The Organization Consulting Process

"Consulting is the art of influencing people at their request" (Weinberg 1985). This neat little definition glosses over the greatest difficulty of any organizational consultant, whether internal or external: how you get people to do what you recommend?

When people don't want to follow your advice for organizational change, their resistance can overt, hidden, subtle, blatant, political, psychological, rational, irrational, effective or ineffective. Resistance is caused by fear of change, and fear of change is caused by the perception that something valuable to the employee will be lost or seriously compromised. The consultant can overcome resistance by recognizing its verbal and non-verbal cues, by taking non-confrontational steps to deal with it, matching and diffusing types of client concerns by use of appropriate examples, identifying the steps of the client coping process, and applying that process to help the client deal with a lack of control (www.skillsoft.com). I would approach resistance appreciatively, and embrace it directly through open di