Flawless Consulting, 4th Edition

CHAPTER 16Focusing on the Picture

NOW THAT YOU HAVE NAVIGATED the discovery choices and methods, you are ready to produce a picture of what is happening for the client and/or to document what is a future possibility. Remember, you have the choice to be problem‐focused or possibility‐ and asset‐focused. It's up to you and the place where you are doing the work. Also in your hands is the choice to structure the discovery. Will it be through the eyes of you and a third‐party team, or will it be a whole‐system self‐assessment effort?

Again, your preferences and the client's will dictate the choice here. The possibility and whole‐system choices are labeled as Notes within the lists of steps that follow. In each of these cases, the business of this phase is:

1. Collecting information at three different layers of analysis: understanding what the presenting problem is, what others are doing to create the problem, and what the client is doing to create the problem.

   Note: if this phase is about creating a new possibility rather than solving a problem, the requirement is to define the organizing question that will animate the possibility discussion.

2. Assessing the organizational and managerial climate in which action will be considered.
3. Dealing with client resistance to sharing information with you or fully engaging.
4. Choosing the right discovery process so that the structure of this phase begins to create ownership in dealing with the problem or the possibility. The discovery process itself ...