From your own experience, describe an occasion of consulting in which you acted as an expert. Did you solve the problem?
Once recent occasion where I provided some consulting was with a manager who reports to me. This manager has 2 direct reports and came to me with a frustration that her two associates have been complaining about their current workload. She was frustrated because she and I had just re-distributed projects in an effort to take some responsibilities off of her own plate, since she was feeling overwhelmed. We had decided that this would not only reduce her workload, but would also give her an opportunity to practice delegation (which is something that she struggles with).
At the beginning of our meeting, after she told me that she was frustrated with the response of her two associates, I reassured her that we would be able to “figure this out together”. I reminded myself quietly that I wouldn’t be doing her any favors by giving her answers. So, I decided that I would make an attempt to demonstrate some process consultation techniques.
I first asked her, “What are you trying to solve for?” She responded that she didn’t want to overwork her associates, but she also didn’t want to automatically take everything back either. I asked her to articulate options- and reminded her that we didn’t need to choose one yet, but wanted her to just brainstorm all options. As she began to identify options, she started to talk through the pros and cons of each of these options.
After an hour of me asking her questions and her responding, thoughtfully, to these questions, she landed on several actions that she committed to making. They included follow up meetings with each of her associates to assure them that she would not let them fail, but that some of the new responsibilities that they were being asked to take on was for their development (she didn’t thing that she had articulated this to them well before). We agreed that we would “check in” again on this after 2 weeks so that we could evaluate if there had been any improvement made in their confidence and commitment to the work.
In reflection, I didn’t really answer any of her questions, and in reality, her “solution” was one that I may not have even recommended.