The Art of Being a Consultant (ABC)
Consultancy skills are crucial for service leaders and service management when managing internal and external relationships and when working collaboratively with technical and non-technical specialists of all disciplines – the challenge is to collaborate, which means sharing a common goal and vision, agreeing on priorities and processes, and working respectfully together.
Overview
Within organisations, service leaders often play the role of consultant, brokering business partnerships with internal and external functions that don’t always share common priorities, processes or goals. The crux of the challenge is that service leaders have to hold the responsibility for delivering the business and work through others to achieve collective success.
In this module, we explore some core skills to equip participants to engage with colleagues as partners – rapport-building, influencing people, facilitating discussions, steering meetings, and deeper levels of questioning to get to a deeper understanding of the issues. Ultimately, the senior-leader-as-consultant needs to create consensus and commitment.
We’ll explore these different techniques using people’s personal case studies as the backdrop so that they leave the session with questions answered, insights gained and renewed energy for collaboration. Many of the skills covered in this module are core NLP techniques – not ‘rocket-science’ and often simply a common-sense approach to relationships.
Pre-work and post-work
For this module, each person creates a personal case study by responding to a series of questions to help them focus on the issue from myriad perspectives. They’ll bring this case study (and any new insights that this exploration revealed) to the workshop. Additional reading will also be supported.
Following the module, we’ll recommend ongoing reading, thinking, research and discussion. A series of post-course actions twice a month serves as a reminder to participants that the learnings, techniques and insights should be reviewed regularly. Ideally, a 3-month check-in helps people to review their objectives, their situations and their own actions.
Coach
Janine Elton
Delivered in partnership with Elton Mellor Ltd
Janine’s refreshing approach inspires, motivates and challenges individuals and organizations to achieve their full potential.
Objectives
By the end of this module, participants will be better able to:
- Use deeper level questions and clearer listening to get to the heart of the matter
- Use rapport building techniques to create trust and respect, even with challenging people
- Create and analyse objectively stakeholder mapping techniques to inform their actions
- Anticipate the unconscious drivers, needs and position of other parties
- Structure meetings and facilitate difficult discussions skilfully, using a range of approaches
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