East Baton Rouge Parish Library

Humble consulting, how to provide real help faster, Edgar H. Schein

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrations

index present

non fiction

Humble consulting

dictionariesbibliography

1944177875

Edgar H. Schein

how to provide real help faster

Organizations face problems today that are too messy and complicated for consultants to simply play doctor: run a few tests, offer a neat diagnosis of the "problem," and recommend a solution. With the pace of change accelerating and globalization and specialization adding new layers of complexity, there is no time for diagnoses. Canned answers from outsiders have become useless. Well-meaning consultants often end up working on the wrong problem, misunderstanding the client organization's culture, or ignoring the fact that constant change makes today's solutions obsolete tomorrow. In Humble Consulting, Edgar Schein outlines the basics of a new approach. He argues that consultants and coaches have to jettison the old idea of professional distance and work with their clients in a more personal way, emphasizing authentic openness, curiosity, and humility. Schein shows how to create an atmosphere of genuine trust and caring so that clients can share what's really on their minds. Consultants and clients can then jointly discover what needs to be done. Working together from the outset like this speeds things up as it obviates the need for elaborate diagnostic tests and avoids solutions that might look good on paper but don't fit an organization's on-the-ground reality. Schein draws deeply on his own decades of experience, offering over two dozen case studies that illuminate each stage of the humble consulting process. Just as he did with Process Consultation nearly fifty years ago, Schein has once again revolutionized the field, enabling consultants to be more genuinely helpful and vastly more effective

I am the consultant, and I don't know what to do!: Case 1. Culture change in Beta Power Company -- What is new in humble consulting? -- The need for a trusting and open level two relationship: Case 1. good intensions, not much help : the engineering interviews ; Case 2. Adventures with Digital Equipment Corporation ; Case 2. Implementing a new IT technology in bank operations -- Humble consulting begins with the first conversation: Case 5. Reframing whether to develop a culture analysis template ; Case 6. Creating a client through a process suggestion: Alpha Power Company ; Case 7. Mass Audubon Board Task Force: a personalization success ; Case 8. The Cambridge-at-Home Committee: a personalization failure -- Personalization : enhancing the level two relationship: Case 9. Helping to personalize teaching at MIT ; Case 10. Levels of involvement with Ciba-Geigy ; Case 11. The executive coaching dilemma: who is the client? ; Case 12. An unfortunate personalization mistake -- The humble consulting focus on process; Case 13. A question that restructured Alcoa Australia ; Case 14. The team-building retreat in the Quincy Plant of Proctor & Gamble ; Case 15. Abandoning building a team culture in a sales organization ; Case 16. Successfully reducing engineering turnover in the General Electric Lynn Plant ; Case 17. How to assess and "evaluate" culture in a sales organization ; Case 18. Successfully reducing headquarters: field problems in the Internal Revenue Service -- The new kinds of adaptive moves: Case 19. Safety issues in Alpha Power ; Case 20. Reducing the number of deaths in the US Forest Service ; Case 21. Helping INPO provide better help in working with nuclear plants ; Case 22. Successful and failed adaptive moves: DEC's strategy revisited ; Case 23. Creating a different kind of conversation in Saab Combitech ; Case 24. The use of dialogue in Shell's Exploration and Production Division ; Case 25. The Ad Hoc Lunch Group in the Academic Medical Center -- Concluding comments: some final thoughts on how to be really helpful