Consulting skills

Consulting skills provided within the Business Partnering programme draws its inspiration from client centred consulting model called process consultation. This is described in the book Process Consultation by Edgar H. Schien. A description of process consultation is provided below:

In this consulting model the client owns the problem throughout the consultation process. The monkey never passes to the business partner. The business partner's role is to help the client to deal with the problem.

The client is therefore actively involved in the diagnosis and analysis that leads to the solution. Their involvement in this process builds their commitment to the solution and allows the business partner to coach them and develop their capability in relation to implementation. The business partner's role is also to ensure that the client is making the decisions with regard to solutions. This can involve the business partner proposing a range of options but ultimately the client makes the decision.

Because no immediate assumptions are made about causes and solutions the diagnosis will need to have breadth and consider process, people and systems issues.

For a Human Resources business partner developing their consulting skills this model probably over emphasises the client ownership. As a member of the local management team the business partner has a responsibility to engage with the wider needs of the business and this means getting involved and accepting some responsibility for outcomes. Nevertheless, the principles of building commitment and providing coaching are comfortably aligned with the business partner competencies employed by Quality Consortium.

The consulting skills workshop within the business partnering programme includes the following design features:

1. It provides an approach to building business partner relationships based upon the principles of process consultancy
   
2. It provides a toolkit for diagnosing the root causes of business problems and developing robust solutions that go beyond solely HR considerations
   
3. business partners learn powerful rapport building skills, that are critical for developing trust with business managers
   
4. business managers bring live issues to the programme and business partners complete a real consulting assignment

Dave Ulrich suggests that one of the key roles of human resources is that of change agent and fulfilling this role requires the development of powerful consulting skills.

 business partnering programme

Business Partner Competencies

1. Consulting Skills
   Consulting skills is a combination of diagnostic and behavioural skills that enable professionals in support functions to collaborate with line managers to develop solutions to business performance problems.
2. Facilitation Skills
   Facilitation skills is a combination of process and behavioural skills that enable a 'facilitator' to support teams through group activities such a problem solving or strategy development.
3. Influencing Skills
   Influencing skills is the ability to deploy a range of behavioural techniques to bring about a change in attitude or behaviour within the individual that is being influenced.
4. Change Management
   Change Management is the ability to build robust transition strategies in conjunction with business managers to develop and grow the business in line with strategic imperatives.
   

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