Becoming A Trusted Advisor: Core Consulting Skills

1. Becoming A Trusted Advisor: Core Consulting Skills For: AIMC Conference By: Mark Hordes Alexander Consulting, LLP

2. Background: Mark Hordes Education: • MBA and MS Aurora University • Graduate of the American Graduate School of International Management • BS, University of Houston Personal experience: • Partner, Alexander Consulting • Instructor, Shell Core Consulting Workshop • Global experience in creating strategies for transformational s-business change • Success in designing and delivering professional services selling training and creating services markets • Hands-on experience designing and implementing services readiness assessments and best practice applications for services organizations • Former Big Five partner • Former faculty member The University of Houston • Vice President Quality Consulting, The American Productivity & Quality Center • Former Malcom Baldrige Quality Examiner

3. Alexander Consulting, LLP“A management consultancy that creates and implements strategies for professional services organizations” Services Strategy Creation Sales Effectiveness Marketing Direction Delivery Performance OPERATIONS EXCELLENCE TALENT PRODUCTIVITY

4. Concepts presented today are taken from our new book:

5. Workshop Goal: To help you and your organization build consulting skills, capability and confidence.

6. Today’s Topics • Consulting Foundations • Client Development • Consulting Relationship Skills • Contracting • Assessment • Services Delivery • Managing the Change • Leverage • The Professional Services Champion

7. Introductions Please say hello to the person to the right or left of you and state a bookor movie title that best describes your consulting work at your company.

8. Consulting Foundations

9. The Dangerous Trend: “IT Consultants Score Lowest in Client Satisfaction” (Source: The Management Consulting Client Report, KIRG) (Average Score, 1-5 scale) 3.85 3.68 3.60 3.40 Operations Management HR Strategy IT

10. Station Break: Client Expectations of Consultants • Working in small groups, discuss and agree upon a list of 6 to 10 of clients’ most important expectations of consultants. • Be prepared to share your list with the large group.

11. Client Expectations of Consultants 1. Competence 2. Credibility 3. Trustworthiness 4. Likeability 5. Business Savvy 6. Responsiveness 7. Empathy 8. Communicate

12. Client Expectations of Consultants Clients Said… Consultants Thought… 1. Competence 1. Results 2. Credibility 2. Reliability 3. Trustworthiness 3. Confidence 4. Likeability 4. Credibility 5. Business Savvy 5. Empathy 6. Responsiveness 6. Responsiveness 7. Empathy 7. Hired Help 8. Communicate

13. The Five Fatal Flaws of Consulting (Source: High Impact Consulting) • The project is defined in terms of the consultant’s expertise or products, not in terms of the specific client results to be achieved. • The project’s scope is determined solely by the subject to be studied or the problem to be solved, ignoring the client’s readiness for change. • The project aims for one big solution rather than incremental successes. • The project entails a sharp division of responsibility between client and consultant; there is no partnership between them. • The project makes labor-intensive use of consultants instead of leveraged use.

14. The 10 Commandments of Professional Consulting • Concentrate continually on delivering client value. • Commit all stakeholders to action. • Clarify complex client issues. • Communicate authentically. • Collaborate with the client. • Conduct a “willing and able” assessment. • Control scope creep. • Compress the cycle time of delivery. • Customize each solution. • Continually learn and grow.

15. Individual Exercise: 10 Commandment Assessment Time Allotment: 15 minutes • Please candidly complete the 10 Commandment Assessment. • After everyone has completed the assessment, we will discuss it in the large group. • Please note, however, that this assessment is confidential and strictly for your own use. Share only what you want.

16. All Consultants Must Have These Four Capabilities TECHNICAL EXPERTISE RELATIONSHIP SKILLS CONSULTING PERFORMANCE ENGAGEMENT MANAGEMENT BUSINESS ACUMEN

17. Individual Exercise: Four Capabilities Assessment Time Allotment: 15 minutes • Please candidly complete the Four Capabilities Assessment. • After everyone has completed the assessment, we will discuss it in the large group. • Please note, however, that this assessment is confidential and strictly for your own use. Share only what you want.

18. Train Consultants in Consulting Skills to BuildCapability and Confidence

19. Client Core Consulting Training Example Unit One: The Consultant’s Reality 2 hours Unit Two: Relationship Skills 4 hours Unit Three: Business Acumen Capabilities 2 hour Unit Four: Engagement Management 4 hours Unit Five: Technical Expertise 2 hours Unit Six: Marketing and Selling 2 hours Unit Seven: Contracting 4 hours Unit Eight: Data Gathering 2 hours Unit Nine: Diagnosis The Consulting3 hours Unit Ten:FeedbackProcess 3 hours Unit Eleven: Solution and Design 3 hours Unit Twelve: Implementation 3 hours Unit Thirteen: Closure and Renewal 2 hours Unit Fourteen: The High-Performance Practice 2 hours Unit Fifteen: Continuous Learning 2 hours 40 hours

20. The Consulting Process Getting, Growing, and Keeping Clients Contracting Relationship Skills Assess Delivery Closure and Renewal Solution and Design Integration Feedback

21. Business Acumen Success Elements Effective Business Consultants Always: • See the bigger strategic issues facing the client. • Are able to define business solutions. • Possess process knowledge of the functional area of the business and industry sector. • Can define change management issues. • Understand the competitivelandscape. • Provide relevant skills, strategies, tools, and ideas to the client. • Use their knowledge and experience to build strong rapport and sustainable relationships with the client.

22. Client Development

23. The Consultant Zone of Influence Getting, Growing, and Keeping Clients Promoting Qualifying Committing Delivering LEADS SUSPECTSPROSPECTS CUSTOMERS CLIENTS

24. Making the C-Level Call • Earn the right to be there--do your homework. • Be ready to share something of value first (industry information, best practices, etc.) before probing. • Bring supportive data to backup your claims. • Think and talk big picture. • Link your conversation to how your solutions address his or her critical business issues.

25. Consulting Relationship Skills

26. Six Elements in Building Strong Consulting Relationships Decorum Commonality Trust Empathy Value Credibility

27. Small Group Exercise For each assigned element, add three more important actions that you can take to be more effective in building client relationships.

28. Building Rapport • Building rapport is the first step in establishing strong relationships. • Everyone can learn to build rapport more effectively.

29. Individual Exercise Pretend you are going to meet a client for the FIRST TIME. List both the verbal and non-verbal clues that you need to be aware of in building rapport.

30. Listening and Probing • Do I actually know the client’s issues? • Does the client know that I know his or her issues? Before you can solve client problems, you have to answer two questions: Listening and probing are the tools needed to answer these questions.

31. Exercise: Barriers to Listening • Individually think of a recent situation (business or personal) where your lack of listening caused a problem. • Come up with the barriers that contributed to the problem. • Discuss your findings with your group and come up with a list of five common barriers to listening.

32. Tips to Active Listening • Imagine that you will be asked to provide a detailed description of the conversation. • Act as though this is a “mission critical” conversation. • Listen with your eyes as well as your ears. • Write out the probes you will ask ahead of time so that you concentrate on what is being said and not what you will say.

33. Probing Open Probe • When you want to allow the client to respond freely to gain general information. Or… • When you want to encourage expansion. Closed Probe • When you want to limit the client’s response to uncover specific information. Or… • When you want to confirm your understanding.

34. Open Probes Usually begin with: • What? When? Where? Why? or How? Or… • Oh? Tell me, Show me, Say more about that.

35. Closed Probes Key words that help you identify closed probes include: • Is • Are • Do • Does • Has • Have • Can • Could • Which • Who

36. Skill Practice: Probing A client statement will be read aloud. If the ball is thrown to you: • Tell if you will use an open or closed probe. • Ask the probe.

37. The Four I’s Probing Strategy Issues Importance Impact Investigate • What are the main issues you and your department are facing? • Let’s take a look at ___ for a moment. Is this a nice-to-do, or something important to your organization? • Sounds critical. Tell me, what is the impact of notaddressing this problem? • I see. Together, can we investigate how my organization might be able to help?

38. Contracting

39. Roadblocks to Success Contracting Exercise List below all the possible things that can go wrong when you do not have a contract with a client. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

40. The Six Elements of Good Contracting • Explore potential traps and misunderstandings with clients without appearing negative. • Strike a balance between the client’s responsibilities and commitments in the early stage of the relationship. • Give true assumptions about the amount of work that will be expected by the consultant and the client. • Rehearse the contracting meeting by playing both sides of the exchange: the client and the consultant. • Provide information related to your available time. • Move forward with clarity on measures, results expected, and accountabilities.

41. Case Study ExerciseA Case of Disappointment Team Discussion Questions • Were the expectations realistic? • Was the system ready? Were they committed? • Who was the consultant? • Who was the sponsor? • Who was the client? • Who should have signed the contract? • What groups or people were involved? Were the roles/relationships clear? • What were the client’s real objectives/hoped-for outcomes? • What criteria should be used to evaluate the consulting effectiveness? • Who should evaluate the consulting? • What were the other contracting issues?

42. Consulting Proposal Format (Source: How to Write a Proposal That’s Accepted Every Time. Alan Weiss. Kennedy Publications. December, 1998.) Situation Summary: Restates issues, importance, and impact. Business Objectives: Describes expected results in client terms. Progress Tracking: Establishes how headway will be measured. Timing: Anticipated durations with recommended timelines. Accountabilities: Agreed upon consultant and client actions. Credentials: A brief citation of why you are the best choice. Methodology: An outline of required steps. Options: A choice of options that can meet business objectives. Terms and Conditions: Fees, expenses, and terms for each option. Acceptance: Place for appropriate person to sign the proposal.

43. Assessment

44. Successful Interviewing • Establish and maintain rapport. • Gather personal perceptions supported by facts and/or stories. • Test the findings from other inputs. Use the relationship skills (listening, probing, and acknowledging) to:

45. Interviewing Exercise Practice gathering data through interviewing.

46. Services Delivery Research shows that clients don't care what your engagement delivery methodology is; however, they do expect you to have one. Example: A Methodology to Integrate Service Lines

47. Delivery: Best Practices (Source: The State of S-Business: An International Report of Progress, Performance and Best Practices. James A. Alexander. AFSMI. 2002.) • Project managers know how to manage project scope.** Service providers: • Utilize a common methodology.** • Demonstrate appropriate selling skills.** • Possess adequate account management skills.** • Have access to real-time customer information.** • Understand the services industry.* • Understand process consulting.* • Know the critical business issues of their customers.* Legend: *Statistically proven s-business differentiator from product-centered company. **Statistically proven practice of top-performing s-businesses.

48. Planning for Implementation Checklist This checklist has been designed to help you to develop a plan of action for the solution you plan to implement. • Acceptance: How can we gain acceptance from others? What advantages can we show for the suggested solution? How might we demonstrate these advantages? • Anticipation: What objections to our solution can we anticipate? How should I/we respond? • Assistance: How can other people or groups help us to apply our solution? • Location: What places or locations are best suited for putting our solutions into practice? • Timing: How can we take advantage of special times, days, dates, etc. for implementing our solutions? • Precautions: How can we pretest our solution to ensure its effectiveness?

49. Scope Creep Exercise “We can’t figure when this project is going to end?” What have you heard from your clients? “Can you give Marketing a hand for about a week? They are in trouble.” “What do you mean the audit project was not included?” “When we meet on Fridays with your team, it’s a circus! Who is in charge?”

50. Scope Creep Checklist SUCCESS FACTORS RATING low high 1. Client expectations are clear. 1 2 3 4 5 2. Ranges of performance are defined. 1 2 3 4 5 3. Frequent communications on scope. 1 2 3 4 5 4. We have grouped the issues by priority and scope levels, H/M/L. 1 2 3 4 5 5. Issues are included in feedback meetings. 1 2 3 4 5 6. We have established objectives and results. 1 2 3 4 5 7. We have anticipated new players’ objectives, goals, and priorities. 1 2 3 4 5 8. We have set aside funds for scope creep. 1 2 3 4 5 9. We have analyzed scope alternatives. 1 2 3 4 5 10. We feel comfortable saying no. 1 2 3 4 5 TOTAL SCORE =