| HR Tool: Grow Your Strategic Consulting Skills | |
Part 3: More Resources
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Susan M. Heathfield
Assessment, Feedback and Managing Change
These readings and Practicing Organization Development focus on the step of assessing organizational difficulties and opportunities and providing feedback to the potential clients. If you are working with a group, discussion emphasizes how to obtain information and how to assess the validity of the information you collect. The discussion should also highlight “how” to provide feedback to clients in such a way that they decide to work with you. The ethics of feedback and assessment relative to individual safety and trust should also be discussed. Honesty to yourself and the customer and providing the authentic or real you is critical. Learn the consultant’s credo, “Do no harm.”
Begin your discussion of managing change during this session. Much of your effectiveness in addressing the difficulties of a group will be determined by how this stage is carried out. Appropriately managing change within your client department will often predict the success or failure of the intervention in which you are participating.
- Flawless Consulting. Block, Peter
- Managing Transitions. Bridges, William
Action Planning: Managing the Process of Change and Adoption
These readings, with Practicing Organization Development, will focus on the step of action planning. Action planning occurs after you have provided the client with feedback and recommendations based on the assessment you performed. Action planning is often the forgotten step. The client will often look at your recommendations and wholeheartedly accept them. He or she then expects that you will immediately move forward with their implementation. This is a mistake.
Action planning is the opportunity to obtain ownership by the client of the intervention. Discussion in a group should focus on involving the client so that the client's organization learns skills to keep the changes moving forward after the engagement with the consultant ends.
- The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Senge, Peter M. et al
- The Change Agent’s Handbook: A Survival Guide for Quality Improvement Champions. Hutton, David W.
- Leading Change. Kotter, John B.
- Managing Transitions: Making the Most of Change . Bridges, William
- Helping Employees Cope with Change. Truell, George F.
- Teaching the Elephant to Dance: Empowering Change in Your Organization. Belasco, James A.
Intervention in Large Systems and Small Groups
These readings will help you focus on the types of interventions that can be useful in assisting groups to change and grow. Specifically, if working with a group, discuss large system change. Address how to perform interventions in small groups and teams. Begin a discussion about how to form work teams and how to move an organization in the direction of high performing work teams.
- Process Consultation for Small Groups and Teams. Reddy, W. Brendon
- The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High Performance Organization. Katzenbach, Jon R. and Douglas K. Smith)
- The Skilled Facilitator: Practical Wisdom for Developing Effective Groups. Schwarz, Roger M.
Concluding Comments
I trust these ideas will start you on the path to a more fulfilling HR career in which your knowledge, talents and skills are fully utilized and appreciated in your organization.
I am always interested in your feedback. What books and other resources have most effectively assisted you to develop in your HR role? Which have helped you grow as a person and as a professional? What do you most frequently recommend to others? Please join the discussion in the HR forum.
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