Welcome to this six-part series on the foundations of consulting. If you have not been following along with us, then we encourage you to read parts 1-5, referenced from the bottom of this article. Part 1 establishes the basis for the series by using Peter Block’s definition of a consultant as someone who is trying …

Playing dumb is really not a smart crisis management move After being taken to court for underpaying a cook at his Oriental Teahouse restaurant in Melbourne, Australia, to the point where she was owed $28,000 in back wages, owner David Zhou appears to have decided some crisis management was in order. We would assume that’s …

We talk about being the fly on the wall or the mouse in the wall that can hear every thing going on everywhere. This is more than water cooler buzz. Employees want to know what their bosses really think of them and bosses want to know what employees think about them, about the company, etc. …

How you start a facilitated session is critical to the overall success of the session. Conventional wisdom states that a good meeting should start with the agenda. The reason typically given is that the agenda answers the question, “What are we going to do.” However, Smart Facilitators know that participants in a facilitated session need answers to several questions before the agenda is discussed.

Guest post by Ian Needs, Marketing Manager for KeyedIn Solutions If your project management has no formalised frameworks, your business may well be losing money. Standardisation and consistent application of project management methods, processes and technologies is a key factor in business success. Project portfolio management (PPM) software provides a centralised dashboard for the meta-management …

We are often cautioned: “Don’t discuss religion and politics.” But why not? They’re a pretty big part of our total being, our livelihood and our spiritual lives !! The “politics” thing, however, does have me walking with some care on what is often a rocky and sometimes perilous path – in these days of political …

Recently a student asked me what the primary differences in skills were required between a consultant and a trainer. I thought about it and told her this story….. When I was working in the OD firm, Block Petrella Weisbord, I was on the consulting side of the business with Tony Petrella and Marvin Weisbord. Peter …

I don’t know about that, but it’s definitely making waves in the social change world. Social capital — and by that we mean investors and lenders who are focused on providing funds not for (or at least not only for) their own profit, but also for the greater social or environmental good — is on …

Waiting for my son’s well check-up in the doctor’s office we read a book together. It was one that we read together last year in the challenge reading program that I volunteer for in his school. It’s called Zen Shorts and is a good story with some great messages that have been passed down through …

Two critical components of the Drivers Model are the mission and the vision. When it comes to strategy, do you know the difference between the two? (And, yes, there is a difference!)