Flawless Consulting : A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used

by Block, Peter

• ISBN13: 9780470620748
• ISBN10: 0470620749
• eBook ISBN(s): 9781118000878
• Additional ISBN(s): 9780787948030, 9781394177301
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-03-15
• Publisher: Pfeiffer
• More Book Details

Summary

When the landmark best-seller Flawless Consulting was first published more than three decades ago, it was quickly adopted as the "consultant's bible." With his legendary warmth and passion, Peter Block explained how to deal effectively with clients, peers, and others. The book continues to speak to people in a support function inside organizations as well as to external consultants.

This thoroughly revised and updated third edition of Peter Block's groundbreaking book explores the latest thinking on consultation. It includes new insights about how we can organize our consulting around discovering the strengths, positive examples, and gifts of the client organization or community. The book remains a practical and specific guide for anyone who needs to develop a capacity for deeper relatedness and partnership -- which means it is for all who wish to make a real difference in the world.

This new edition covers the consulting challenges that have arisen from the way we routinely communicate electronically and live in the virtual world. Block suggests ways to overcome the distancing and isolating effects inherent in electronic connects. The book also includes practical guidance on how to ask better questions, gives suggestions for dealing with difficult clients, and contains expanded guidelines on more engaging forms of implementation.

Flawless Consulting includes two new examples, taken from health care and educational reform efforts, to show how consulting skills can be useful (and often transformative) in a broader context. These illustrative examples point the way for achieving changes for leadership in business, government, religion, human services, and more.

Like the first two editions, Flawless Consulting affirms the notion that authentic behavior and personal relationships are the key to technical and business success. By demonstrating their ability to be truly authentic at each step in the process, consultants can aim toward creating workplaces that are more collaborative and ultimately more successful.

Author Biography

Peter Block is an author and consultant whose work is about empowerment, stewardship, chosen accountability, and the reconciliation of community. He is the author of several best-selling books, including the first two editions of Flawless Consulting, Stewardship, Community, and The Empowered Manager. He is a partner in Designed Learning, a training company that offers his personally designed workshops that help to build the skills outlined in his books.

Table of Contents

What?s New

A Consultant by Any Other Name .

Some Definitions and Distinctions

Consulting Skills Preview

The Promise of Flawless Consultation

Techniques Are Not Enough

Beyond Content

The Consultant?s Assumptions

The Consultant?s Goals

Roles Consultants Choose

Collaboration and the Fear of Holding Hands

Stating the Client?s Involvement--Step by Step

Checklist # 1. Assessing the Balance of Responsibility

Flawless Consulting

Being Authentic

Completing the Requirements of Each Phase

Results

Accountability

The Right to Fail

Contracting Overview

Contracting--The Concept and the Skill

Contracting Skills

Elements of a Contract

Checklist # 2. Analyzing One of Your Contracts

Ground Rules for Contracting

The Contracting Meeting

Who Is the Client?

Navigating the Contracting Meeting

When You Get Stuck

The Problem with Saying No

Contracting Checkpoint

Checklist #3. Planning a Contracting Meeting

Selling Your Services--Good Selling Is Good Contracting

The Meeting As a Model of How You Work

Closing the Contracting Meeting

After the Contracting Meeting

Checklist # 4. Reviewing the Contracting Meeting

The Agonies of Contracting

Dealing with Low Motivation

Ceaselsss Negotiation--The Shifting Tide of Your Role

Some Other Specific Agonies

The Virtual World

The Internal Consultant

Important Differences between Internal and Externam Consultants

Triangles and Rectangles

Understanding Resistance

The Faces of Resistance

What Are Clients Resisting When They Are Resisting Us?

Underlying Concerns

Sometimes It Is Not Resistance

The Fear and the Wish

Ogres and Angels

And Heroics

Dealing with Resistance

Three Steps

Don?t Take It Personally

Good Faith Responses

Consulting with a Stone

From Diagnosis to Discovery

It Is Still the Relationship That Counts

The Call to Action

The Problem Is Not the Problem

How the Problem Is Being Managed

Flawless Discovery.11 Whole System Discovery

Third-Party Consulting

Takng a Whole-System Approach

Putting Whole-System Discovery to Work

The Payoff

Discovering Gifts, Capacities and Possibilities

When All Else Fails

The Power of Positive Deviance

The Implications for Consulting

An Example of What Is Working

Get the Picture

The Steps in Getting the Picture

A Word about Bias

Assessing How the Situation Is Being Managed

The Discovery Interview

Levels of Analysis

Your Experience As Data

Checklist # 5. Planning a Discovery Meeting

Checklist # 6. Reviewing the Discovery Meeting

Preparing for Feedback

A Clear Picture May Be Enough

Condensing the Data

Some Do?s and Don?ts

Language in Giving the Picture

Presenting the Picture . . . As Courtroom Drama

Support and Confrontation

Managing the Meeting for Action

How to Present the Picture

Structuring the Meeting

The Meeting for Action--Step by Step

A Recap

Resistance in the Meeting

Checklist # 7. Planning a Meeting For Action

When the Group Is at Odds among Themselves

Checklist # 8. Reviewing the Meeting

Modeling the Meeting

Implementation

Choosing Engagement over Installation

Deciding Doesn?t Get It Done

The Case Against Installation

Betting on Engagement

Elements of Engagement

The Meeting Is the Message

Eight Ways to Engage

The Point

Checklist # 9. Preparing for Implementation

Checklist # 10. Reviewing an Implementation Event

Consultant As Teacher

The Story

Assumptions about Motivating Students

The Reality

Taking a Consultant?s Stance

The Trip to Washington, DC

The Choice in the Matter

The Heart of the Matter

Choosing Learning over Teaching

Learning As a Social Adventure

The Struggle Is the Solution

The Question Is More Important Than the Answer

Beyond How

Insight Resides in Moments of Tension

Capacities Bear More Fruit Than Deficiencies

We Are Responsible for One Another?s Learning

Culture Changes in the Moment

If Change Is So Wonderful, Why Don?t You Go First?

The Final Question Is One of Faith

Suggestions for Further Reading

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About Designed Learning

Index

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