Utilizing Consultants Effectively

In a rapidly changing and dynamic business environment we have to trust and rely on those who specialize in niche areas. 

When looking at outsourcing a specialty service, you have to question the reasons for bringing in an outside resource. Your management team needs to look deeper than, should we outsource our HR or AP/AR. There are many different circumstances in which a consultant can assist your organization. 

The largest failure in hiring a consultant is not what they were hired to consult on, but how the management team uses them. Many times the team will start seeking ways to reinforce their position and strengthen their choices in front of the management team. 

Many times it is not the answers to the questions you ask, but what questions you are not asking that hold the value. In the book How to think like Einstein, Scott Thorpe explains its not just about the answer you are seeking, but the question you may be unaware of. When you get stuck in a bad pattern, continuing the behavior repeatedly only increases the odds you repeat the same negative behavior in the future. 

Many times people, staff and management are unaware that a pattern is negative, until they get a fresh set of eyes to objectively review their patterns. 

So how do you break the ingrained patterns and change behavior in the future? Hire a consultant. This statement assumes that your team is discerning enough to hire the right consultant. The problem with hiring a consultant is that you are the customer and they are serving you, which means they may not give you direct and candid answers. 

I will leave the vetting and choice of a consultant to another article, and will focus on how to effectively use a consultant.   

The topic of what questions to ask has already been broached, and I would like to pursue it further. I have sat in on many meetings with consultants and management teams where 2 or 3 members of the team ask thinly veiled questions to the consultants about an area. They are not seeking new opportunities or procedures, but reinforcement that what they are doing is the best way. This is one method of a peaceful mutiny, if the leader is lost and taking the organization in a bad direction. 

Many times this is not the case, and the CEO or Board is not in the room. It is upper management disputing how to restructure, what price point to set or what avenues to pursue for additional revenue. 

This is a waste of consultant time and a form of low emotional intelligence. This is not a reason to hire a consultant. 

So how can you use a consultant effectively? Ask questions, some you may think you know the answer to already, but the important thing is to listen and think. Let the conversation develop similar to a brainstorming session, keep a positive atmosphere, don't reject or scoff at any question or point brought up. 

A consultant hired by your company is a new opportunity to grow, develop and understand your business and team better. If your company experienced cutbacks over the past few years, you may have lost the benefits of conferences. This can be an opportunity to learn, don't squander the opportunity.

Learn best practices from these specialized consultants and pursue methods of using them as personal mentors and trainers. Use them for what they are, specialists who understand and know the industry.  

Negotiation from Academia to Practice

The Professor walks in the quite and relatively small classroom and starts once again to try to undo 16 years of training. The Professor is thin of medium height with salt and pepper hair cut in military fashion. Though medium height, he commands respect and the attention of all who are in the same room with him. We are now in week 8 of 16 and we are facing the same problem we faced 8 weeks ago.

In theory we are supposed to challenge everything presented to us and make no assumptions, however that is turning out to be a harder feat than first expected. Via questions we are supposed to diplomatically question him and everything he assigns us. Over the last 16 years of our life we have been taught to obey authority figures, the penalty of our disobedience shame or even jail. How do we now overcome that to become critical thinking individuals who can respectfully challenge the forces in our lives?

My class mates speak out of how they utilize in their lives the skills learned in this classroom. Yet when we are placed in this environment, it is as if our brains are placed in a vacuum and nothing said applies to us or what we are currently doing.

How do my odd interactions with an overqualified professor intertwine with negotiation? Many argue that everything is a negotiation http://jobfunctions.bnet.com/abstract.aspx?docid=153954  and that the key is not understanding what is negotiable, but rather what negotiation style fits your personality and skill set.

The classroom is a factitious expression of the educational system, and is an inhibitor of true education. We are restricted to the depth of cultivation the instructor perceives will push us to the point of learning without compromising positive reviews on the FCQ's.

How do we transform into better negotiators? Trying to gain the larger promotion or the cheaper vehicle... With an unlimited supply of negotiation tactics how do determine the right one to learn? The one that seems to be effective, or the most reasonable or perhaps the one that resonates in a corner of our soul? Everyone has a PowerPoint or ten point program on how to best accomplish your negotiation successfully. In my opinion these are all bogus, strategists and arbitrators stumble upon a winning strategy, name it and think it will work in your life somehow.

How do we contrive a workable process that can help us solve our everyday issues? Is there one solution for all of your problems? Is Effective Questioning (http://www.coachingforchange.com/pub10.html) the antidote for our inefficacy's?