Les 1 Flashcards
The Big 3 worldwide
- The Boston Consulting Group
- McKinsey & Company
- Bain & Company
A consultant =
A consultant is a person in a position to have some influence over an individual, a group, or an organization but has no direct power to make changes or implement programs.
The consultants skills
- technical
- interpersonal
- consulting
consultant roles
- expert
- pair-of-hands
- partner
Consultant’s goals
- To establish a collaborative relationship.
- To solve problems so they stay solved.
- To ensure attention is given to both the technical business problem and the relationships.
- To develop client commitment.
management fads =
Managerial interventions which appear to be innovative, rational, and functional and are aimed at encouraging better organizational performance.
Management fad characteristics
- Promise significant performance improvement
- Based on succes stories by well-known companies
- Generally applicable
- easy to understand and implement
- catchy title & buzz words
- platitudes formulated as deep insights
environmental pressures (to use fads)
- competitiveness
- increased union activity
- political and regulatory environment
- dynamic and turbulent environment
forces to conformity (to use fads)
- knowledge cascades
- desire to be in the in-crowd
- desire to avoid sanctions
organizational pressures (to use fads)
- culture of risk taking
- frustration from past efforts
- desire for differentiation
Stages of conulting
- entry and contracting
- discovery and dialogue
- feedback and decision to act
- engagement and implementation
- extension, recycle or termination
Expert role
The consultant is the expert and gets full responsibility to implement a solution and change. The manager’s role is to provide assistance when needed and judge and evaluate after.
–> problems: the consultant needs to make an accurate assessment of the problem. This is rarely only ‘technical’, and there is always a ‘people’ element.
The people need to take the recommended actions. Outside experts rarely have the authority to tell people what to do.
pair-of-hands role
The manager retains full control. The consultant is expected to apply specialized knowledge to attain goals set out by the manager. The role of the consultant is passive.
–> Problem: because the consultant is dependent on the decisions and action plans taken by the manager, it becomes a convenient scapegoat when the plan doesn’t work.
=> Verify the assessment of the manager!
collaborative role
The consultant joins his/her specialized knowledge with the manager’s knowledge of the organization to solve the problem. They help managers solve problems. Attention to the technical issue AND the human interactions involving the issue.
–> Problem: managers may see attempts at collaboration in a negative way when they see consultants in an expert role or in a pair-of-hands way.
consulting phases
- Contracting
- Discovery and data collection
- Feedback and the decision to act
- Engagement and implementation
