OL 675 - Leadership Consulting

Credit(s): 3

This course examines in depth the consulting relationship and the consulting process. Students review the roles and responsibilities of consultants who work internally and externally for organizations of all kinds. They study the key aspects of consulting, including relationship-building, contracting, data gathering, problem diagnosis, resistance, and the creation of project deliverables. Various models for the consulting process are presented and applied to several business cases. This course examines many of the challenges a consultant faces-from conceptualizing client problems to showing your clients how to manage and lead change, to improving relationships between departments, to goal setting and planning. The purpose of the course is to provide an understanding of the process of organizational consultation. The course focuses on providing the professional with a philosophy, a process, and evaluative criteria for determining the effectiveness of the consulting intervention that he or she provides. The focus is on developing a problem-centered approach to intervening in organizations that minimizes reliance on programmed techniques and maximizes collaborative innovation and learning between client and consultant.