 3. Feedback
4. Decision
The promise of flawless consultation
One reason consulting can be frustrating is that you are continually managing lateral relationship.
Vertical relationships are easier, if your boss gives you an order, you know what to do. But if your
client makes a demand, you don’t necessarily have to obey. The power balance in lateral
relationships is always open to ambiguity – and to negotiation.
Chapter 2 “Techniques are not enough”
In acting as a consultant, you always operate at two levels. One level is the content – the cognitive
part of a discussion between yourself and the client. The client represents the problem. The content
level is the analytical, rational, or explicit part of the discussion where you are working on (technical
or business situation). At another level, both you and the client are generating and sensing your
feelings about each other – whether you feel acceptance or resistance, high or low tension, support
or confrontation.
Beyond content
Next to the content of the problem feelings are the affective side of the discussion and an important
source of information for the consultant – information about the client’s real concerns and what the
possibilities are for establishing a good relationship.
2
, A major objective of every consultation is to encourage to focus on and value affective,
interpersonal, aspect of the relationship between the client. There should be an equal balance in the
attention given to the content of the problem and the feelings you are having about the interaction
that is taking place as you are working with the client. Once you value the affective side of the
relationship, the second step is to increase your comfort level in putting into words how you are
feeling about the relationship as it’s going on. The third step is to grow more skillful in putting your
sense of the relationship into words so you don’t increase defensiveness on the part of the client.
There are four elements to the affective side of consultant-client interaction that are always
operating (issues):
1. Responsibility: to have a good contract with the client, responsibility for what is planned and
takes place has to be balanced – 50/50. So the consultant as well as the client have to take
responsibility.
2. Feelings: to what extent clients are able to own their own feelings (own feelings vs feelings
according to the company). Pay attention to your own feelings, and use this as valuable
information on how the organization functions and how the client manages.
3. Trust: ask client whether they trust your confidentiality. The more that any distrust is put
into words, the more likely you are to build trust.
4. Your own needs
Skill in consulting is not only in providing a program, process, procedures that respond to the client’s
needs. It’s also your skill in being able to identify and put into words the issues around trust, feelings,
responsibility, and your own needs.
The consultant’s assumptions
1. Problem solving requires valid data: valid data encompass two things: (1) objective data
about ideas, events, or situations that everyone accepts as facts and (2) personal data.
2. Effective decision making requires free and open choice: when people feel that something is
important and they have some control, they will be motivated to
3. Effective implementation requires internal commitment: there have to be a link between
what they are asked to do and what want to do, then you have internal commitment
The consultant’s goals
Goal 1: Establish a collaborative relationship.
A collaborative relationship promises maximum use of people’s resource (consultant AND client). It
also spreads the responsibility for success or failure and for implementation. Consultants are always
functioning as models of how to solve problems. The consultant’s act is more powerful than words.
Goal 2: Solve problems so they stay solved.
Goal 3: Ensure attention is given to both the technical/business problem and the relationships.
Each situation has two elements: the technical problem and the way people are interaction around
that problem. Consultants are in a position to address the people or process issues, because as third
parties they have nothing to lose.
Developing client commitment – a secondary goal of each consulting act
Client commitment is the key to consultant leverage and impact. Our impact is determined by the
client’s commitment to our suggestions. Clear arguments do help.
Roles consultants choose
Three ways consultants work with line managers:
1. In an expert role: line managers give the consultant the job, because he doesn’t know
anything about it. Problems: internal consultants are well aware of the problems involved
3
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