I found this experience to be challenging and time intensive, yet it offered a great opportunity to experience what it would be like to be a performance consultant in the real world. A few of the experiences/lessons I will take from this experience include, but are not limited to the following:
- Identifying the true client is key to this process. If the client you're working with is unresponsive or unable to make necessary decisions, then they likely are not the true client. The question I will ask myself in the future when attempting to identify the true client is; "Would this problem/business need keep this person up at night?"
- Star performers are reliable and responsive data sources, but watch out for the average performers response rates.
- Educate and keep the client in the loop whenever possible. They know more about the company than you, but also challenge some of their assumptions of what the cause of the current situation is. Keeping them involved and engaged in the process will make it much more likely that they will buy in to the process and successfully manage the change when the engagement ends.
- The GAPS! map is a great organizer of logic, and should be used in addition as a conversation piece and feedback tool.
- Interviews take a long time, and having pre-work for the interviewees will help pull out richer information from the interviewee because they will have time to reflect on the questions prior to the interview.
- Group work is messy. Having a project plan with important milestones documented from the beginning of the project will help keep everyone on top of what's going on. Also, schedule meeting times in as far advance as possible. Everyone is so busy, that if the group experiences a hiccup in the process, there is built in meeting time to address it instead of calling a meeting that group members scramble to attend.
- Highlight group members' talents.
- The client should co-create the interventions and evaluation methods.
- Don't underestimate the amount of time and energy a project will take. Overestimate if nothing else.
Although this project was only 5 weeks, albeit 5 intense weeks, in length, I gained a full experience that will help me greatly in my future career. One day I will review this blog and compare what else I have learned about the performance consulting process. Hopefully I will conclude that follwoing this course, I had a good introduction and foundation to build upon . Thank you!
