Final Post: My Consulting Strategy

I thought about this last night when we were discussing this final post and I decided that I was going to do this exercise as if I were starting my own consulting comapny, so here goes!

Mission Statement
To work in a collaborative manner with all clients by exercising a spirit of authentisty whereby the clients problem is my problem. To ensure a spirit of communication whereby assumptions are left behind and a full scope of a problem is reviewed. To never jump to conclusions or to solve a problem with out all the facts and data. To own the problem with the client rather then place ownership all on the client.

Vission Statement
Consulting is a process, not destination. It takes thought to look beyong the real problem to find the deeper issue. Anyone can staple two sheets of paper together, but a process consultant understands why the two pieces of paper need to be stapled in the first place.

Core Values
Collaboration is the secret to solving all sorts of problem,
No problem is too big or too small, jumping to conclusions only makes the problem worse. Band aid fixes are like band aids, they need to be replaced often.

Mirror Post # 6: Dialogue and Wikis

First off, I thought we had a very interesting class discussion pertaining to dialogue last evening. I was really most interested in learning about Tacit Assumptions, those being the things we may be thinking about, but are not always voiced. I think those happen a lot for me. On a daily basis I think about things that I am unaware that I am thinking about and they usually fly through your head at a million miles a second. "What if I or maybe we should" seem to be how these phrases start. Another popular is "if only."

With that being said, how does one voice those assumptions without int erupting the dialogue. I think the point of the lesson is to first acknowledge them and in a polite manner figure our how to incorporate them. I believe "Chris" would ask that you phrase those assumptions in a manner conducive to saving the dialogue. Like fore example, maybe say, "have you considered." Block tells us when dealing with resistance it is important that you acknowledge the resistance, but in a more positive manner in which it is being presented.

This past weekend, I had an interesting discussion with an old friend about wikis. His comment was, "wikipedia is the devil." My question to him was how so. It is an excellent tool to disseminate knowledge in a collaborative manner. His argument was that anyone can go in and upload whatever they please. Be that as it may, there are a lot of fools in cyber space, but the responsibility for being good stewards of information must be that of those who wish to preserve it. After going around for a few minutes we reached a decision and perhaps and assumption that at some point a third party needs to verify information that goes into a wikis.

Mirror #5: When a presentation goes bad

So today at lunch, Suzanne and I are conducting a focus group with VAMAC employees for our client to obtain feedback on their Employee Assistance Program. I have just been writing down some questions and putting together an outline on how we will run this focus group. I did some you tube searches over the weekend to see what the best way to run a focus group would be and I was amazed at what I saw.

First off, I saw somethings not to do. For example, don't survey the group, instead make it a free flowing conversation. I think it is important to make sure your group is engaged at all times. I saw poor examples of moderaters asking for feedback using agree or disagree statements. In a focus group, it is important to make sure the comments you get back are thoughtful.

Second, try and be enthusiastic. These individual are giving up their time to help you, so don't make it painful. Enthusiasism is essential to obtaining a high quality of conversation. You must show your participants that you are excited about the material and that you honestly care about their responses. After all we are doing a service for our clients and we need to ensure we obtain a high quality of data.

And finally, be authentic. We talk a lot being open with our client, but in this case we need to be open with our participants.

Watching you tube was helpful. Some of the focus groups I saw were down well while other's were very painful. I have included a video of an individual to illustrate how enthusiasm can be very important. This is purely for humor, but it is a great eye opener.

Mirror post #4: Using what you learn

Last semester, I brought the idea of using a wetpaint site to help our division draft rules, procedures and guidelines for our new on-line giving system. It seems to be very successful and I am grateful that I was able to use the new skill/concept I picked up.

I have mentioned in class that I feel like an internal consultant on a daily basis and that some of things we are learning about being a process consultant are relevant to dealing with donors. Well, I decided to use what I learned on Resistance with a group of students I recently hired to conduct the School of Social Work phone-a-thon, and here's what I learned.

Social Workers deal with clients as well, even though their clients have greater social issues than say a corporation, but never the less they totally got resistance and what a "client" is really saying. One of my students quoted Block and never even read him. She said, "resistance comes in many forms but what makes us successful as social workers, fund-raisers, etc is how we react to resistance." I was quite impressed and even more enthusiastic with our phone-a-thon program.

On another note, I had an interesting discussion with my dad Thursday evening. He had recently attended a modeling and simulation conference hosted by Senator Warner at the Va Beach pavilion. He explained that several of the speakers came from various fields with extreme ties to education. The point of the conference was to think about news ways modeling and simulation can work to help make better, Doctors, Dentists, Teachers, and Military leaders. Perhaps the most interesting take a way was for my dad and of course me, was our discussion on Medical training. The philosophy for medical training since the inception of medicine has been see one, do one, teach one. But wouldn't it be better for a student to learn first in a simulated environment? Or for a teacher to do the same? When considering adult education these are all important questions.

As a side note, my dads company deals primarily with the military aspect of modeling and simulation with the intent of teaching Marines about various scenarios before they even encounter them on a battlefield.

Mirror Post #3: Heros and ah hah moments

Last night with the Hero's exercise I had each of you do in small groups, I neglected to share completely what my point was. Consultants often times are sterotyped as being heroes. Despite the fact that consultants can save the day or help with an end result, by no stretch of the imagination are they the be all. Block points out to us through out the readings that the relationship between client and consultant is 50/50 and that a mutual collaboration is paramount to a consulting intervention ending successfully. Maybe to be a real hero, one must look with in and take a real risk and say no. We'll see then who the real heroes are and who are the thrill seekers!

I had a real ah ha moment concerning consulting. I touched on it briefly last night when I said, "somedays I feel like an internal consultant here at my job." In truth, in fund-raising we dealw ith rsistance all the time and it really does come in many forms.

I appreciate everyone participating last night. Thanks for another good class!

A video to help us learn

I thought this video was appropriate relating to our conversation from Monday night concerning communicating. The link is a you tube video of 5 commercials for Ameriquest.



We discussed how various factors may impede the ORJI cycle, but in this example we see how witnessing an external event can be judged without knowing all the details.

This video helped me to understand that we do sometimes jump the shark and without really knowing the whole story, jump to conclusions. Our discussion Monday gave me much to reflect upon when dealing with my own home life. When I hear my son cry in the next room, I automatically assume my daughter has done something to make him cry. After Monday, I learned not to judge so quickly or react too dramatically. Tuesday evening, the both of them got into it in the next room. I went in to find my son crying. Instead of reacting or judging to quickly, I decided to try a little active inquiry. What I discovered is my son hit my daughter first. When she retaliated he learned by my reaction that if he cries she gets in trouble. In this particular case I was able to observe and obtain a better description of the situation; react appropriately to the whole story; evaluate and make a correct judgement; and finally intervene and make a better decision.

Flawless Consulting isn't just for the work place senarios. We can apply it to everything we do. Parenting sometimes feel like a process consulting job in that everyday one is a parent, more of the proverbal onion gets peeled back. It's a big onion, yes and sometimes it will make you cry. Thanks for reading!

Mirror post 2: Is it just me...

So it has taken a few classes, but I think I get this process consulting concept. Two weeks ago, I thought Block was wrong in his assessment that each step throughout the consulting intervention should be 50/50. That didn't make since to me. I thought about it from the 35,000 feet approach and said, maybe it could be 50/50 as a whole and that some accepts of the project would be more client and others more consultant. That really doesn't work either. I think the point that Block makes is that the project or intervention is just as much the client's as it is the consultants.

Take for example the time my division enlisted the help of a consultant. We spent about $25,000 for this individual to audit our back end processes. What was interesting is we spent all that money for the guy to tell us what we already knew. I don't discount what the gentleman does, but his approach was not so much to really us, but rather affirm what we knew. Knowing a little bit more about Block and understanding that to achieve a satisfactory result, a full investment from both parties is essential.

In this specific example, you can see that neither the client or the consultant had very much of a clue as to an end result. For $25,000 I could have said the same thing. What we needed on our team (client) was an individual with a good understanding of process consulting or a consultant who could help us help ourselves. I think that's what Block is trying to get at is working with the client to help them solve an issue. I love it when the light goes on upstairs.