Organisational changes are leading to a shift away from traditional expectations and the terms business partner and internal consultant are becoming the norm for many professional support function roles; in HR, IT, Finance, HSEQ and Engineering.  Support function professionals' roles are now increasingly to ‘partner' their line business functions and this requires a change from a reactive, expert based role to one where being pro-active, collaborative and jointly solving problems are key.  A new set of skills and working methods are required: essential skills are collaborative working and forming strong relationships as well as bringing their objective, functional perspective through questioning assumptions, re-defining problems, and transferring knowledge to internal clients or colleagues.  This helps line clients develop their effectiveness and organisational performance.

 

Effective internal consultants can contribute enormously to departmental and organisational success. 

 

We design tailored modular programmes with a range of elements to suit the precise needs of our professional support function clients.  Our 3 day consultancy skills for business partners programme is always the core of any broader programme, but can also be run as a stand alone basis. Please see 'Consultancy Skills for Business Partners' below for more details.

 

Clients often choose to supplement the core consulting skills programme with a number of one or two day programmes:

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• Coaching Skills

• Emotional Intelligence

• Persuasive Presentation

• Influencing Skills

• Handling Challenging Conversations

• Advanced Consulting - tools & techniques

• Advanced Strategic Partnerships

• Facilitation Skills

 

Consulting Skills for Business Partners

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Our core 3 day Consulting Skills programme is very practical and highly participative with considerable use of case studies, exercises, role-plays and discussions. These are tailored to suit the groups’ needs and situation. It is structured in such a way that it provides you with a toolkit that can be used as soon as you are back in the workplace.

 

This programme is for high performing professionals in the public or private sector who need to work collaboratively with others to solve problems, transfer knowledge and increase capacity and productivity; in other words, as internal consultants.

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Programme objectives

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• Become familiar with an easy to follow practical and effective consulting process from data collection to implementation

• Look at various consulting styles to achieve differing outcomes

• Learn how to create a meaningful and helpful contract for consulting

• Know how to conduct yourself effectively as an internal consultant/business partner in order to build relationships and achieve results

• Learn how to handle challenging and demanding people and situations

• Practice using various questioning styles

• Learn how to create rapport and use body language effectively

• Explore a variety of ways to approach problems so that you can add value to your clients and customers

• Enhance your ability to influence and persuade without authority

• Examine the key skills needed to consult with and facilitate groups

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For more information about Consulting Skills please contact us