How do you work most effectively with your leadership and management training consultant?
Here are a few tips for getting the most out of your working arrangenment with a leadership and management training consultant. These are my client "Dos and Don'ts"! Do... Expect to have to pay for quality training consultants - like everywhere else: talent costsFocus on the outcomes - leave it to the training consultant to devise the "how"Treat leadership development as an investment like any other - keep in mind the return on that investmentGet involved and very importantly get senior management involved (and have every senior leader or manager be seen to be involved and exhibiting the skills themselves)Help as much as you can, be enthusiastic and champion the consultants whenever you canBe available and honestReview progress regularly - what are the key milestones? What's the feedback like?Keep asking questionsLook for ways to get the consultants to share the riskExpect to pay more if they share the risk and the project is a success!Divide the work up into appropriate modules - later ones dependent on the succeses or otherwise of earlier ones.Consider running a pilot programme before a major roll-outExpect any (minor) changes to the pilot workshop to be carried out for freeAsk for a discount for work that is repeatedly delivered in large volumesPay for the consultants you want running the project - rather than some less well qualified juniorThink about blending your own team in with the consultants - can they "train-your-trainers"?Have the follow up well planned
Don't... Change your mind or lose enthusiasm mid-way through the process (unless you have good reason to)Be afraid to look daft (just because the consultant is an expert - challenge them every now and then!)Expect instant miraclesExpect the pilot-workshop to be perfect (the whole point of the pilot workshop is to discover what works and what doesn't)Assume that you need to pay huge fees for the work you wantExpect to pay for every little phone call made or cup of coffee drunk - there shouldn't be a "meter" running everytime you want a chat!Split the work up into tiny modules, spread out over enormous timespans, thereby losing any economies of scale or momentumn.
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