Coconsulting - a neat way to become a better
consultant and get and give some help!
Background
I sometimes find trying to help people,
groups and an organisation change and develop a lonely and stressful business.
I would rather it was fun more of the time! It has been hard to think about
what needs to be done and to overcome my own feelings of powerlessness. These
feelings are very common among people who work in organisations, as trainers, consultants
or managers. This has certainly been my experience both as an internal and
external consultant. Some years ago a colleague and I found a way through these
difficulties that worked for us. I have been using it for years and would like
to share it with you.
What is coconsulting?
In its simplest form, two people take turns
helping each other. For say half an hour one person is the client and works
with the other who is her/his consultant. The consultant and client can use any
method that the client is willing to try. The consultant will need to listen to
the client well first to understand the nature of the problem or issue before
moving to a method. Often just listening attentively and asking questions is
enough.
The client can help by being assertive about
what she or he needs during the process. If the consultants approach is not
working, the best clients will say so, then you can get back on track. Also, if
the approach is working and the client says, "This is great!" the
consultant will deliver more.
The consultant is offering her or his best
professional time and must keep her/his focus on the client. This is much more
demanding and usually much more helpful than a simple conversation where the
focus moves between the participants.
At the end of the time the participants
discuss for a few minutes what the client gained and what the consultant did
that helped. They can also talk about how another session could be better next
time. Then the two people swap roles and repeat the whole process.
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The
"rules" are very simple but you must follow them if this method
it is to work. |
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Have
a clear agreement about confidentiality before you start and stick to it. |
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Keep to your agreement on time otherwise one person
will feel exploited. |
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Use a method of helping that is appropriate to the
issue and acceptable to the client |
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As
consultant keep your focus on
the client's concerns or he or she will feel let down. |
It is not necessary to agree to any method in
advance of knowing what the client wants to work on. This neatly eliminates any
arguments about there being one right way to consult. These arguments can
easily get in the way of consultants co-operating with each other. In this way
coconsulting differs from cocounselling where the parties agree to take turns
and to also use the same theory and method. This can be very effective and is
an option coconsultants can use if they choose to.
What are the benefits?
In order to be effective in any role, you need
to be able to think clearly and act powerfully. Any effective consultancy
process will help the client think more broadly and more clearly about a
problem or opportunity. Simply explaining something to another person who is
listening will often do this. Often the person talking will discover new
possibilities and find new energy to act. He or she will feel more valuable
because someone else has bothered to listen. Sometimes someone who is not in
your situation can offer a new viewpoint. I remember someone from a different
organisation asking me "Have you talked to him about it?" The person
in question was a senior manager and I had made the unconscious, and wrong,
decision that I could not talk to him from my "lowly" level.
In the consultant role, coconsulting gives a
very easy and non-threatening way to find out how to help effectively. If you
are going to try new things, there is much less risk in working with a peer
than with an internal or external client where you may only have one chance to
make a difference.
It also helps you to understand what another
person's position is. This can be very useful when people come from different
organisations or different roles in the same organisation. It is an excellent
way of building bridges.
You can also use a "mini-session";
People then coconsult for (say) five minutes each way. This can be valuable at
the beginning of a development event. You might ask people to talk about what
they want from the event and what they will do to make it succeed. It is easier
to think out loud when someone else is listening. These questions help people
think about what they want and their responsibility for making it happen.
I have found mini-sessions invaluable if a
meeting or workshop is getting stuck. Perhaps feelings are running high and no
one is listening very well. If you ask people to go into pairs and have five
minutes each way on how they feel and what needs to happen next, then they will
often come up with an elegant solution to their problem. You have increased the
amount of attention people have for each other markedly and this produces
better thinking.
Coconsulting across an organisation or a
society would increase the amount of understanding, because whatever method you
use you have to listen for it to work. It also reduces prejudice, if you have
met, understood and helped an "X", you will never again agree with
anyone that "All "X's" are like that!" An "X"
could be a man or woman, a black or a Jewish person, a homosexual or a
heterosexual, working or owning class or someone from the finance department!
The latter may be funny and exciting rather than the conventional stereotype.
How to introduce coconsulting?
If you want to set up a coconsulting
relationship for yourself, the easiest way is to ask someone from your network
of fellow professionals or colleagues if they would like to try an idea out.
Explain the simple rules, see the box above, and then decide who should go
first as client.
If you go first, choose a real topic but not
one that is too deep or scary, and a relatively short time. Then tell the
consultant what you got from the session and all the things she/he did well, if
she/he asks for ideas on how to do it better, then offer constructive ideas
gently.
If the other person is the client, remember
to tell her or him that are doing well, she/he will be doing the best they can
and will be anxious. Use the gentlest techniques that will work. This is not a
good time to show off. Afterwards, you can ask what worked and how it could be better,
if you want, as before.
This is a reciprocal relationship. It is
tempting to give your client more of the time than you. This can be an
unconscious way of showing your superiority or of avoiding being vulnerable. It
does not help, especially at the beginning of your coconsulting relationship.
To introduce it to a group, I would usually
explain the basic ideas and invite a volunteer from the group to work with me,
live, on a simple but real issue for ten minute or so. The group would observe
attentively and then we would discuss how the client and I worked together, but
not the content of the session. The client usually gets enough out of it and
the process is transparent enough for people to feel confident about having a
go for themselves. When they do and have twenty minutes each way with a little
discussion between sessions, they find that most have a new insight into their
issue and have thoroughly enjoyed talking and listening. We might end with
listing the things that work as client and as consultant.
Most people are astonished how powerful this
experience is.
Acknowledgments and References.
I would like to thank John Coleman-Smith and
Jef Mason, both then of ICI, for introducing me to this idea. Thank you to my
current co‑consultants Catherine Joyce, June Whetherly and Alan Trangmar
for working with me patiently and helpfully over the years.
If you want to take these ideas a lot further there is much of interest in the literature of re‑evaluation counselling, available via www.rc.org and co-counselling international http://www.shef.ac.uk/personal/c/cci/cciuk/.
Using these materials
I am entirely happy for you to use
or draw on any these materials in any way you think will be helpful. I am keen
to have my work, and the work of the people I have learned from, used.
If you can, do you think you could say where you found them? One way might be to give a link back to www.nickheap.co.uk or to my email address. This will help these positive ideas to spread, and help my business, too.
Thank you
Nick Heap