High Performance Consulting Skills , livre ebook

Thorogood Publishing - Thomas Mark

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150 pages

English

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Description

The concept of the 'internal consultant' is now gaining considerable ground as managers in support functions seek to redefine their role and effectiveness. The emphasis that it places on moving from a 'colleague' to a 'client' perspective within the business can bring major benefits to both adviser and organisation.this book provides...... a practical understanding of the skills required to become a high-performance internal consultant, whatever your own area of expertise. It will help you:Develop stronger, more productive working relationships with internal clientsSecure greater internal client commitment to initiatives and change projectsWork effectively in a less formal and hierarchical way on projects and initiativesMarket your services and build powerful internal networksEnhance your own worth and value to the organisationwho should read this book?All managers working in support functions, such as HR, audit, training, personnel and IT, as well as areas such as finance and marketing.

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Strategic management

Informations

Publié par	Thorogood Publishing
Date de parution	11 mars 2003
Nombre de lectures	6
EAN13	9781854188533
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0450€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published in e-book format 2012 Thorogood Publishing Ltd 10-12 Rivington Street London EC2A 3DU Telephone: 020 7749 4748 Fax: 020 7729 6110 Email: info@thorogoodpublishing.co.uk Web: www.thorogoodpublishing.co.uk
© Mark Thomas 2003
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed upon the subsequent purchaser.
No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person acting or refraining from action as a result of any material in this publication can be accepted by the author or publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
HB: ISBN 1 85418 293 5
PB: ISBN 1 85418 258 7
Dedication
With love to Jan, Ben and Hannah
Special thanks

Dr Sam Elbeik for his great help and co-operation in originating and developing the terms of reference templates and assistance in the project management area.
Alf Chattel for his continued support and permission in drafting some of the process approaches and methodologies.
May you both continue to thrive and prosper.
Tracey Norbury of HSBC for lending some of her real life observations.
A very special thanks to Matthias Behrens of Autodesk for sharing his considerable experience.
Introduction
This book will provide you with a highly detailed and practical understanding of the critical client management and handling skills needed to become a high performance internal consultant. The approach and practices I have detailed are based on over 20 years corporate and consulting experience in major blue chip organizations across the globe. Apply them well and you will enjoy extremely successful client relationships.
Internal consultancy brings together a complex range of skills and disciplines and combines them with a distinctive client focus. The purpose in writing this book is to provide you with a daily reference of practical guidance, action points and ideas when managing clients and projects.
With the ever-changing shape of the global economy and organizations it is clear that the internal consultant role is assuming greater importance and is expanding. Since first writing on this trend in 1996 internal consultancy has continued to break into the mainstream of organization life and in particular the role of support functions. If you attend business conferences and read the corporate job advertisements you soon realise that the title ‘internal consultant’ or ‘adviser’ is proliferating and now spans all key support functions.
I believe the internal consultancy model offers a major step in harnessing internal knowledge and expertise to improve organizational performance. It is an approach that is very much in tune with the fluid and dynamic nature of today’s business world.
I have written with a strong emphasis on the practical ‘How to’ aspects of internal consultancy. I don’t set out to teach you anything about your technical or functional areas of expertise be it information technology, finance, total quality or human resources. My assumption is that you probably already have considerable specialist expertise. What I do set out to do is provide you with a very clear process to manage your clients and projects in a professional and successful manner. I have included many checklists and templates for you to use, adapt or revise to your individual needs.
The emphasis internal consultancy places on moving from a ‘colleague to client’ perspective can bring major benefits to both you and any support function you belong to. Indeed the very essence of a client centred consulting relationship involves providing a level of service that exceeds the controlling and bureaucratic tendencies of many traditional support functions. As such the consultancy model has particular relevance if you operate in one of the following roles: Information technology and systems specialist Finance and internal audit professional Human resources or personnel specialist Training and development specialist Business development specialist Project manager Administration manager Facilities manager Customer service and support specialist Total quality management specialist
We all know that many organizations continue to outsource support functions with the result that internal customers have the choice to buy external resources. This trend is accelerating in the core support areas of information technology, human resources, training and development and facilities management. Competition is now a daily reality for those of us who work in advisory roles. So, if our support roles are to thrive and prosper in the future organization, we will need to focus relentlessly on providing value added services. The consultancy model offers a major response to these challenges.
At the same time, should you simply want to harness some of the benefits of the operating style of internal consultancy to enhance your existing organizational role, I trust you will find much to meet your needs. As the skills and practices detailed in this book are generic they can be applied to almost any management role in some capacity or other.
I wish you success and many years of successful consultancy work.
Mark A Thomas
Chapter One - From managing change to managing surprise?
This book is titled ‘High Performance Consulting Skills’ and builds on an earlier work ‘Supercharge Your Management Role’ that was first published in 1996 and reflected on some of the radical changes taking place in organizations and in particular managerial roles and support functions. Since then those trends have accelerated beyond anyone’s imagination.
Between 1998 and 2000 nearly four trillion euros worth of corporate merger transactions were implemented. We have witnessed the traumatic rise and fall of the Dot Coms, along with the rise and collapse of the global telecommunications sector where literally billions of euros appear to have been overspent on securing 3G licences. We are currently experiencing the worst bear market since the Second World War. Added to which we have witnessed some of the most flagrant abuses of corporate power and leadership ever seen at Enron, WorldCom and more recently in Europe with Ahold. All of which has been set against an increasingly insecure and politically unstable world as witnessed by the immense tragedy of September 11th.
It is against this continued volatility and turbulence that organizations are striving more than ever before to achieve new capabilities of flexibility and responsiveness. Organization structures and job roles are in a constant state of flux. Old models of organizing no longer provide tomorrow’s growth. Existing concepts of management that rely heavily on notions of planning, checking and controlling are being assigned to the dustbin.
The future is now more uncertain than ever before. In response, organizations are daily announcing major shifts in strategies, product lines and service offerings. Technology is promoting new forms of organization structure and location is becoming less of an issue as to where work is organized and executed. Our old assumptions about how to design, manage and run organizations are subject to constant and radical review. The fact is that we are involved in a period of major upheaval and transition; where simply doing more of what we have done in the past will not sustain us in the future. Today we have to manage by the ‘second hand’ not the calendar. Increasingly the question is not are we better this year than last, but are we better today than we were yesterday? Equally our planning horizons seem to have to be set in terms of weeks and months rather than years.
So as organizations pursue the benefits of rapid technological change, so to, are new ideas about managing people being explored and implemented. Concepts such as empowerment seek to place greater emphasis on people accepting increased responsibility and control for their work. Such ideas are gaining ground throughout the competitive world. Knowledge management has become one of the buzz-words of the late 90’s and early millennium. As a result it is becoming clear that what managers have traditionally practised is being questioned. The classic planning, controlling and reviewing functions of management are being transferred to the people who actually execute the real work. The race to do it ‘right first time’ means that organizations can no longer afford large numbers of managers controlling people. Self-management is the philosophy and approach that many organizations want to operate in order to win in the competitive world.
Many middle management roles are simply too cumbersome and expensive for organizations to compete against faster and more innovative low cost competitors. The result is a desire to explore new and more radical approaches to the notions of supervision as a means of reducing costs and accelerating competitive capabilities. Many of our existing organizational concepts and practices have had their roots in the 1960’s genre of management, so real innovation has been a long time coming.
‘The bigger my budget and headcount, the bigger fish I am’ philosophy has historically been the basis on which many successful management careers have been built. Indeed such behaviours have been actively encouraged by many organizational reward and appraisal systems. For example, traditional job evaluation techniques have often rewarded jobs that have been characterised by size in terms of the numbers of staff reporting and budget responsibility. But these types