What is Process Consultation?
Process Consultation has been descried as “the central discipline for helping professionals to build strong client-consultant relationships that result in sustained change and improvement.”  This model has enormous practical significance, not just for OD consultants, but for counselors, managers, therapists, social workers, and others involved in building and maintaining “helping relationships.”

Edgar Schein, the founder of Process Consultation, explains the various models for consulting and the advantages of the Process Consultation approach. In the prior meeting, Mike played the role of expert consultant “Wiley Coyote” in the drama presented and was “slammed”. By contrast, process consultant Clark Kent (portrayed by dramatist Grant Harris) was able to promote meaningful change.

Three Models of Consultation Compared

1.      Expert consultant: Advice from consultant to client

The client has the expectation that the consultant is the expert and would ask the consultant questions such as these:

• What is the level of customer satisfaction?

• How is my management behavior affecting the company?

This is useful under certain circumstances, such as the following:

• The consultant actually has expertise.

• The client has clearly communicated his/her problem.

• There is something that can be measured.

2.      Doctor/patient model: Diagnosis and prescription

• The client gives the consultant the pain and asks the consultant to define the illness and to provide the cure and treatment.

• This model is risky for the consultant – who is active, while the client is passive.

• The consultant may get scapegoated and take the fall.

3.      Process Consultation: Creating a helping relationship]

Ed Schein defines Process Consultation (Process Consultation Revisited, p. 20) as follows: “Process Consultation is the creation of a relationship with the client that permits the client to perceive, understand, and act on the process events that occur in the client’s internal and external environment in order to improve the situation as defined by the client.”

• Relationship is the medium for change
• Permission and facilitation for client’s effective agency and action
• Takes process events, i.e. the moment to moment experience of people about what is actually happening inside and outside the organization, as the primary focus
• Preserves the client’s understanding of what is “wrong” and what needs to get better.
• The consultant helps the client find the solution to improve the situation as defined by the client.
• This model gives permission to the client to take action.
• It also preserves the client’s understanding of what’s right and what’s wrong.
• The consultant is not the expert, not the person in charge, nor the authority.

The trick is in knowing when to use each approach. Schein, while noting the advantages of process consultation, acknowledges that in practice most consultations call for a mix of expert and process roles.

Process consultation means going to a deeper level. Instead of staying with the conventional conversation’s limits, the process consultant digs underneath the level of that conversation. 

The four breakout sessions illustrated techniques for reaching that deeper level. 

1. Bohmian Dialogue -  as created by David Bohm

Schein, in Process Consultation Revisited, says, “Dialogue makes it possible not only to create new climate for more effective interpersonal learning, but also may be the only way to resolve interpersonal conflict when such conflict derives from different tacit assumptions and different semantic definitions.”  Presented by Jim Murphy 

2. Dialogic Leadership – based on Bill Isaacs' recent theory, which was adapted from family theory

Four basic roles in conversation – to get people more included in the conversation.  Presented by Mike DiIanni

    3. The Blind Spot – also known as Asymmetric Awareness Dilemma

To show how all communications are fundamentally flawed because each part sees different information.  Presented by Jonathan Mozenter and Iris Bagwell

    4. Johari Window -  Invented by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram

How things are hidden in communication and when to use self disclosure and feedback.  Presented by Tom Matera