3.2 - Consulting and Business Partnering Flashcards
Edward Schein
Edgar Schein, author of the book, Process Consulting: Its Role in Organizational Development, introduced the concept that consultants should focus on adapting a solution to the organization as opposed to accepting a packaged solution presented by expert consultants.
Richard Beckhard
Richard Beckhard, author of Organization Development: Strategies and Models, helped to define organization development as it is known today: An organization-wide, planned process initiative that is managed from the top to increase organizational effectiveness.
Chris Argyris
Chris Argyris introduced the concept of single, double, and triple loop learning, and contributed to the development of organizational and experiential learning, the reflective model, and the ladder of inference. Each of these concepts can be used by consultants for effective results.
W. Edwards Deming
W. Edwards Deming, an engineer, statistician, and consultant, brought his 14 points and process improvement concepts first to Japan and then the United States. He popularized the plan, do, check, act (PDCA) cycle for continuous process improvement, showing the benefits that occur when all employees are involved in making incremental quality improvements.
Peter Block
Peter Block’s book Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used is currently used by most consultants and has been recognized by the OD Network as the most influential book for organization development practitioners in the past 40 years. His five phases of consulting provide the basis for most current consulting models.
As a consultant, a TD professional may play many roles, including those defined by Ruth McCambridge (2007) who wrote about how to ensure an effective consulting engagement.
The expert role occurs when the consultant takes a directive role. The consultant is generally viewed as the authority; they provide advice, but the implementation is often conducted by others.
The facilitator role is one where the consultant is in a neutral position and serves to facilitate meetings or teams that address process improvement, team building, or other actions where the key task is to draw the answers out of a group.
The process consultant examines processes, systems, interactions, traditions, culture, funding sources, and other interfaces to determine their effect on each other and the results. This role is generally the longest from a time perspective and the broadest from a range of topics and relationships.
The other pair of hands generally refers to a consulting role focused on analyzing, planning, and project roll-out. As the name sounds, the consultant plays a supporting role and the client is in charge of the outcome. This works best for short-term projects with few stakeholders.
Phases of Consulting
Phase 1: Assessing the Need 2. Understand the issue 3. Present findings 4. Implement Solutions Phase 5: Completing the Project and Evaluating the Results
