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The Consultative Approach: Partnering for Results!
(Authors: Virginia LaGrossa and Suzanne Saxe, 1998, ISBN 0-7879-1100-3)
Whatever your professional moniker: information architect, technical communicator, instructional designers, etc., we all are considered consultants to those for whom we write. LaGrossa's and Saxe's book, The Consultative Approach: Partnering for Results, is an excellent, easy-reading book for understanding the basics of consulting. They have based their book on many different methodologies, one of which is project management.
The authors have written this book as a workbook that you can use immediately to begin applying their concepts in your consultative practice. This book has very basic graphics, tables, and worksheets with which you can begin to learn how to work better with your customers. Each major element in each chapter has self-exploring questions and real-life examples from LaGrossa's and Saxe's business partners, showing how this consultative process really works. Each chapter ends with chapter highlights that summarize the content of the chapter. This makes this book easy to use.
The book starts with an Introduction. Four major parts introduce the respective chapters within the section. It ends with a brief Glossary, topical Resources and References, and a comprehensive Index. The four major parts of the book, including the respective chapters, are:
The Introduction defines for us the consultative approach concept. This approach is nothing more than building a partnering relationship with your customers by remaining adaptable to their needs. Working consultatively focuses on three critical dimensions (p. 2):
This section then talks about the Consultative Balance. Remember the days of the school playground! Did you ever ride the seesaw or teeter-totter? The Consultative Balance requires the ability to balance your people skills with your work processes, thus making your professional expertise the main balancing mechanism for the seesaw/teeter totter.
In Part Four, the authors have consolidated all the main points into this final chapter. The purpose is to help you devise your own Partnering Strategy Action Plan, which should include the following elements:
I found this book to be an excellent read, providing valuable material that I can add to several of my leadership and customer service classes that I am currently revising.