Performance Consulting Fundamentals

Learning leaders are increasingly called on to move beyond transactional and tactical solutions and to position learning as a strategic component of their organizations. Becoming a trusted business partner requires the skillful application of a results-focused approach—while avoiding the tendency to “solution-jump” or deploy easy-to-implement solutions without examining or fully understanding the root causes responsible for the observed gaps. Performance consulting is this approach.

Performance consulting is a strategic process that produces business results by optimizing the performance of people and the systems in which they work. Beyond “proving value,” a performance consulting approach focuses on actually being more valuable.

In this workshop you will learn performance consulting skills based on a practical and proven model. You’ll begin by applying specific criteria to differentiate strategic, tactical, and transactional work. Then, you will use the performance consultant’s mental model to define and align four types of needs present in any organization: business, performance, individual, and organizational capability. You’ll also practice analyzing incoming client requests by applying should-is-cause logic to determine what is known and unknown about the client’s needs. Finally, you will generate a series of powerful questions to reframe tactical requests into strategic discussions.

Throughout the day you’ll receive tools, templates, and real-world example cases to support your practice. Together, we will review a powerful positive video demonstration of a client conversation. You will leave the workshop with resources and activities designed to ensure that the skills you’ve developed are immediately useful in your everyday work.

In this workshop, you will:

• Explore a strategic consulting mental model used to define and align four organizational needs: business, performance, individual, and organizational capability
• Learn how to analyze client requests using should-is-cause logic and determine what is known and unknown about a specific situation
• Learn to ask powerful questions to reframe tactical requests for learning solutions into strategic discussions of desired results
• Examine techniques to help establish and grow strategic partnerships