Day 35: Consulting & Business Partnering

Two areas covered:

• 3.2.A Skill in synthesizing information to formulate recommendations or a course of action to gain agreement, support, and/or buy‐in from stakeholders.
• 3.2.B Skill in establishing and managing organizational and/or business partnerships and relationships.

​These are notes, expect typos.

Key Points

Clients may be internal or external
Steps:

• Know the client
• Establish credibility
• Identify barriers
• Synthesize information using good presentation
• Use communication tactics to influence
  • Expressive influencers
    • Tell
    • Sell
    • Negotiate
    • Enlist
  • Receptive influencers
    • Inquire
    • Listen
    • Attune
    • Facilitate
• TD professionals should act as trusted advisors to members of the C-suite who face rapid change, environmental complexities, a competitive global market, and evolving technology.
  
• Partnering is an ongoing role, whereas consulting is defined by a start and finish that follows a process defined by the consultant or the client. 
  
• W. Edwards Deming = 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.
  
• Edgar Schein identified the following roles
  • The expert role occurs when the consultant takes a directive role.
    
  • The facilitator role is one where the consultant is in a neutral position
    
  • 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.​

4 Phases of the Consulting Process

1.  Phase 1: Assessing the Need
2. Phase 2: Understanding the Issue
3. Phase 3: Present Findings and Interpretation
4. Phase 4: Developing and Implementing a Solution
5. Phase 5: Completing the Project and Evaluating the Results
   

Build Credibility

• Be proactive
• Focus on organizational success
• Apply business acumen
• Participate and communicate
• Deliver value

Useful Articles

• Performance Consulting Tips:  Transactional Work Is a Major Obstacle to “Doing” Performance Consulting
• https://www.td.org/insights/how-i-used-the-atd-capability-model-to-write-my-performance-objectives​

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