The Seven Cs of Consulting: Your Complete Blueprint for any Consultancy Assignment - Softcover

Mick Cope

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0273645110 ISBN 13: 9780273645115

Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall, 2000

Synopsis

For any consultant aiming to survive and grow in this complex world, they need to have a clear and concise change model to hand, one that can guarentee delivery of a wide range of change projects. Based around the author's 7C's model (Client, Clarify, Create, Change, Confirm, Continue, Close), this book offers both budding and experienced consultants a solid and robust framework to enhance their ability to manage any consultancy assignment. - from understanding the client's needs, through to successful assignment completion and developing new business out of that success. With the help of the crib notes on the pull-out back pocket guide, the 7 C's model will show you how to improve your professionalism, and deliver clear and demonstrable results to clients, bringing them back for more.

About this title

About the Author

MICK COPE has been a consultant for 15 years, working in the field of business transformation. He has managed both front and back office activities across in-house and commercial organizational development programmes, including systems integration, strategy development, project management, change management, total quality, ISO 9000, process management, Investors in People, European Quality Award, Stephen Covey Seven Habits and a wide range of personal development programmes. He has published widely in the fields of organizational learning, knowledge management, workshop design, change management and personal development and is a regular speaker at international conferences. He is also the author of Leading the Organisation to Learn, published by FT Prentice Hall.

He welcomes feedback on any concepts offered in this book. Contact him at MickCope@BTInternet.com or on 0973 208617.

From the Back Cover

Start-to-finish techniques for delivering better results in any consulting assignment. For consultants with any level of experience -- by Mick Cope, one of the world's leaders in the field. Understand your client's business needs -- and the realities hidden beneath the surface. Design the optimal solution, get it implemented -- and make sure change actually takes root! The consultancy business is booming -- but while thousands of people are jumping into the business, few have the in-depth skills their clients need. The Seven Cs of Consulting is the complete guide for any consultant who wants to succeed in this business -- and help their clients succeed at the same time. Based on Mick Cope's world-renowned 7Cs model, it offers both new and experienced consultants a robust framework for delivering excellent results in any assignment. Mick Cope's 7C model (Client, Clarify, Create, Change, Confirm, Continue, Close) is designed to support you through the lifecycle of any consulting assignment, enhancing your professionalism and your ability to deliver measurable results. Discover practical techniques for understanding both your client's stated needs and the underlying "root causes" that may not be stated aloud; learn how to create the optimal solution that can actually be implemented; manage the change process; confirm that a successful transition has actually taken place; and ensure that changes will continue after you leave. Finally, learn specific techniques for ending a consulting assignment on positive terms -- so your client will come back for more.

Mick Cope has been a consultant for over 15 years, specializing in business transformation. He has managed both front and back-office activities across both in-house and commercial consultancies, and is author of Leading the Organisation to Learn (FT Prentice Hall).

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Preface

Conventional wisdom suggests that an author should focus on the needs of the reader. I confess I took the decision to be selfish. I wanted to write a book I would use as a personal guide, memory-jogger and communication tool. However, my belief (and the argument in this book) is that the principles of consulting are sufficiently generic to ensure that what I find of use will also be of interest to colleagues in other companies and industries. The underlying principles are:

Consulting is fundamentally about change, about helping another person, team or organization make the transformation from one state to another. This might be a physical, cognitive, emotional, structural, technological or organizational change. Unless something changes, then why should any reward be forthcoming from the client?

Any consulting project will benefit from the application of a change model that makes sense to the client as well as the consultant.

Consulting is consulting. Scale, context and outcomes may differ, but the basic steps are common to all assignments.

Since content and context drive a consulting project, no two will be the same. So any consulting framework can only act as an indicative rather than a directive model.

Successful consulting is about making a difference for the client and consumer - the goal is to deliver the contracted change, not a successful t consultancy project.

These guiding principles are used to underpin the Seven Cs, from meeting the client to closing the contract and saying goodbye. However, they are not offered as sacrosanct principles that must be employed in all situations. Such a rigid approach ultimately leads to the desire to implement wholesale replicated change programmes, which in turn lead to only limited success. That approach is often behind the cynicism about the consulting industry. The aim of this book is to offer an outline framework within which each consultant can understand the context of a situation and then develop a solution that is appropriate (Lissack, 1999). I hope that you accept my ideas in the spirit in which they are offered. Although the intention is always to offer ways and means, not must and should,this is difficult when certain ideals and beliefs are felt with passion. So although parts of the book might appear to be directive in nature, if the reader ever feels that the style or content is offering the 'right solution', then it should be consigned to the waste bin.To prepare yourself for the world that is coming, you must understand why it will be different from what most experts tell you.
(Rees-Mogg and Davidson, 1997)

Edition details

• Publisher: Financial Times/Prentice Hall
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0273645110
• ISBN 13: 9780273645115
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256