9. EFFECTIVE CONSULTANT'S SKILLS/COMPETENCIES. Research regarding the classification of competencies necessary for effective consultation are limited. Vaill (1971) commented on this by stating: It is difficult to describe consultant skills and abilities, and at the present time it is quite impossible to say how to train persons to practice them. Yet the issues must be addressed if consulting practice is to be effective (p. 203). Consequently, Vaill urged that: The critical need is to collect more data on what these skills and abilities look like... and to talk with practitioners in detail, and, and where possible observe them at work, to see if these abilities can be documented (p. 204). It is difficult to develop a strict taxonomy of competencies and skills describing the nature of the consultative process because it is a personal relationship between people who are trying to solve a problem. The degree to which the consultant is able to influence this relationship is affected by four factors. 1. The consultant's behavioral competence; 2. The consultant's communication of helpful concepts and ideas; 3. The client's acceptance of the consultant; and 4. The client's legitimization of the consultant's role (Lippitt & Lippitt, 1986, p. 166). In the search for competency, the following questions may be useful as criteria for evaluating the consultant (Lippitt, 1969). 1. Does the consultant form sound interpersonal relations with the client? 2. Does the consultant's behavior build the client's independence rather than dependence on the consultant's sources? 3. Does the consultant focus on the problem? 4. Is the consultant nonjudgmental and tolerant toward other consultants and resource disciplines? 5. Does the consultant respect the confidences of his or her client's? 6. Is the consultant clear about contractual arrangements? 7. Does the consultant appropriately achieve influence in the organization? 8. Does the consultant truthfully represent the skills he or she possesses that are relevant to the client's problems? 9. Does the consultant clearly inform the client concerning the consultant's role and contribution? 10. Does the consultant express willingness to have his or her services evaluated? 11. Does the consultant participate in a professional association, discipline, or educational process to maintain competency? In a survey by Lippitt (1969) the following list of abilities were catalogued that were equivalent to competencies needed by a consultant. These were the ability to: * Diagnose problems; * Make an analysis and to interpret the results for the client; * Communicate effectively with all types of client systems; * Help other people become comfortable with change; * Maintain and release human energy; * Deal with conflict and confrontation; * Develop objectives with the client; * Help other people learn how to learn; * Manage a develop-and-growth effort; * Evaluate results; * Be proactive; * Be creative and innovative in working with the client; and * Be self-renewing. In addition to these abilities, other traits and skills are essential and do not necessarily come from education. These include: * Flexibility; * Innovative and creative ability; * Ability to quickly and accurately adapt to unfamiliar situations and circumstances; * Possession of inner motivation (self-starter); * Extreme perception and sensitivity toward others; * Extreme perception and sensitivity toward others; * Ability to deal successfully with ambiguity; * Extreme honesty (ethics of the profession); * Genuine desire to help others; * Profound respect for self; * Optimism and self-confidence; * Sincerity; and * Charisma (p. 23). For one individual to possess all of these abilities, skills, and competencies would seem impossible. Truthfully, no one person does, yet striving to develop them is assuredly a noble goal, and a part of the professional responsibilities of a consultant. Lippitt (1979) summarized the responses of thirty- two consultants, the competencies of a consultant seemed to cluster in the following categories of knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Their summary represents one step toward identifying competencies: KNOWLEDGE Here are the specifics in the knowledge category: 1. Thorough grounding in the behavioral sciences; 2. An equally thorough foundation in the administrative philosophies, policies, and practices of organizational systems and larger social systems; 3. Knowledge of educational and training methodologies, especially laboratory methods, problem-solving exercises, and role-playing; 4. An understanding of the stages in the growth of individuals, groups, organizations, and communities and how social systems function at different stages; 5. Knowledge of how to design and facilitate a change process; 6. Knowledge and understanding of human personality, attitude formation, and change; 7. Knowledge of oneself: motivations, strengths, weaknesses, and biases; and 8. An understanding of the leading philosophical systems as a framework for thought and a foundation for value systems (p. 170). SKILLS The following are the specifics in the skills category: 1. Communication skills: listening, observing, identifying, and reporting; 2. Teaching and persuasive skills: ability to effectively impart new ideas and insights and to design learning experiences that contribute to growth and change; 3. Counseling skills to help others reach meaningful decisions of their own accord; 4. Ability to form relationships based upon trust and to work with a great variety of persons of different backgrounds and personalities; sensitivity to the feelings of others; ability to develop and share one's own charisma; 5. Ability to work with groups and teams in planning and implementing change; skill in using group- dynamics techniques and laboratory-training methods; 6. Ability to use a variety of intervention methods and the ability to determine which method is most appropriate at a given time; 7. Skill in designing surveys, interviewing, and using other data-collection methods; 8. Ability to diagnose problems with a client; to locate sources of help, power, and influence; to understand a client's values and culture; and to determine readiness for change; 9. Ability to be flexible in dealing with all types of situations; and 10. Skill in using problem-solving techniques and in assisting others in problem solving (p. 171). ATTITUDES The following specific attitudes are important: 1. Attitude of a professional: competence, integrity, feeling of responsibility for helping clients cope with their problems; 2. Maturity: self-confidence; courage to stand by one's views; willingness to take necessary risks; ability to cope with rejection, hostility, and suspicion; 3. Open-mindedness, honesty, intelligence; 4. Possession of a humanistic value system: belief in the importance of the individual; belief in technology and efficiency as means and not ends; trust people and the democratic process in economic activities (p. 172). The previous lists of knowledge, attitude, and skills is extremely comprehensive. It would take a lifetime for the average individual to develop all of these skills. Yet, having them defined at least makes it possible for the aspiring consultant to work toward throughout their professional career and develop successfully as change-agents. Menzel (1975) developed a comprehensive list of skills entitled "A Taxonomy of Change-Agent Skills." He related his taxonomy to four key roles and phases of planned change that the consultant must master, and he listed some twenty-five skill areas in his model. Menzel explained his list of skills as follows. They are listed on the next pages. CHANGE AGENT SKILLS EDUCATING Researcher Familiar with the theoretical bases for change. Writer Able to write clearly and persuasively. Designer Can design educational workshops and events. Teacher Successful in helping others to learn. Instructor Teaching related more to "training" tasks. Trainer Beyond traditional "training"; able to "laboratory train," using heuristic methods. Advocate Holding out for a point of view or plan of action. Conference Leader Able to lead, and teach others to lead a participative meeting or conference. Life/Career Planner Able to help clients plan careers. DIAGNOSING Action Researcher Knows how to utilize research and survey data and systems theory to apply to present situation in the organization. Diagnoser Ability to identify what to be analyzed, what data gathered, how to obtain and use them. Survey Designer Can get needed data in the simplest way. Evaluator Uses evaluation as an on-going process. CONSULTING Role Model Can practice what he preaches; congruent. Relater Uses interpersonal skills to maintain credibility with all levels of organization. Expert in Processes Possesses expertise in change agent's tools of the trade. Confronter Able to face issues and peo head-on. Systems Analyst Can employ systems approach to change process. Intervenor Can use his expanding repertoire of interventions effectively. Designer & Planner Can plan and design and execute interventions forcefully. Adapter Applies his own experience and that of others in a creative and relevant way. LINKING Resource Linker Skill in linking the best resources with the correctly identified need. Internal Identifies, enlists, trains, and employs resources within the organization to effect change. External Identifies appropriate external resources, facilitates their entry and effective functioning. Uses internal and external consultant relationship well. In his definition of the four roles, Menzel identified consulting as separate from education, diagnosing, and linking. Lippitt and Lippitt (1986) believed the roles are included in the multiple functions of the consultant as listed in the previous lists of the consultant's knowledge, attitude, and skills. Its seems that the qualities needed by a consultant fall into two broad categories: (1) intellectual abilities and (2) personal and interpersonal attributes. From an intellectual standpoint, the consultant needs the ability to make a dilemma analysis. A client who engages an outside consultant is probably faced with a situation that appears unsolvable or at least puzzling and difficult. The consultant must recognize that a dilemma, real or not, exists in the mind of the client, discover the nature of the dilemma, and help to determine what really is causing it. To cope with dilemmas (real or not), the consultant must have a special type of diagnostic skill. It is only through skillful examination of the client situation that a consultant can see the relationships between or among various subsystems and the interdependent nature of individuals, groups, and the environmental setting of the consultation. Insight, perception, and intuition are necessary in order make sense of multiple dilemma analyses. They are vital because the problem and the solution of almost any dilemma are part of a very complex situation. The consultant's toughest task is to penetrate the complexity and isolate the major situational variables. The other major qualities of the consultant are personal and interpersonal attributes. Consultants must be professional in attitude and behavior. To be successful, the consultant must be sincerely interested in helping the client as any good doctor is interested in helping a patient. He or she must also be like a nurse, willing to provide exacting care as long as possible until the patient (client) is healed. Lippitt & Lippitt (1986) stated: Above all, consultants must be able to come to grips with themselves. Whatever views one may have of the client system necessarily interface with one's own value system, perceptions, and attitudes. Thus, consultants must be able to associate or disassociate their own internal constraints from those activities of the client (p. 177). Stanley M. Herman (1974) expressed this very well in the following poem: Freedom 1 No one grants you freedom You are free if you are free No one enthralls you You enthrall yourself And when you have You may hand your tether to another to many others to all others, or to yourself Perhaps the last is worst of all For that slave master is hardest to see And hardest to rebel against But he is easiest to hate and to damage I do not know how to tell you to be free I wish I did But I do know some signs of freedom One is in doing what you want to do though someone tells you not to Another is in doing what you want to do even though someone tells you to do it. Naismith (1971) developed an interesting matrix of informal and formal learning experiences related to the needed skills, knowledge, and attitudes necessary for the consultant to possess. They are: CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CONSULTANT SKILLS/ABILITY TO: MEANS OF ACQUIRING CHARACTERISTICS 1.Use scientific methodology Literature of Behavioral Science and Organization 2.Deal with people and situations; take action Tutorial under experienced practitioner; individual therapy and sensitivity training; training labs 3.Teach; communicate Literature; tutorials; training labs; university courses; experimentation 4.Diagnose and sense organizational problems Tutorials; individual sensitivity training; experience through exposure to organizations 5.Cope with political realities Literature; exposure to organizations 6.Detect success/failure Individual therapy; training labs; experience and exposure to organizations KNOWLEDGE OF: MEANS OF ACQUIRING CHARACTERISTICS 1.Change theory Literature; tutorial under experienced practitioner; university courses 2.Characteristics of organic systems Literature; university courses; exposure to organizations 3.Self Individual therapy; training labs; discussion with peers 4.A plan, conceptual model, or framework Literature; university course; experience in exposure to organizations 5.Specific OD methods Literature; tutori under experienced practitioner; university courses in OD 6.Research tools Literature; tutorial under practitioners; university courses 7.Organizational environment Literature; university courses; experience- exposure to organizations ATTITUDES MEANS OF ACQUIRING CHARACTERISTICS 1.Trust; openness Individual therapy; training labs; discussion with peers 2.Flexibility, adaptability Individual therapy; training labs; discussion with peers; experimentation 3.Desire to help Individual therapy; training labs 4.Honesty with self and others Individual therapy; training labs. The challenge for all consultants who dare to help both self and others to cope with the frontier of the future was clearly expressed by Schmidt (1970): Those who would live creatively and usefully at the frontier need now and then to pause and ask themselves: * Am I prepared to live with uncertainty--to move before all the facts are in (they never are) or arranged in clear patterns (they seldom are)? * Am I willing to risk a failure from acting now on the basis of my best judgment rather than waiting for others to take the first chance? * Can I stay open to new learning from every experience-- my own and others? * Can I continue, even in a crisis, to remember the humanness of those whose lives I touch--whether they view things my way or not? Consultants who possess these kinds of values, attitudes, and beliefs, may one day reinstate a sense of confidence in all fellow human beings and provide mutual growth for all parties engaged in the consulting relationship.