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Internal Consulting Skills Public Course Program

We run the 3-day public Internal Consulting Skills course in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra. This is a fast-paced and highly concentrated learning experience and draws on the extensive practical consultancy and change management experience of the course facilitators. The program is highly interactive and includes practical consulting case studies and simulations, and practical tips, tools and techniques to help you get even better results as in internal (or external) consultant and business partner.

The emphasis is developing client management skills and on the practical application of techniques. About two-thirds of the course is structured around a practical case study "simulation" that follows an internal consulting process from inception to completion. In the consulting simulation you will be working in a team of up to 7 colleagues, and each team will prepare for and run a series of meetings with our facilitators who role-play a number of "client" managers. This ensures you will have the opportunity to participate directly in dealing with the "client" and developing your consulting skills and confidence. You will apply a number of consulting techniques and approaches and receive personal feedback from our facilitators to help you develop and practise the people-skills and relationship-building techniques essential to successful performance as a business partner and internal consultant.


3-Day Public Course Program

Course times: The public course starts at 9am and finishes at 5:30pm each day. Lunch is provided.

1. The consulting process
  • What is consultancy?
  • Understanding client needs
  • The 7 Steps to a successful assignment
  • Nine important ways for you to ‘add value'
  • How and when to use ‘Expert' and ‘Process' modes

Internal Consulting skills - the consulting process

7. CASE STUDY: Initiating Change

Video & group work: review of a real change project where a real organisation learns from its mistakes by unsuccessfully attempting to introduce change (but without the necessary steps to engage stakeholders in the change process)

  • How to gain client commitment to action
  • Avoiding the 'not invented here' trap
  • Engaging business teams in the change process
  • How to overcome inertia and maintain momentum
  • Assessing your projects on the 14 Critical Success Factors
  • Applying a proven 5-Stage Change Model

2. CASE STUDY: Consultancy in Action

Video & group work: review of a real consulting project where a highly experienced consultant makes some subtle but ultimately fatal mistakes

  • The characteristics of 'winning' consultants
  • Deadly traps for the consultant and how to avoid them
  • Practical techniques to overcome client resistance
  • How to deal with clients who distrust 'experts'
  • Getting past 'us & them' to build a partnership
 8. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Presenting Recommendations

Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators

  • How to present 'bad news' without alienating your client
  • How to read and respond to your client's behaviour
  • The 'scapegoat' trap and how to avoid it
  • 20 ways for you to run better consulting presentations
  • How to present your findings for maximum impact
  • How to handle the tough questions
  • 6 effective ways to handle difficult people in presentations
  • Gaining your client's commitment to the next steps
3. Developing your Consulting Skills

Feedback & action planning: Review of Personal Consulting Style results

  • Benchmarking your consulting style against over 500 Australian internal consultants
  • Using the Consulting Style Profiler to develop your business, client and self-management skills
  • Over 150 action steps to boost your effectiveness
  • Measuring your 'Emotional Intelligence' against our consulting benchmarks
  • 10 important ways to boost your 'Emotional Intelligence'

Personal Consulting Style Profile

9. SKILLS PRACTICE:
Client Management

Reviewing & practising techniques: Discussing, reviewing and practising techniques with other course participants

  • Essentials of successful client management
  • Difficult situations and how to deal with them
  • A simple-but-effective 7-step process to help you say 'no'
  • How to put together highly effective client-consultant teams
  • Applying proven techniques to handle 'difficult' clients

 

Internal Consulting Skills practice
4. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Initial Meetings

Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators

  • How to manage successful initial client meetings
  • Establishing credibility and professionalism
  • 22 ways for you to run better intial meetings
  • 13 critical issues for the initial meeting and how to deal with them
  • The 80:20 rule and why you will fail without it
  • How to develop highly effective questions
  • Four powerful techniques to boost your active listening
 10. "MARKETING" and Positioning Yourself as a Business Partner

Discussion & action planning: Reviewing your team's current role and perceived value. Preparing a plan of action to re-position yourself and your team as a value-adding business partner

  • Moving from 'cost' to 'added value'
  • Mapping your client's needs
  • Identifying consulting opportunities to add greater value
  • Building powerful networks and sponsors
  • 30 practical ways to re-position your team as a business partner
  • Developing your 'marketing' action plan
5. Consulting Tools & Techniques
  • How to use simple consulting tools collaboratively to diagnose the problem
  • How to involve your client in identifying solutions they will own
  • Using the Organisational Health Check, SWOT, Ishikawa and Force Field Analysis to influence your client
  • Using consulting models as powerful communication tools
Consulting Tools and Techniques		 11. Personal Action Planning
  • Using the Personal Development Workbook
  • Building your personal network
  • Developing your personal action plan

Personal Development Workbook
6. CONSULTING SIMULATION: Information Gathering

Practical consulting simulation and skills development session in small groups, each facilitated by one of our experienced facilitators

  • The secrets of successful information gathering meetings
  • The confidentiality barrier and how to overcome it
  • 20 ways for you to improve your information gathering
  • How to deal with dominant people who are more senior
  • The keys to building rapport and overcoming resistance
  • Questionnaire surveys as a powerful information gathering tool

 

Internal Consulting Skills course - Consulting Simulation