When working with an organization, my toolset includes teaching/training, mentoring, coaching, facilitation, and consultancy. Usually, one of the first steps would include organizational assessment. Actually, that’s one of the most efficient ways to use the brain of an external consultant – my knowledge, experience, and ability to understand a complex system, some patterns, and forces that are causing the system to behave as it does.
Assessment is risk and potentially damage-free – as it is observations and advice. Education is also a risk-free activity. New knowledge won’t hurt. Any kind of facilitation would also be risk-free.
As I wrote when describing a belief system, most of the value I can bring as an external consultant would be:
- “connecting dots” for you – helping you see some connections that were not obvious;
- bringing some new tools and technics to the table, that you weren’t aware of;
- challenging and upgrading your operating system – beliefs and assumptions that you, as an organization, are operating upon.
Organizational Consultancy is implemented through a series of short-term, high-impact interventions that transform your perspective and enhance your capability to deliver exceptional value to your customers, unlocking new possibilities for success. Assessment, which I mentioned above, could be an example of such a short-term intervention. Teaching training courses, delivering workshops, and running simulations could be other examples of such interventions. Establishing a value stream (design, operational launch, some initial improvements) takes longer than the examples above, but I would still consider it relatively short-term.
So, while engagement overall may be a long one, it consists of a series of short ones followed by intervals for data gathering and reflection, when I’m not involved.
Unlike, this schema, you can also involve me long-term full-time or close to that even including internal hire via Strategic Partnership.