Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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The Promise
The power balance in lateral relationships is always
open to ambiguity and to negotiation. When we get resistance from a client, sometimes we arent sure whether to push harder or to let go. This book is about managing this kind of ambiguity. Its about methods and techniques, but the consistent message is that each act that expresses trust in ourselves and belief in the validity of our own experience is always the right path to follow. Each act that is manipulative or filled with pretense is always self-destructive.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Situation Overview
The Preliminary Events
Specific to your discipline Engineering Project Mgmt Marketing Manufacturing Personnel Technical Skills Apply to all Situations Assertiveness Supportiveness Confrontation Listening Group Process Interpersonal Skills
Consulting Skills
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Beyond Substance
You always operate at two levels. One level is the
substance the cognitive, problem-solving, rational, or explicit level. At another level, both you and the client are generating and sensing your feeling about each other.
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Affective Elements
Responsibility. In most cases the client comes to you with the expectation that once you are told what the problem is, you provide the solution. Your goal is to act out the fact that its a 50-50 proposition.
Feelings Feelings are diagnostic data. Is the client owning feelings or just observing. Pay attention to your own feelings too.
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Affective Elements
Trust. The prevailing image is the consultant as expert and someone to watch out for. Ask the client whether they trust your confidentiality, if they trust you not to put them down or take things over. The more distrust is put into words, the more likely you are to build trust. Your Own Needs. Consultants have a right to their own needs from a relationship. Its easy to fall into a service mentality.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Assumptions
Problem solving requires valid data.
Objective data Personal data. Effective decision making requires free and open choice. Effective implementation requires internal commitment.
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Consultants Goals
1. To establish a collaborative relationship.
We may cling to the fantasy that if our thinking is clear and logical, our wording is eloquent, and our convictions are solid, the strengths of our arguments will carry the day. The client and his or her colleagues will experience doubt and dilemmas that block commitment. Confront the doubts at every stage.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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The core transaction of any consulting contract is the transfer of expertise from the consultant to the client. Whatever the expertise, its the basis for the consultants being in business.
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Roles
Expert Role (what can happen)
The manager elects to play an inactive role. Decisions on how to proceed are made by the consultant. Information needed is gathered by the consultant. Technical control rests with the consultant. Collaboration is not required. Two-way communication is limited. The consultant plans and implements the main events. The managers role is to judge and evaluate after the fact. The consultants goal is to solve the immediate problem.
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Roles
Pair-of-Hands (what can happen).
The consultant takes a passive role. Decisions on how to proceed are made by the manager. The manager selects methods for analysis. Control rests with the manager, and Collaboration is not really necessary. Two-way communication is limited. The manager specifies procedures for the consultant to implement. The managers role is to judge and evaluate from a close distance. The consultants goal is to make the system more effective by the application of specialized knowledge.
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Roles
Collaborative Role (what can happen).
The consultant and manager work to become interdependent. Decision making is bilateral mutual exchange. Data collection and analysis are joint efforts. Control issues become matters for discussion and negotiation. Collaboration is considered essential. Communication is two-way. Implementation responsibilities are determined by discussion and agreement. The consultants goal is to solve problems so they stay solved.
insubordination.
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Situation Overview
The Preliminary Events
Specific to your discipline Engineering Project Mgmt Marketing Manufacturing Personnel Technical Skills Apply to all Situations Assertiveness Supportiveness Confrontation Listening Group Process Interpersonal Skills
Consulting Skills
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The Stages
The stages leading up to implementation of a change
(the preliminary events) can be divided into 12 specific action steps. Each step provides an opportunity for you to involve the client in the process without unnaturally downplaying your specific expertise.
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The Steps
1. Defining the initial problem. 2. Deciding to proceed.
(Shared Involvement)
1. Ask the client to state what
be studied.
the problem is. Add what you think. 2. You also have some choice. If you think it wont succeed in the way it is set up, negotiate. 3. You may know best, but the client has operating experience with the problem and the people. Ask what to look for.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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The Steps
4. Who will be involved?
(Shared Involvement)
4. The client often expects the
consultant to do the whole job. Involve a consultantclient team. 5. The client has ideas about how the data should be collected. Ask. 6. Have the client do it with you. 7. - 9. Urge the client to be with you at certain points. Involve the client in analysis.
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The Steps
10. Feedback of Results. 11. Making recommendations.
(Shared Involvement)
10. More of the same. Have the
client share in presenting the data analysis in the feedback meeting. 11. Developing workable recommendations requires the integration of your knowledge and the clients. 12. When someone in the organization has made an important contribution to a project, they should be included in the decisionmaking meeting.
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Being Authentic
Authentic behavior with a client means you put into
words what you are experiencing with the client as you work. This is the most powerful thing you can do to have the leverage you are looking for, and to build client commitment. Whenever you are with a client, ask yourself two questions:
1. 2.
Am I being authentic with this person now? Am I completing the business of the consulting phase I am in?
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Flawless Consulting
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Contracting Skills
To contract flawlessly is to:
cope with mixed motivation, surface concerns about exposure and loss of control, and clarify all parties to the contract. The contract is a social contract simply an explicit agreement of what the consultant and client expect from each other, and how they are going to work together.
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Consulting Competencies
Ask direct questions about who the client is and who
the less visible parties to the contract are. Elicit the clients expectations of you. Clearly/simply state what you want from the client. Say no or postpone a project that in your judgment has less than a 50/50 chance of success.
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Consulting Competencies
Probe directly for the clients concerns about
exposure, losing control, and vulnerability. Give direct verbal support to the client. When the contracting meeting is not going well, discuss directly with the client why this contracting meeting is not going well.
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Accountability
The key to increasing the chances of success is to
keep focusing on how you work with clients. All we can really control is our own way of working, our own behavior, our own strategies of involving clients and reducing their reluctance. We are not accountable for what clients do in managing or mismanaging their own operations. Try to have power with your clients rather than have power over them.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Consideration
Consideration is the exchange of something of value
between the consultant and the client. The consultant needs something of value in return. The consulting contract should include:
Operational partnership in the venture influence. Access to people and information in the line organization. Time of people in the line organization. The opportunity to be innovative.
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Contract Elements
1. The boundaries of your analysis. 2. Objectives of the project. 3. The kind of information you seek. 4. Your role in the project.
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Contract Elements
1. The boundaries of your analysis. 2. Objectives of the project. To solve a particular business problem. To teach the client how to solve the problem for themselves next time. To improve how the organization manages its resources, uses its systems, and works internally.
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Contract Elements
1. The boundaries of your analysis. 2. Objectives of the project. 3. The kind of information you seek. 4. Your role in the project.
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consideration from both sides. 4. All wants are legitimate. To want is a birthright. You cant say, You shouldnt want that. 5. You can say no to what others want from you. Even clients.
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keep breathing. You will survive, you will still have more clients in the future. 7. You can contract for behavior, you cant contract for the other person to change their feelings. 8. You cant ask for something the other person doesnt have. 9. You cant promise something you dont have to deliver.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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14.
room, such as clients bosses and subordinates. You have to meet with them directly to know you have an agreement with them. Write down contracts when you can. Most are broken out of neglect, not intent. Social contracts are always renegotiable. Be grateful if they are telling you and not just doing it. Contracts require specific time deadlines or duration. Good contracts require good faith and often accidental good fortune.
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the client during the initial contracting meetings is an accurate predictor of how the project will proceed. The critical skill in contracting is to be able to identify and discuss process issues between the consultant and the client as they occur. Try to have at least one meeting with each person who is part of initiating your project. The meeting should be a model of how you work.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Personal acknowledgement Communicate understanding of the problem Client wants and offers Consultant wants and offers Agreement Ask for feedback on control and commitment Give support Restate actions
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when youre not selling. Dont try to overcome the resistance with more explanations and pleas for the good of the organization. Do help the client express the reservations about you and your products. Do admit you are there to sell and want them to buy. Do be authentic and follow the contracting sequence.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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offering the right service? The meeting is a model of how you work. No contracting meeting should end without your asking for feedback about how the manager feels about the project, the meeting, and you. Leave 20 minutes to discuss these questions.
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Constraints?
You have two weeks to do a four week job
people. Nobody knows the real reason for this job and you shouldnt tell them. You shouldnt upset anybody or open Pandoras box. The project has a budget of $1.85. After this meeting the client wont have any more time to spend with you. What do you think?
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Low Motivation?
1. Assume the client is feeling coerced. 2. Suggest the client renegotiate the specs, the
problem, the need to do the project. 3. Contract with the client for a small-step project. 4. Contract for a way of doing the project that minimizes the clients exposure/loss of control. 5. Hope for the best.
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Other Agonies
Ceaseless Negotiation. Sustaining/renegotiating the agreement is ceaseless. If you let it slide. Do it now, as soon as you sense the client is treating you differently. The longer you wait, the more difficult it is.
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Other Agonies
Go-Betweens. Get to the manager. Defining the Problem to Death. 35% of the meeting time, maximum. Lets stop talking about the problem for a moment. Look at the client and start making statements.
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Contracting Checklist
1.
Client
Consultant
2.
Which did you explore directly? Which did you not really explore?
Which did you put into words? Which did you express indirectly or not at all?
3.
4.
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Contracting Checklist
5.
What facial and body language did you observe? 7. How would you rate the clients motivation to proceed? 8. How would you rate your own motivation to proceed? 9. What didnt you express to the client? 10. Review Navigating the Contracting Meeting.
6.
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Understanding Resistance
The hardest part of consulting is coping successfully
with resistance from the client. You get it no matter how reasonable and rational you are. The key to understanding it is to realize that it is a reaction to an emotional process taking place within the client. It is not the reflection of the conversation you are having with the client on an objective, logical, rational level.
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Understanding Resistance
Resistance is a predictable, natural, emotional
reaction against the process of being helped, and against the process of having to face up to difficult organizational problems. Resistance is a necessary part of the learning process, and wishing it to go away or not appear actually poses an obstacle. For the client to learn something important, the feelings of resistance need to be expressed directly before they are genuinely ready to accept something new.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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on target. Support the client in expressing the resistance directly. Dont take the expression of the resistance personally or as an attack on your competence.
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Intellectualizing Theory after theory about why things are as they are.
Moralizing Those people They need to understand
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Resisting What?
Clients look straight at you when theyre being
defensive. You are the one who has to answer the questions and weather the storm. Its natural to feel that the resistance is aimed at you. The resistance is not aimed at you. The fact is they are going to have to
(a) make a difficult choice or decision, (b) take an unpopular action, or (c) confront some reality that they have emotionally been trying to avoid.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Resisting What?
Underlying concerns of the client are usually about
Control
Vulnerability
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Resisting What?
Sometimes it is not resistance. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. (Freud) We can all become paranoid by interpreting every
line managers objections as resistance covering some underlying anxieties. Sometimes the manager is just taking responsibility as has the right to choose. If we think its the wrong choice, well thats life.
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Fears
Client Fears
Helplessness. Futility. I have no power to change the situation. I am a victim. Alienation from the organization and people around me. I dont belong here. Confusion. I have too much info. I cant sort it out or see clearly.
Consultant Fears
I can have no impact. No reward for the effort. Distance from the client. Strangers. We will never get close. I have to stay in role. I have too little info. They wont or cant tell me what is really happening.
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Wishes
Client Potential
Has choices and the power to act on the situation. Is an actor, not a victim. Engages the situation. Feels a part of it. Moves toward the difficult reality and tension. Choices are clear. Mass of information is simplified.
Consultant Potential
High impact. Clear payoff for effort expended. Can be authentic and intimate. No role behavior. Is included with all information. Sees situation with clarity.
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Being Dependent
Asking for help can be seen (or felt) as a sign of
weakness. There is also the related feeling that nothing can be done to help the problem is unsolvable. When you encounter resistance, this should be explored. When clients ask for help, they want both solutions and confirmation that everything they have done has been perfect. People entering therapy want confirmation, not change.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Being Dependent
In the world of emotions, two opposite feelings can
exist at the same time. Clients may want to learn and solve problems, but At the same time they also want support and to be told that they are handling that problem better than anyone else in the country. Approach Avoidance. The resistance is the avoidance. Right behind the avoidance you will find the approach.
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Being Dependent
When we help the resistance get expressed, it
diminishes. We are then working with a client who is ready and willing to learn and be influenced. Flawlessly dealing with resistance is understanding the two-headed nature of being in the client position and accepting it as okay. Ogres dont exist, angels are one-sided images, and heroic consultants lead to bad contracts.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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2.
3.
Identify in your own mind what form the resistance is taking. What you see happening. State in a neutral, nonpunishing way, the form the resistance is taking. This is called naming the resistance. Be quiet. Let the line manager respond to your statement.
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Communication
Words
7%
38%
55%
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Flawless Consulting
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Diagnosis Concepts
The concern of the consultant is how to get the client
to accept the diagnosis, more than how to develop the diagnosis in the first place. To wait until the feedback meeting to worry about client acceptance of recommendations is too late. The skill for the consultant is to address the organizational element of each problem as rationally as we address the technical part of each problem. The purpose of a diagnosis is to mobilize action on a problem.
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Research Approach
Interested in all factors that impact the problem at hand. Being comprehensive and complete in the diagnosis is essential. You can do research on your own. The organization doesnt have to be involved as part of the research team. You try to eliminate bias and intuition of the researcher. Heavy emphasis on objectivity and hard data. Essentially neutral toward whether the organization approves of the outcomes of the study.
Action Approach
Interested in factors which are under the control of the client and affect the problem. Completeness is not necessary. It can be overwhelming at the point of deciding what to do. The clients involvement in the study is important at each stage. Use all the feelings and perceptions you have, in addition to hard data. You are getting paid for bias and intuition. Deeply concerned about the attitude of the client toward the outcome of the study.
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Redefinition of problem
And also
Including the
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technical and organizational problems. The presenting problem is almost always about the technical/business problem. Organizational problems include how the technical/business problem is being managed. The choice is whether you want to address how the problem is being managed directly or indirectly. To consult flawlessly you need to begin to address the organizational side of the problem as a regular part of your consultation.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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What is the technical or business problem that you are experiencing? Second Layer What are other individuals or groups in the organization doing to either cause or maintain this problem? Third Layer What is your role in the problem? What is there in your approach or way of managing the situation that might be contributing to the problem?
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Interview Responses
1. Restatement Put what is said into other words
through identifying with the dilemma. Keep it short. 3. Open-ended Questions Ask a question in a way that does not program a certain answer, or allow a yes or no answer. 4. Hypothesis about the Next Layer Make tentative guesses about how the person is feeling about others involved, or their own role in the problem.
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a defense. If it werent for so-and-so. The group always has a part in the melodrama. View the group as a self-maintaining system, sharing the blame and the credit. It is important to view all problems as organizational problems. What youre really trying to do is change the norms and methods the organization use to do business.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Flawless Consulting
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perfect recommendations. The consultants primary task is to present the picture this is 70% of the contribution you make. Trust it. Trust yourself to focus on what you feel is important. Focus on items that:
The client has control over changing. Are clearly important to the organization There is some commitment to work on, somewhere.
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70
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process of the meeting and deal directly with the resistance as it occurs.
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personally, but during the day, no matter how many guns are aimed at you, your task is to stay focused on the clients internal struggle to confront the reality that is being resisted.
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(First Half)
Minutes 3
15%
Present Recommendations Ask Client for Reactions to the Data 30% Ask Client for Reactions to the Recommendations
18
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(First Half)
What they wanted, what you promised. You control the meeting. Avoid distance and perfection Get them to adopt as their own. You want reservations expressed. Dont get defensive. But dont cave.
15%
Present Recommendations Ask Client for Reactions to the Data 30% Ask Client for Reactions to the Recommendations
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(Second Half)
Minutes 6
30%
Decision to Proceed
18
10%
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(Second Half)
Power with enough time (and guts). So you can participate in the decision.
30%
Decision to Proceed
Uneasy?
10%
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going to feel anxiety and resist. They will ask the aggressive questions. Do not over-invest in the resistant people. Two good faith responses is enough. Beware quick compliance. Moderate tension is useful and good. Resistance doesnt die when the decision to proceed is made.
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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The Benediction
Your real task as a consultant is to be constantly
noticing what you are experiencing and to behave as authentically as possible. We all want to have a feeling of control. To gain this control is to give it up. Being authentic is to reduce the amount you control, and to censor your own experience. To censor your own experience is to give other people power over you you are letting their reactions determine how you function.
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The Benediction
The way to have leverage is not to give it away. The way to avoid giving leverage away is to reduce
the extent you restrain yourself from acting on your own instincts and perceptions. Acting without restraint is being authentic. Being authentic and attending to the task requirements of each phase is consulting flawlessly. And thats all there is to it.
Thank You!
Peter Block, Flawless Consulting
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Veritas
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