Ten Fundamentals of Process Consulting: Fundamental #2
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Lon L. Swartzentruber
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Fundamental #3 – The Client is at the CENTER, not the Process Consultant
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Dear friends,
Born from the foundational texts of the humble inquiry and process approach, the Ten Fundamentals of Process Consulting are designed to help us understand the theory and practice of being in the Process Consulting mindset.
Whether you are a Process Consultant helping a Client, a CEO leading a team, a department head bringing together leaders to solve an emerging challenge, embodying these fundamentals can be helpful to you in charting your course. For the sake of this series of blogs, we will be using the profession of Process Consulting as our lens. Knowing full well that these fundamentals are practiced by anyone seeking to help another human.
Expressed in the triad below, the ten fundamentals form our DNA as Process Consultants. They are a starting point in our work with others and our traits as we prepare to show up in service to them. In this way, they are distinct and set apart from the core competencies of Process Consulting.
Integrating the ten fundamentals into your leadership is a lifelong journey that will help you become exemplary in their practice.
Leading up to the Society for Process Consulting’s inaugural conference later this fall, we offer these fundamentals for your use, iteration, and adaptation, modeling our willingness to improve, learn, and grow as humans through this publication.
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Fundamental #3 – The Client is at the CENTER, not the Process Consultant
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A Process Consultant centers their relationship with the Client on the Client and their organization. We capitalize the word Client because it represents both the Client and the Client’s organization. [1] Within this center is the entirety of the process that is emerging, including our Agreement, the personhood of the Client, their organization, everything.
We can get the theory (thinking) of this fundamental rather easily. The person I'm helping is at the center of everything. With empathy we can feel the meaning of this fundamental. The Client is asking for my help...they need my help. We must remember to integrate these thoughts and feelings into our actions. We actually have to put the Client (the person we are helping) in the center of everything we are doing. They get to choose which path to take, they decide on what they are willing to do, and they get to decide what they are not willing to do.
It is their agency that we are supporting not ours, their vision not ours, their highest and best not ours.
If you have any comments about fundamental #3, please don’t hesitate to email me. I’d love to learn your prospective. Please watch this space for the 4th fundamental next week.
[1] Listening Helping, Learning, Mark L. Vincent, page 20. Tenth Power Publishing, 2022.
We will be reviewing all ten fundamentals at the Society’s upcoming conference on 11 November 2024 in Philadelphia. Please sign up through this link today!
As always, if you’d like to learn more about the Society for Process Consulting, please don’t hesitate to give me a call.
Best,
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Interim CEO Society for Process Consulting
[1] Process Consultation Revisited. Edgar H. Schein, page 1. Addison-Wesley, 1999.
Please take a moment to learn more about the Society's upcoming conference in Philadelphia PA 10 - 12 November 2024!
If you'd like to write a blog post for the Society for Process Consulting, please please send an e-mail to admin@societyforprocessconsuting.com.
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