Intro to Consultancy Team Management Team/Focus/.

Intro to Consultancy Team Management

Team/Focus/

2

Detlev Bio

• Schulich School of Business, Associate Professor Marketing• Research, writing, teaching (Exec, MBA, BBA)• Consulting: over 50 engagements on junior and senior level

– Vattenfall– Yogurt Fruz– Jazz 91 FM– Various ERP and SAAS software companies– BMW, UK– Board of Education, City of Providence, USA – Toronto FC– Various start-ups (with various success)

Let’s Discuss• What is strategy?• What is consulting?• How would you characterize the forces at work in the management

consulting industry…– …in the past.– …today.

• What is your prediction for how the industry might change over time?

• What are potential sources of competitive advantage in the industry? What separates the winners from the losers?

• What is Argyle’s main argument?• And what can we learn from his thoughts? • What is your main take-away from Turner’s hierarchy of consulting

objectives?

Teaching Smart People How to Learn

• Why do well-educated professionals struggle to learn?

• How can companies improve the ability of their managers and employees to learn?


“Success in the market place increasingly depends on learning, yet most people don’t

know how to learn”

Learning Dilemma:

• Companies have difficulty addressing this issue

• Some companies are not aware this issue exists.

Misunderstanding Learning

Two mistakes made in the effort of becoming a learning organization:

1. People define learning too narrowly as mere “Problem Solving”

2. The common assumption that getting people to learn is largely a matter of motivation


Types of Learning

Single Loop Learning Double Loop Learning

A thermostat that automatically turns on the heat whenever the temperature in a room drop below 68°

A thermostat that could ask: “Why am I set at 68°?” and then explores whether or not some other temperature might more economically achieve the goal of heating the room.


How Professionals Avoid Learning


Behavior Theory

• Espoused Theory: How people think they behave

• Theory-in-use: How people actually behave


Theory-in-use

• Governing Values of theory-in-use:– To remain in control– To maximize winning and minimize losing– To be as rational as possible

The purpose of all these values is to avoid embarrassment or threat, feeling vulnerable or

incompetent


Defensive Reasoning

• Encourages individuals to keep private the premises, inferences, and conclusions that shape their behavior and to avoid testing them in a truly independent, objective fashion.


Learning How to Reason Productively

• Managers must become aware of their defensive reasoning and its results otherwise any change will just be a fad

• Change must start at the top

• Learning to reason productively can be emotional, but the payoff is great


Conclusion

• Effective learning is the product of the way people reason about their own behavior

• Companies need to make the ways managers and employees reason about their behavior a key focus of organizational learning and continuous improvement programs


Intro to Consultancy Team Management Team/Focus/.

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