The Consulting Process in Action, Second Edition

by Gordon Lippitt and Ronald Lippitt

John Wiley & Sons (US). (c) 1986. Copying Prohibited.

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The Consulting Process in Action, Second Edition

Chapter 2: Phases in Consulting

OVERVIEW
Each step in the process of consulting confronts the helper and the client with a series of interaction decisions and possible
alternatives for behavioral strategy. These interaction decisions and behaviors may be the responses of a would-be helper to
the expressions of need, concern, or pain of a client (person or group); or they may be initiated by the helper to stimulate a
desire for help, to establish a helping contract, and to activate problem-solving efforts on the part of the client.

These interactions may be part of the informal process of give-and-take between peers; examples include the voluntary efforts
of friends and the more deliberative efforts of parents or more experienced people to help with problems. On the other hand,
such interactions may be the efforts of professional helpers—doctors, lawyers, social workers, psychologists, organization
development (OD) specialists—to provide services as set out in formal contracts. A helper may be internal to the client group
or system (for example, an internal consultant, a member of the same family, or a supervisor in the same department) or
external, offering the more removed perspective of an outsider.

In our experience the phases of the consulting process are equally applicable to all types of helping relationships, although the
roles that are assumed and the intervention decisions that are made differ significantly. We have identified six major phases in
any consultant-client working relationship:

1. Engaging in initial contact and entry;

2. Formulating a contract and establishing a helping relationship;

3. Identifying problems through diagnostic analysis;

4. Setting goals and planning for action;

5. Taking action and cycling feedback; and

6. Completing the contract (continuity, support, and termination).

The following is a brief review of the types of working tasks (work focuses) that are involved in each of these phases. Included
as part of the discussion of each work focus are excerpts from our taped dialogs in which we share illustrative case situations
from our consulting experiences.

PHASE I: ENGAGING IN INITIAL CONTACT AND ENTRY

Work Focus 1: Making First Contact

The initial contact with regard to a potential consulting relationship may come from any of the following three sources:

1. The Potential Client. A sense of pain or a problem may be interpreted as a need to seek help, accompanied by an
awareness that certain kinds of consultation may be appropriate sources of help. Or there may be no pain, but instead a
desire to increase one's competitive advantage by improving productivity and effectiveness or to improve satisfaction with
one's self-image. An organization's normal operating procedure, for example, may be to seek out and use consultants.
Contacting a particular consultant or consulting group may be a result of previous experience, awareness of the
consultant's reputation, knowledge of the consultant's specialization in particular problems, or merely a shopping
expedition to find out what is available.

2. The Potential Consultant. Contact may be motivated by a general search for new clients or the consultant's knowledge
that he or she has been helpful to other, similar client systems. The consultant may perceive a pattern of functional
ineffectiveness similar to that which he or she has coped with before. Contact may be initiated because the consultant has
particular priorities, such as helping any group trying to improve the quality of its environment or developing participation
in decision making.

3. A Third Party. Someone who perceives a need for help in a client system may be aware of the skills and resources
available through consultation. This third party undertakes to bring the client and the consultant together. The initiative
may be no more than a referral suggestion, or it may be as much as a formal, three-way meeting. The third party who is a
power figure in the client system may simply retain the consultant and assign him or her to help where it seems to be
needed.

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Whether the potential consultant is internal or external makes some difference in this contact initiation. Typically the internal
consultant knows more about the existence of difficulties or pain. The internal consultant also is not hampered by the problem
of credible entry from the outside. In addition, referral by a third party is probably easier for the internal consultant because it is
more convenient, more legitimate, and less expensive.

On the other hand, the external consultant often has an advantage because the client system finds it easier to share a problem
with an outsider. In addition, when contact is established through referral by a third party, a link can be established between an
outsider and a system. The client system also may assume greater expertise on the part of external consultants as compared
with that of more familiar people inside the system.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron A frequent type of initial contact on the part of a potential client is a telephone call. Fairly typical is a call I had recently
from someone at a professional school, asking if I would be interested in doing some kind of a program in professional and
personal development and growth with doctoral candidates in a field internship program. After probing a bit to find out what he
wanted, I decided he needed to think the situation through a little more before I could clearly respond about whether I would be
an appropriate resource. I asked a number of questions and suggested that he write answers to the questions in a letter within
the next day or two. I promised either to respond with a memo on what I might be able to do to meet the stated needs (as I
understood them) or to make a referral to some other, more appropriate resource.

He wrote a good letter; and my response was a four-page, rather carefully developed memorandum, offering two alternative
ideas about desirable outcomes and types of designs for helping. I included information on different levels of budget for the two
alternatives and some of the initial data collection I would be asking him to do.

Gordon Yes, telephone calls are a frequent first approach. I had a funny call the other day. A personnel director from a large
pharmaceutical firm wanted me to meet with him and some others. When I asked the purpose of the meeting, he said, "Well, we
need to have you talk with us about some OD work." When I asked about the kind of OD work, he said, "We'd just like to have
you come and talk with us, and we'll pay a stipend for exploration." I discovered that the president of the firm was interested in
assessing me, so we arranged to have lunch together.

Although the president of the firm was very affable and asked me some questions that weren't necessarily related to the
project, the luncheon was definitely a testing of our mutual chemistry and my competency. The firm's OD director and the
personnel director were there, ready to implement any further planning if the testing worked out. They called the next day with
an O.K. to go ahead and do some exploratory planning.

Ron Don't you think it is important when responding to these first contact initiatives to be very open in probing and sharing
where you are?

Gordon Yes, I think that's crucial. I recently received a letter from a community college that had issues concerning minority
groups and faculty decision making. The college people wanted a problem-solving session of two days. I answered that letter
very honestly and critically, explaining the impossibility of their expectations. I presented an alternative pattern with the
probable conditions of contract and cost, but indicated that I didn't expect they would want to go ahead because this was going
to be quite different from their objectives.

Surprisingly, they called back saying they were so impressed with my openness in confronting the unreality of their
expectations that they wanted to go ahead with us rather than take a bid from one of the others who had accepted their
assumptions. How about an example in which you have taken the initiative to try to get a client involved?

Ron In one example, which was successful, we wrote two invitation letters, about a week apart, to a sample of potential clients
—in this case, small businesses in the area.

The first letter was a warm-up, explaining who we were and some of our experiences with businesses similar to their own—in
terms of new organization development procedures that were proving helpful in economic survival.

The second letter was a specific invitation to attend a three-hour luncheon session. At the luncheon we provided a sample
"micro-event" with some input by us and some active participation by the guests, using models of goal setting and
brainstorming, and identifying some of the major kinds of dilemmas that required their problem-solving efforts. The event ended
with an opportunity for the guests to become involved in a consultative project, really a three-phase process of fact finding and
consultation. We provided a handout on this process for them to take along and think about, and we promised to make a
follow-up telephone call to see whether they would like to explore the opportunity.

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Typically, out of the fifteen to twenty invitations, we would get eight to ten participants at the luncheon and two to four follow-up
relationships that developed into client contracts.

Gordon Very frequently, one of our successful initial contacts begins with participants we meet in a training activity who chat
with us individually about their own situations. We suggest a follow-up contact to become acquainted with their situations and
to explore the possibilities for following through on ideas they have acquired in the training activity. What kind of third-party
entry situations come to your mind?

Ron One of the most frequent problems in my experience is how to turn a coercive situation into a voluntary participation and
learning activity. For example, there was the school administrator who asked us to work with his staff on ways to implement
new accountability legislation that required the adoption and development of annual personnel review and assessment
procedures. The challenge was how to convert this relatively negative entry situation into a collaboration in which the
participants could become actively involved, see the payoff value to themselves, and learn that the consultant is not a tool of
the administrator.

Gordon Yes, in a recent situation, I had to work out a relationship difference between a state director, who was employing me,
and the planning committee of the state staff, which was representing the client system. I began by being a third party, bringing
the other two parties together to clarify some joint goals. Sometimes an entry situation is even more difficult when the president
of the company assigns an internal consultant to "fix up that unproductive department."

Ron "Fixing them up" is one of the biggest entry traps I experience. He who is ready to pay the bill is inviting me to enter his
system, with no entry contacts with the proposed clients. I help the chief to understand that he will lose out by using this
strategy. His subordinates will be angry with him for mandating our relationship and will be motivated to resist my efforts, so he
will lose the potential benefit of my help. I usually get him to arrange a "what it would be like if" session with his staff and give
the staff members the option of applying to work with me. The risk takers are ready, and those in the bandwagon group will
come in two or three waves as they see the payoff for their peers.

Gordon You remember the "budding-off process" that some of our Tavistock colleagues in London described. They wanted to
engage a potential client through contact with a client with whom they had been successful. They had a visiting team of
representatives from the potential client organization spend the morning with their counterparts in management, engineering,
personnel, etc., in the organization that had experienced the successful intervention. Then they met with the visitors to see
what practices the visitors had found attractive and interpreted what they had needed to do to achieve those improvements.
Then they helped the visitors explore what adaptations might be relevant to their organization. They stressed that exact
adoption (imitation) would not fit the visitors' situation, but that adaptations were feasible. Usually the day ended with the
consultants scheduled to meet the visitors in their own system to try out some of the learnings.

Ron I guess two of my general learnings about entry are that everybody is not ready to start to change at the same time and
that those who will be expected to implement any change need to be involved in the entry process.

Gordon And let's remember that the posture of the consultant needs to be that of "learner" even more than "seller."

Work Focus 2: Helping Identify and Clarify the Need for Change

After making contact, tentative entry into a working relationship includes some important processes of exploration. Usually it is
a trap to assume that the problem as presented by the potential client is the core of the problem. The most effective posture for
the consultant, we believe, is that of co-explorer of the problem concern; the consultant should assume that the client system
needs to achieve insight just as much as he or she needs to gain diagnostic awareness. Thus, the second work focus involves
the consultant in helping the potential client to probe and clarify his or her understanding of the problem, thereby achieving a
wider perspective of its causes.

Sometimes the potential consultant functions as a legitimized listener and asker of questions; sometimes he or she is an inquiry
expert with tools for conducting an assessment of needs. Sometimes a potential helper must cope with a lack of sensitivity to
the need for change, a lack of sense of responsibility, or an inability to enter into or put energy into any kind of change effort.
These problems may require the consultant to call the attention of the potential client to the ways in which other systems have
identified and worked on similar problems. Often there is a need for group interviewing in which individuals occupying different
positions in the system stimulate one another's articulation of perceptions of relevant issues and problems. Such openness can
be legitimized by the objectivity of the interview situation and by the questions asked by the consultant as interviewer.

At this stage the internal consultant usually is better prepared to probe, listen, and clarify; but probing is likely to create
defensiveness because of his or her status as a member of the organizational family. The external consultant has the
disadvantage of lacking the context and history of the particular system and its operational problems, but the advantage of
third-party objectivity.

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Examples from Our Experiences

Ron The group interview is one of the most valuable ways to help potential clients identify and clarify their needs. For a recent
community project, in which an interagency council wanted to explore problems of poor communication and cooperation, we
conducted a series of five group interviews. There were six or seven people in each group; and each group was
heterogeneous, with the members coming from different agencies. In these interviews the participants stimulated one another,
and their interactions gave us a great deal of data about the issues of communication and collaboration.

Gordon I often use quick, anonymous, written surveys with key management people. Then I get them together for a feedback
session in which we share, probe their interpretations, and amplify what has been revealed in the survey statements.

Ron Another helpful technique is asking a small, representative group to simulate being an outside committee making an
assessment of the organization. During the simulated visit, the observers describe what they see that pleases them as some of
the strengths of the organization and what they are sorry to see and wish could be changed in order for the organization to
function more effectively. This kind of listing, based on brainstorming from a perspective of outside objectivity, is very helpful in
getting out the data.

Gordon One of the things I find inadequate about most needs-assessment techniques is that they tend to reinforce a negative,
critical posture toward "what's wrong," rather than a proactive posture of exploring images of "what would be desirable," "what
are possible alternatives."

Ron I have found Kurt Lewin's principles of action reseach really basic at this stage. If we can get the potential client system
involved in collecting the diagnostic data, this becomes a major stimulus toward self-discovery and toward acceptance of the
data as credible.

Work Focus 3: Exploring the Readiness for Change Effort

This is important, mutually shared work in which the consultant explores the readiness of the client system to devote time,
energy, and the committed involvement of appropriate people to a problem-solving process. The client system, on the other
hand, explores the capability, sensitivity, credibility, and trustworthiness of the potential consultant.

Almost any type of change effort requires changes in the assignment priorities of personnel and the commitment of
management to additional tasks. The time commitments of the inside team members must be clarified. At this point it may be
difficult for some managers to visualize and accept the potential payoffs of the extra effort, so any added work may be seen as
a disruption of an already overloaded work schedule.

Examples from Our Experiences

Gordon I always feel a big gain in confidence at this point if I've been able to identify one or two on-the-ball insiders who are
eager to learn professional skills and who can sell management on the long-term payoff for the system if these personnel can
be given the time and support to work with me.

Ron Yes, and it also makes a difference if management can be helped to accept off-site sessions or a weekend workshop or a
series of two-hour, on-the-job sessions as a normal part of the process of introducing innovative changes that will affect "the
bottom line."

Gordon I think the key point is to be open and positive, rather than defensive, about the kinds of needed activities that might
emerge during the problem-solving effort.

Work Focus 4: Exploring the Potential for Working Together

Each of the parties explores and tests the potential for an effective working relationship. Familiarity can lead a client system to
stereotyped preconceptions of an internal consultant's particular responses, and these preconceptions may be quite incorrect.
The potential client may have conscious or unconscious fears about the difficulties of withdrawing from a working relationship
with an internal consultant, whereas terminating a contract with an external consultant may be seen as easier to accomplish.
Frequently the external consultant is more readily able to clarify the nature of available resources. Many external consultants
consider it important to propose a period of testing for compatibility before making mutual commitments for a long-term working
relationship.

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Examples from Our Experiences

Ron To explore readiness for change, we have found it helpful with several clients to develop, with their help, a list of good
reasons for not having the time or motivation or inclination to get involved in a change effort, and a parallel list of reasons for
becoming involved. We make this into a check list, asking clients to check the items on both sides that are true of themselves,
to give some value weighting to the most important ones on each side, and then to use the list as a basis for discussing where
they are. This kind of procedure legitimizes any hidden agendas of resistance and gets things out in the open for sharing and
decision making.

Gordon Frequently I ask the person who is negotiating with me to identify all the key people who would be involved in
collaborating with my consultation and to convene them in an ad hoc session. This allows me to have an open discussion with
these people about who I am and why I've been invited in, and it encourages them to ask any clarifying questions, make any
statements of doubt or support, etc.

Ron I had quite a time recently in a large hospital. I was exploring and probing to discover who the client really would be. It was
a chance to meet with the different clusters of personnel, giving them a chance to examine me and to determine what kind of
control they would have over the process of working and what my expectations would be if we worked together. I had to meet
with about six such clusters before going back to the administrator to clarify and define potential working relationships.

Gordon I frequently try a kind of microcosm of what working together would be like. Usually I involve people in some activities,
some brainstorming, and a little bit of process observation; and I offer some input about typical activities done in an
organization development program such as the one they are considering. This helps to surface differences in orientation,
readiness, and commitment.

PHASE II: FORMULATING A CONTRACT AND ESTABLISHING A HELPING RELATIONSHIP

The four work focuses of Phase I should produce at least a tentative decision on the part of both consultant and client either to
discontinue the exploration or to move toward some kind of agreement about the nature, objectives, and conditions of a
working relationship. We have identified three focuses of work in the second phase.

Work Focus 5: Identifying Desired Outcomes

It is not enough just to agree that there is a problem or that a change is desirable. In clarifying a potential working relationship,
it is important to explore what kinds of outcomes are possible and desirable if the working relationship is successful. For
example, a client's desired outcomes might include an increase in profits, improvement of its public image, or a change in the
motivation of its workers or in the working relationship between its supervisors and their subordinates. This certainly will not
constitute the final statement of objectives, but it should provide a basis for the mutual understanding needed to formulate a
contract.

In this type of work, the internal consultant has a better grasp of feasibility and need, but may have too much of a negative
problem orientation. The external consultant may be better able to achieve a wider perspective on possible goals and desirable
outcomes.

Examples from Our Experiences

Gordon With more and more clients, I'm finding it worthwhile to spend quite a bit of initial time trying to get concrete about what
changes they would like in the way they are operating. Although the goal setting typically comes later in a consulting
relationship, it is important to probe clients for the concrete outcomes they want from any kind of developmental or change
effort, which usually means stretching their thinking.

Ron I certainly agree with you. Recently I met with representatives of a large church to explore whether we might work
together. I asked them to play the roles that leaders of the church would have in five years and to make a list of the things that
pleased them concerning the progress made in those five years. They became very involved in this listing and began to clarify
and considerably change their ideas about what they were after.

Ron Another challenge is to help the client group explore "whose desired outcomes" should be considered. I was working with
a group of school administrators who had defined their priorities for quality education in the classroom for the next fall. They
were ready to work on planning for implementation when I asked them to stand up and "let the others have their seats." I
explained that they were to act as parents and call out "through the mouths of parents" the quality education priorities. Thirteen
new items came out. Then I asked them to invite a student into each seat, and they called out priorities through the mouths of

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students. They then put on their own "hats" and prioritized again. Over half of the items were from their new lists. In most cases
we need to ask the question "Whose desired outcomes need to be included?"

Work Focus 6: Determining Who Should Do What

The client has a strong need to know how much time, energy, and commitment the consultant is ready to put into a helping
relationship. The consultant has a strong need for clarification about who should be involved, what kinds of activity would be
feasible, what kind of support could be expected from the top power structure, what kind of financial and time commitments
would be made, and how the contract would be terminated. At this stage it is crucial to determine who the client system is,
particularly to discover whether there is a difference between the client system and the individual or office that pays the bills.

Examples from Our Experiences

Gordon "Who is really the client?" is one of the toughest and most important questions every consultant has to deal with and
answer. It is so easy to be trapped into assuming it's the person who pays you.

Ron Yes, I have a client now, a CEO, who wants me to do team building with his six department heads. Clearly, they will have
to become included in my client system; and if I find this requires working with some of their subordinates, this will extend the
client system again.

Gordon I've come to believe that usually my definition of my client keeps changing and expanding during the course of my
work with a client system. Is my client those I am going to interact with, or do I include those who will be impacted directly by my
consulting efforts?

Ron I guess that dilemma is one reason why I have come to think of my relationship to a client system rather than my
relationship to the person with whom I negotiated my contract.

Work Focus 7: Clarifying Time Perspective and Accountability

Another part of formulating the contract includes clarifying the projected time period allowed for accomplishing the desired
outcomes and the evaluation procedures to be used in assessing progress toward the desired outcomes. This time perspective
may include agreement about milestones at which the progress of the working relationship will be reviewed and decisions
about continuation or termination will be made.

Because of his or her ongoing relationship with the client system, the internal consultant probably has a more difficult time
arriving at some criteria for evaluation and termination or continuation. However, the internal consultant certainly should be
closer to the flow of data about the success or lack of success of the helping efforts. The external consultant may have an
easier time proposing objective evaluation procedures and obtaining the client's commitments to provide the necessary data for
evaluation. But the external consultant usually works with the time perspective of a much more ad hoc relationship, with
accountability being expected much sooner.

Examples from Our Experiences

Gordon I'm finding that more and more clients are ready to develop written agreements. Frequently there is a discussion with
certain members of a client system about who will do what and the timing, etc., but the contract about financial arrangements is
with somebody else in a different office. This can bring about some real problems. For example, recently we had worked out
the arrangements for a three-day workshop for the top executives of a national government agency. But then the agency
postponed the event because the contract office had some questions that hadn't been answered and some forms that had to
be signed.

Ron For things such as time schedules and commitments, we have found it helpful to develop a first draft of the contract and
then to say, in essence, "I need to check this out with colleagues who are going to be involved, and I would like you to do the
same. Because both parties tend to forget some things that become very important later, we need to have a critical review
before finalizing anything."

Gordon Another important aspect of contracting is having a tryout or pilot project of limited duration and magnitude before
asking either party to go into something larger and long term. For example, in a recent team-building program with a large
school system, we asked for a small pilot project with two buildings, with careful observation and documentation by some
internal staff members in order to assess and review the feasibility of the design and the results that might be expected. This
relieved a lot of pressure, provided some good testing on feasibility, and was a good basis for developing a working

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relationship; it made a larger, more comprehensive design workable and fundable.

PHASE III: IDENTIFYING PROBLEMS THROUGH DIAGNOSTIC ANALYSIS

Processes of entry and contract formulation involve preliminary diagnostic activity, readiness for change, and the dynamics of a
working relationship. This is all preliminary to the much more intensive diagnostic work and planning for action required in any
successful consultative relationship.

Work Focus 8: Using Force-Field Diagnosis

Force-field diagnosis is a model or method for identifying the forces that impede movement toward current goals and the forces
that facilitate such movement (see the force-field diagram in Figure 1). The client system is likely to encounter problems in
providing opportunities for the data collection and staff involvement that are requested by the consultant, and the consultant is
responsible for being focused and sensitive in fact-finding efforts. The consultant is faced with the responsibility or helping the
client to interpret the causes of problems and the implications for change.

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Figure 1: Force-Field Diagram

The internal consultant, usually aware of the existence of diagnostic data, is able to recommend appropriate targets for data
collection; but being part of the organizational family is more likely to create defensiveness and resistance. Normally it is easier
for the external consultant to request unfamiliar types of data collection and to use new methods and tools.

Examples from Our Experiences

Gordon The force-field diagram is an important tool in helping clients gain perspective on the numerous blocks and inhibitions
as well as supports and resources in their operations. Recently, when working with the staff of a government agency, I put two
sheets of newsprint on the wall and diagramed the force field. From the brainstorming of the group members, I was able to list
on one sheet the supports and resources they had for accomplishing their work goal. On the other sheet I listed the restraints
and blocks they identified from their experiences in trying to get things done. In each case they indicated whether the support
or the block came from inside themselves (that is, from certain norms and traditions of the group) or from traditions and

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characteristics of their environment, such as the budget, regulations, and physical setting. Then they prioritized the resources
they were inadequately utilizing and the blocks they should eliminate.

Ron A different use for the force field, applicable in the phase-four examination of planning, is to write a projected goal at the
top of the force-field diagram and identify the potential resources and restraints that affect movement toward the goal. This
provides data for planning.

Gordon There's a third use of the force field: during phase five, when some action strategy has been selected and the task is
one of mobilizing for action. In this case I write the action steps at the top of the force-field diagram. We look at the resources
and supports for taking the action and the kinds of traps we should be sensitive to in order to ensure success. All three uses of
the force-field diagnostic procedure are helpful tools in consultation and should be clearly differentiated from one another.

PHASE IV: SETTING GOALS AND PLANNING FOR ACTION

A good diagnostic procedure should provide the basic warmup for a productive goal-setting process. This process must include
the complementary activity of step-by-step planning of the work required to reach a goal.

Work Focus 9: Projecting Goals

Having acquired a diagnostic sensitivity to the current situation and operating problems, the client is ready for the challenge of
looking ahead. Typically, when we arrive at this stage, looking ahead is aided by surveys of what is wanted and needed by
those we serve, the pains and problems we are experiencing, the predictions of what things are going to be like, and our own
values—what we would most like to see develop from possible alternatives for the future. To set meaningful goals, both the
consultant and the client must have a clear picture of a preferred and feasible future. This picture provides a basis for planning.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron An interesting illustration of projecting long-range goals is a recent situation I experienced involving a large national
organization. The organization's planning committee started with current goals and a survey of goal priorities and projected
eight areas from which goals needed to be developed. The committee commissioned a team to review data on trends and a
projection written by a group of futurists and then, from their analyses, to project three or four alternative and possible futures.
These alternative-future statements became the basis for goal-setting workshops throughout the organization, in which leaders
identified their preferences and explained their rationales and the efforts needed to create the chosen futures.

Gordon Often I find it helpful to begin by providing a client with input on some major trends in society—economic, political,
social, etc. I did this recently with a state mental health department, and the staff members were stimulated to look at the
relevance of societal trends for their own departmental future. The staff members projected specific images of their operation
five years hence, taking into account the trends of which they had become aware, the developmental trends in their own
organization, and their vision of a future optimized with their own evaluations of good practices.

Ron Yes, I think there is great value in helping clients develop EDT (events, developments, trends) projects as ongoing
activities. My futurist colleague, Ed Lindaman, referred to these as "the future nipping at our heels." In one of my client
systems, a volunteer EDT group meets for a brown-bag lunch every two weeks to report what the members have learned from
their scans of newspapers, magazines, journals, and papers given at meetings. Then they brainstorm the potential implications
of these trends for their company and for their departments. The documentor of each meeting gives the data to the strategic-
planning group. It is highly valued.

Gordon The creative generating of potential goals has to be followed by a disciplined procedure of selecting priorities. I have
been amazed at the degree of consensus that typically emerges when the priority-voting process narrows seventy-five to a
hundred alternative goal ideas down to a dozen top priorities. Your book with Ed is very helpful in guiding this procedure.[1]

Work Focus 10: Planning for Action and Involvement

When planning the implementation of meaningful goals, the key to success is devising a sequence of steps toward each goal
(identifying specifically what should be done). Often the plan stipulates that simultaneous steps be taken by different persons
or groups. Criteria or evidence that each step has been achieved must be identified, so that the client has clear indications
either that the right path is being pursued or that the direction needs to be changed. These criteria also should provide a basis
for celebrating success, which keeps motivation alive.

One of the most critical and neglected phases of planning is an anticipatory rehearsal. It helps to answer the question of who
(from inside or outside the system) should be involved in order for a plan of action to have the best probability of success.

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Once these people have been identified, the question of how to involve them must be answered. This sets up new planning
sequences and new goals that are concentrated on involvement strategy.

The internal consultant probably has more knowledge and more access to knowledge about the potential resource value of
people and units that should be involved at various stages in the problem-solving action. However, it is also more difficult for
the internal consultant to request the participation of top power figures in the client system and the involvement of parts of the
system that are uncommitted but crucial. The external consultant often has great leverage with respect to involvement.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron Using a rehearsal procedure is the best way I know of improving the quality of action and, therefore, the probability of
success. One of my current clients is using temporary task forces to explore innovative improvements in the quality of the
product. A task force typically has five or six meetings before it reports its recommendations to management. The last meeting
is a rehearsal of the presentation given by two or three of the task-force members, with someone taking the role of manager
and the remaining members making observations about the performance and giving feedback on ideas for improving the
presentation. Often a task force will go through five or six such rehearsals to "get it right." Our estimate is that this rehearsal
procedure increases the probability of success from 30 to 70 percent.

Gordon The idea of celebrating progress is so crucial and is almost universally neglected. In so many cases the length of time
between start and completion is so long and full of problems that morale goes down, energy is lost, and a positive perspective
about achieving the goals is lost. I was working with a new-product-development team last week. The members of the team
couldn't expect real payoff in less than a year or two. I had them brainstorm all the ways they could celebrate or get recognition
when they could identify a step of progress. They listed eleven ways and were in a very positive mood as they tackled their
task.

[1]Choosing the Future You Prefer by R. Lippitt and E.B. Lindaman, 1979, Bethesda, MD: Development Publications.

PHASE V: TAKING ACTION AND CYCLING FEEDBACK

The payoff of consulting lies in successful action and in the continuity of long-term gains after the first bursts of energy and
effort are expended. We have identified three work focuses of the critical implementation phase.

Work Focus 11: Taking Successful Action

In the fifth phase of consulting, the consultant is responsible for helping people to develop the skills necessary to increase their
chances of achieving success in the actions they take. He or she also must support the celebrations of small successes on a
step-by-step path of action. The major motivation for continuing effort comes from frequent experiences of successful
movement on a defined path that leads somewhere. The effective consultant also works with key parts of the client system to
coordinate multiple activities and the involvement of individuals and units.

The internal consultant is better able to observe the action that takes place and to assess the levels of skill needed for this
action. However, the external consultant probably has greater leverage for introducing skill-development activities and for
initiating sessions designed to examine progress and to review process issues.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron The opportunity and responsibility for helping the client celebrate has become increasingly important to me. A recent
example is my work with a group of thirteen compensatory education teams, made up of teachers, aides, and volunteers from
center-city schools.

The members of each team projected some goals of what they would like to have happen in the classroom and in their own
performance within six months. They developed a series of criteria of progress toward their goals, and through brainstorming
they decided to stop at least every two or three weeks to check on evidence of progress. They identified fourteen different
ways in which they might have meaningful celebrations, ranging all the way from going to the principal to explain how well they
were getting along, to food celebrations in their classrooms, to having a drink together after school.

It has been exciting to hear about their various celebrations and the ways in which these events have provided a continuing
basis for group cohesiveness and motivation.

Gordon I think the whole notion of anticipatory preparation for action tends to be neglected. Rehearsal or simulation is very

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important, and I try to help most of my client systems work on anticipatory preparation.

A departmental group I was working with in a large company arrived at the point of needing involvement, support, and sanction
from top management. After briefing me in the role of top manager, the members of the group practiced their presentation,
using feedback from me and from one another for improving their skills of presentation. They made a lot of improvements and
felt good when they were successful.

Ron Various kinds of process interventions can help groups to improve their action by stopping and looking at how they are
doing and how they might be improving their action. We made very active use of stop sessions while working with the ward
teams of a large psychiatric facility on improving their clinical decision making and planning in regard to individual patients.
After the teams had been working for fifteen or twenty minutes on a particular case conference, we would intervene for a
minute to have all of the members complete a brief, stop-session check sheet, rating their feelings of how well they were being
listened to, how well they were listening to others, and how they were doing in decision making. They shared their data,
becoming consultants for themselves with ideas for improving their operating procedure, and within five to eight minutes moved
ahead to continue their work, typically with many evidences of improvement.

Work Focus 12: Evaluating and Guiding Feedback

Using appropriate procedures to elicit feedback about progress and to involve the necessary people in the assessment of this
feedback is a crucial part of the consultant's role during the action phase. This continuing assessment of the consequences of
action can save more dollars, hours, and energy than any other of the consultant's helping efforts.

With the advantage of being in closer touch with the change procedures, the internal consultant usually is more able to secure
feedback at strategic points, but there may also be greater motivation to hide problems from him or her. The external consultant
can more easily introduce new methodologies for obtaining feedback data and can legitimately convene analysis and feedback
sessions with appropriate personnel.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron One important aspect of getting feedback is to plan for early-warning clues that action is "getting off the beam." The early
work on feedback involves sending out a beam and getting a bounce back showing how many degrees the action is off course
in order to make corrections. I have one client, a college, in which the faculty and senior-student advisors use "early-warning
cards" on which they jot down symptoms that might be clues that a student is a potential dropout. The early-warning cards go
to the student-services office, where they can be followed up. This early-warning system has remarkable sensitivity in
identifying potential dropouts.

Gordon One of the most important aspects of getting and using feedback is the kind of design that exists for "feedback on the
feedback." Any time we request feedback data from people, we are entering into an ethical commitment to give back some kind
of feedback on whether their messages were heard and what was done with their data. One mistake many leaders make is to
assume they are expected to "do what the feedback says" rather than to use the data as important intelligence, along with
other data, to think and decide creatively as leaders.

Ron Certainly unless we give feedback about the feedback, there will be a negative assumption that the data went into a file or
wastebasket or was used to exploit and manipulate. Most of us have a long history of filing our questionnaires, with no
evidence our ideas were listened to or had any influence.

Work Focus 13: Revising Action and Mobilizing Additional Resources

Feedback is only helpful if it is used rapidly in re-examining goals, revising action strategies, and perhaps prompting decisions
concerning the mobilization of additional resources and changes of assignments and roles.

The internal consultant may be in a better position to be aware of needed but unused resources, at least those within the
system. But the external consultant has an advantage in using the data to confront blockages and resistance to effective
action. In addition, the external consultant probably has a better perspective from which to suggest alternative courses of
action and the need for external resources.

Examples from Our Experiences

Ron Collecting evaluation data is really a waste of time unless some planning and energy are put into processing and using
the findings, rewarding those who have made relevant efforts, and revising and improving plans for the next stages of action.

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I had an interesting client situation with a school system and a PTA. I had been helping them to collaborate on developing a
procedure for the sharing of decision making, goal setting, and action planning by school administrators, board members,
teachers, parents, and students. The evaluation procedure involved interviews with each of these subgroups conducted by
trained pairs of teachers, students, parents, or administrators. The data focused on feelings about the problems, successes,
and issues that had been experienced. The important feature was the feedback teams, each consisting of a parent, teacher,
student, and administrator. In a series of sessions, table groups of five to seven listened to the findings, presented one or two
at a time by the feedback teams. The groups brainstormed implications for improvement of communication and collaboration,
reported these, and at each session arrived at some priorities for next steps and some conclusions about the values and
strengths of what they had been doing.

Gordon It's also desirable for a consultant to get feedback about how people are reacting to him or her. After a day or two with
clients, I give them a little check sheet to record their reactions to my efforts and suggest ways in which I might be more helpful.
The clients seem to like this, and it certainly gives me some helpful data for revising my efforts.

Ron An evaluation issue that comes up fairly frequently is the pressure to cut funds that presumably were allocated in the
budget for documentation and evaluation. This has made me more sensitive about getting a clear statement about evaluation
into the consultation contract and keeping it before the client as a continuing value and responsibility. Of course, one key is to
demonstrate how helpful evaluation can be.

Gordon I believe documentation is one of the most neglected aspects of the work of consultants with clients. Without good
documentation of what has gone on, it is difficult to pass on to internal consultants many of the designs and activities that have
worked well and should be continued. It is also very difficult to report to policy boards and to outside funding sources what has
been done and how helpful it has been. And, finally, most organizations that have a successful development program or
develop innovations in their ways of operation should be responsible enough to share these learnings with other agencies
needing this type of resource.

PHASE VI: COMPLETING THE CONTRACT (CONTINUITY, SUPPORT, AND TERMINATION)

The greatest problem with many consultation efforts is that the changes achieved often succumb to one of three pitfalls: They
are short term and followed by regression to old patterns; they are fragile and lead to poor continuity of the new status; or they
are marked by the growth of counter-reactions that must be coped with quickly in order to guarantee their continuity. Many
consultation designs do not include a plan for follow-up support or provisions for gradual termination of the consultant's help
and installation within the system of the successfully used resources.

Work Focus 14: Designing Continuity Supports

The designing of support systems for the successful continuity of change effort is perhaps the most significant test of the
consultant's competence. Sometimes the result of this effort is a plan for a continuing review of events, including and involving
a wide circle of personnel from the client system. Often there is a program of support conference calls with the consultant to
check deadlines. Another type of support design involves documenting and reporting success through publication and
professional meetings.

The internal consultant is present on a continuing basis to observe where and when additional support is needed to maintain
the new structure, roles, or processes. The external consultant, on the other hand, is in a strong position to negotiate reviews
and to provide skill training for the involvement of new personnel or inside change agents.

Work Focus 15: Establishing Termination Plans

A professional responsibility and goal of most consultants is to become progressively unnecessary. Consultants design for this
in various ways, including:

Training an insider to take over the functions initiated by the consultant;

Setting a series of dates for decreasing the budget and the involvement of the consultant;

Having a termination celebration for the final product of a collaborative effort, such as a publication; and

Establishing a minimal periodic maintenance plan, such as an annual review session.

The key notion is that every consultation relationship must have some plan for a healthy, mutually satisfying termination of the
working relationship. Established early, this plan helps to guide many intervention decisions during all phases of consultation.

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Examples from Our Experiences

Ron I have found temporary task forces most helpful in continuing organization development. Each has a convener, an
agenda, and a time sequence of meetings. Usually before discontinuing my active relationship, I sit in on at least the first
session of each task force and work with the internal coordinator on plans for receiving reports and reconvening the group. In
one such situation, each task force committed publicly to a consultation period with me to present its plans for work.

Gordon One important continuity procedure is to develop a close working relationship with one or more persons inside the
system who have been designated as having the continuing role of consultant or change agent. I work extensively with them
during my time with the client system, and later I am available to them by telephone or I make periodic visitations on their
request to help support the work.

Ron The potential of periodic telephone consultations is not appreciated enough by most consultants. Currently, in one
situation in which I have been working with teams in several branches of the same agency, each team has a telephone
amplifier box. On a monthly basis we have a conference call with each team, with the members sitting around the amplifier box.
This procedure allows us to have discussions of progress, successes, and ideas for next steps.

FINAL COMMENT
We have found this framework of phases and work focuses useful in our own consulting practice and in helping many internal
and external consultants to clarify their roles and guide their intervention decisions. In the next two chapters, we examine in
more detail the multiple roles of consultation and the challenges and dilemmas encountered in making appropriate intervention
decisions.

REFERENCE
Lippitt, R., & Lindaman, E.B. (1979). Choosing the future you prefer. Bethesda, MD: Development Publications.

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