This course is intended for staff departments eager to improve the customer-relations skills their members display toward their internal clients. The focus of the course is on skills and techniques that allow staff groups to be seen as supporting and advancing the strategic purposes of line groups, rather than as procedural and political hurdles to their effectiveness.

Complete Course Description

PURPOSE OF THE WORKSHOP: Staff and Support Groups in large organizations succeed at their work when they help line managers arrive at solutions to their own problems, rather than presenting them with a lot of free, prescriptive advice. Effective staff people are, therefore, facilitators of a process and implementors of solutions, rather than periodic producers of paper and reports.

The purpose of this workshop is to teach these staff people a set of skills which allow them to do that job effectively, to diagnose problems and propose remedies in such a way that their solutions are entertained non-defensively, supportively, and credibly. This workshop was designed to meet the needs of people who do staff work in large organizations, particularly those in Human Resources, Information Systems, Central Engineering, Market Planning, Financial Analysis & Control, and General Administration.

CONTENT OF THE WORKSHOP: This workshop covers these six skill areas:

1. Basic Consultation Techniques
An internal consultant is often hampered by not being able to see a situation clearly enough to take appropriate action. What managers rarely want in this sort of situation is free advice or dogmatic staff prescriptions. They need some kind of catalytic intervention to help them improve their perceptions, widen their view, or increase their range of options. This kind of catalytic intervention is best done through guided questioning by a skilled staff professional. In this section of the course we describe that kind of process consulting, teach some basic skills for doing it, and offer some practice at applying it through appropriate role plays. We cover these topics:

• The four kinds of consulting efforts (catalytic, confrontational, prescriptive, and theoretic) and how to select the appropriate one.



• How to conduct a highly-focused probe interview.



• The formal steps, from initial contracting to final implementation, that every consulting assignment goes through.



• The four major focal issues that, to one degree or another, mark every consulting assignment, and some methods for identifying what they are in each assignment.



• The three types of internal clients one can encounter, and selecting the appropriate style for each.



• The catalytic intervention as the most complex but most effective consulting tool, and the seven steps for conducting such an intervention.

• Presenting concepts to clients with self-confidence and relevance.



• Dealing with the irrational beliefs that block or inhibit that process.



• Analyzing games people play to avoid asserting their ideas and thereby risking a confrontation.



• Identifying sources of personal influence; assessing accurately the power one can bring to bear in any life transaction.



• Learning solid negotiating techniques, and then preparing to negotiate successfully.

• Recognizing the typical ways resistance is expressed.



• Learning effective techniques for coping with those resistances.



• Surfacing legitimate differences and healthy conflict in these situations.



• Identifying the underlying needs of all parties which must be satisfied.



• Engineering win-win solutions which respond to those needs, rather than seeking to win through power, superior logic, or patronizing put-downs.

• Define the problem that is at the core of the assignment and the scope of it in such a way that all parties to this task can agree to it.



• Establish assignment outcomes in actionable, measurable terms.



• Describe the work to be done, the schedule for completion, the resources to be employed, and the target date for completion.



• Milestone the work in order to keep clients regularly informed and ultimately surprise-free.



• Write these understandings up in the form of a contract or agreement that is fair to all parties.

• one-on-one or one-on-small-group presentation skills for delivering consensus conclusions.



• A method for helping clients hear what is being said, rather than engaging in the defense of cognitive or organizational turf.

• Getting all participants to focus on the problem rather than on each other.



• Concentrating on interests rather than positions, and thereby avoiding no-win pushing matches.



• Helping opposing parties generating options for mutual gain.



• Taking into account, and then dealing effectively with, peoples’ feelings and emotions.



• Arriving at one solution which has the best chance of maximizing mutual gain.