Lesson 1: Intellectual Capital

Tangible assets: Less important. Physical and financial resources like machinery, plant, and self-
financing capacity.
Intangible assets, The Intellectual Capital: More important. Innovation, loyalty, creation of networks
and partnerships, patents, reputation, etc.
IC has a positive impact in:

 Value of the company.

 Present and future performance.
Where does it happen the most?

 Service sector > manufacturing sector.

 Economically advanced contexts (USA and Europe). More mature investors are more aware if
the IC’ importance.
Edvinsson & Sullivan 1996: Managers should have the ability to provide working conditions that
transform human resources (knowledge of the company) into intellectual assets.
IC is divided in 3 components:
1. Relational Capital: quality of relationships developed with customers, suppliers, external
parties, etc. Importance of mutual trust and the construction of a positive image. E.g.:
McDonald’s and Coca-Cola are linked for years.

2. Organizational/ structural capital: culture and values of the company. Results of research
activities and intellectual property (the bread machine story). Teamwork and leadership
(Kaplan and Norton, 2004). Crucial for the creation of innovative aspects.
E.g.: Walt Disney at first was just focus on cartoon but by time they started doing movies and
acting at different contexts.

3. Human Capital (not human resources): knowledge, skills, and behaviours of employees. It
can be developed. Human resources not a cost, but an important asset of the organization.
Important to respond to the real needs of customer.
E.g.: What teachers teach, their relations with the students and the consequences of that.

Which workers generate Human Capital?

Low added High added value

value

Difficult to Skilled labor, Key figures (not

replace staff necessarily in the top
management)-> the
real Human Capital

Easy to Unskilled Employees with high

replace labor impact on customers
Edvisson and Malone 1977: the IC’ components are not static but interact with each other-> business
value. The company must be strong in all these 3 components to transform intellectual capital
into value.

What elements to evaluate in each component?

Relational Capital: external an internal image, reputation, satisfaction, and loyalty.
Organizational capital: organizational models, projects, communication tools, patents, etc.
Human Capital: motivation, skills, and behaviours.
Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is crucial, since the IC resides in the people who
work within the organization.
Chiucchi, 2010: Measuring IC

 Key Success Factors (FCS): analyse the actions and strategies adopted by the company and
the intangible assets that are being developed.
Difficulty in applying IC:

 Distrust and little knowledge of the model: investors don’t know about this topic.
 Difficulty to identify the FCS.
 Presence of different measurement models.
 Difficulty in making measurements operational.
Some Measurements models:

 Skandia’s Value Scheme (Edvinsson and Malone, 1997).

 Kaplan and Norton’s Balanced Scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1992),

Lesson 2: Knowledge Management

Each organization has their one knowledge management-> there are a lot of KM types.
KM -> Economic growth and Success
What does KM do?
1. Develop better practice/ services.
2. Generating a growth in the number of customers/ their loyalty.
When does de KM become a real resource?
  When it’s able to generate commercial value!
SHRM is a success when:

 Organizational structure: having the best specialists

 Task design: definition of responsibilities
 Employee education
 Rewards, incentives, career advancement system (for old employees)
 Informative system

Action

Decision

Knowledge
Understanding the
Information internal and
Turning data into external reality of
Data useful info. Ex: the organization.
The users aren't Ex: Need to be
Collecton of facts aware of the
satisfate about the
size of the problem even if
product. Must we cannot solve it.
change it!

Nonaka, 1995: Organizations are living organisms that learn, but the knowledge generated is largely
tacit.

 A lot of people learn about doing their work, by doing it themselves.

 Knowledge is always with people and that’s why is so important!
 Ex of tacit knowledge: Knowing the right words to use to attract your audience.

Explicit knowledge: can be formally documented and shared.

Tacit knowledge: exists inside the heads of your employees. Direct experience.

The Spiral of knowledge of Nonaka

The organizations that generate knowledge are those that learn- learing organizational.

Ex of Creating knowledge:
Communities of practice are groups of an organization that wants to solve problems and that those in
it don’t need to be experts. People could be there because they want to share or learn. (more about it
at 13,14,15 slides of lesson 2).
Two forms of knowledge, explicit and tacit, are articulated in four phases:
1. Socialization or sharing: individuals trasnfer knowledge through direct observation
2. Externalization: through discussion; knowledge is transformed in information
3. Combination or extension
4. Internalization or diffusion: Exchange of explicit knowledge, producing new experiences.

Implicit to Explicit

Implicit Socialization Externalization

to

Explicit Internalization Combination

Strategic Planning
It happens not just because we want to, but because is good for the company!
The strategies depend on 2 environments:
1. Of the present company
2. Of external companies

strategic
goals

actions to
achieve them

resources to
execute them

 Strategic describes how the goals will be achieved by resources in a given span of time!
 Strategic planning is the process.
 Strategic plan is the result.

Why should we have a strategic plan?

1. Sharing of objectives among all the employees (even if they are in different sections)
2. Create clarity about the objectives
3. Limit emergency situations
4. Set limits on activities and expectations
5. Evaluate the results
6. Improve the quality of work
7. Optimize resources
8. Establish objectives in a given period of time
 9. Provide a single view of the work by all its member: it’s important that all employees work at
the same direction (even if we are talking about boss and trainee)
10. Prevent competition between members or duplicating work
What if the organization is nonprofit? Should they also use a strategic plan?
YES!
1. Aligns stakeholders around strategic priorities
2. Communicates goals and strategies
3. Motivates external and internal audiences

Preconditions for strategic planning:

 Independence: identify goals and resources to achieve them

o If it’s a non-profit organization, the secretary general and political leader must be
involved
 Stable management: no arguments between groups
 Clear distinction between strategic and tactical planning
Stages of strategic planning
1) Stage 1
a) The mission
b) SWOT Analysis: identify objectives and plan interventions
2) Stage 2
c) Strategic or long-term objectives: well defined, clear, measurable and in written form
3) Stage 3
d) Develop strategies
e) Two or more tactical plans for each strategic objective
4) Stage 4
f) Develop control systems: monitor the implementation of results obtained
g) Strategic plan must be presented to all
h) Always check and analyse de final results
Strategic plan -> long period 3-4/5 years
Tactical plan-> short period 6 months-1 year (updated year by year)
What is important when developing a SP?

 Put the plan in writing and clear!

 Get input from everyone involve
 Know about other management already in place
 Time frame <-> objectives
 Predict expenditure and revenue growth
 Distribution of responsibilities into each sector
What is necessary when developing a SP?

 Deadline date
 Develop information collection system to analyse the results obtained
  Identify the resources for each sector
 Provide the possibility to modify the plan
The starting point- The mission
What is it? -> sort of “identity card” and explains:

 Why the organization exists?

 What does it do?
 Who is it for?
What is it for?

 Helps communicate what the organization is like

 Delimits the unlimited expectations
 Identifies the objectives and strategies
What it contains?
1. The purpose
2. Its uniqueness
3. Its vision: The goal they want to achieve
4. The values of the organisation
5. The target-> costumers
6. Their main activities
7. Their main methods of intervention
8. The needs it intends to respond
9. The resources it intends to rely on
SWOT Analysis

Help the Hinde the

achievement achievement of
of an objective an objective
Internal
factors
Strength Weaknesses
(present
situation)

External
factors (future Opportunities Threats
scenario)
 Lesson 3: learning organization
Knowledge:

 Must generate cognitive change, new actions and behaviours -> development and
competitiveness.
 Is the only thing that the competition can’t replicate-> it’s specific to each organization
reality!
Learning organization is:

 Systematic problem solving

 Testing of new approaches
 Learning from one’s experience and the past
 Learning from the experience and best practices of others
 Quick and effective transfer of knowledge within the organisation
Knowledge cannot be separated from individual, information can!
Information is data that can only be use by someone who has the knowledge to interpret it!
Characteristics of knowledge:
1. Comes from an invention, is “created by man”
2. Is an inexhaustible resource
3. Isn’t a pure public good: not available to everyone and difficult to produce for private profit
4. Is cumulative: can be created starting from the knowledge that is already available
5. New knowledge can generate more knowledge (research on sending satellites has generated
new machinery)
Obstacles of knowledge creation:

 Individualistic culture generates fragmentation because of the competitive environment

 Rigid separations among different sectors that don’t want to share their knowledge
 “Time is money” attitude: knowledge is something that requires time
 Lack of perception of usefulness (“my knowledge isn’t relevant to share”) and perception of
risk (“I will not be recognized for my contributions”)
 Rigid professional identities

Organizational learning
Process by which a person implement skills
that create positive change

Learning organization
Way of structuring the organization that
provides you to learn, change and improve.

What you need to generate knowledge?

 Organizational culture that promotes innovation

 Infrastructure that promotes practices
 Structure that promotes communication between sectors
 Lesson 4: Staff Assessment
Staff Appraisal includes: management tool to help support employees in their professional
development
1. Evaluation of positions: involves the remuneration associated with the relevance of the role
in the organization
2. Evaluation of work performance: contribution already provided by the worker
3. Evaluation of potential: what the worker will be able to do (using skills)
o Restitution: feedback given to who was evaluated
4. Assessment of skills
Job evaluation: identifies and describes the characteristics of each job position.
o Position in the organization chart
o Its purposes
o Responsibilities
o Tasks
o Activities carried out

It also defines the profile- knowledge (what you must know) and skills (what you must be able to do)
useful for filling each position.
When do a position assessment?
o worker assigned to a new job position
o understand how the individual position contributes to the achievement of the organization's
goals
When identified the ideal profile, it can be compared with the real profile
Evaluation and work performance:
o understand the worker’s contribution and what has done using its skills
o should be done on an annual basis
o worker must be aware of how and when the evaluation will take place

expected performance
performance rendered

the results
the results
expected
actually
from the
achieved
worker

Work performance is determined by certain criteria:

1. The results achieved: Individual, group and program results
2. Organizational behaviours: ability to work in a team, to manage human and economic resources,
planning, user / customer orientation, quality orientation, to negotiate or to innovate (bring new
ideas), etc.
Why evaluate job performance?
 o Motivate staff to improve their work style
o Promote recognition of merits
o Improve communication between employees and management/ organization.

Critical issue
To evaluate a performance the evaluator should:
a) describe it and understand the factors that define it
b) judge the level of mastery of each factor (e.g. Likert scale).
c) This system is based on a mix of organizational results and behaviours

 Assessment focused on results: positions with higher autonomy- involves navigate their responsibilities
to the organization's success.
 Assessment focused on behaviours: positions with lower autonomy- involve more routine tasks,
teamwork skills, etc.

ERRORS when evaluating work performance:

 Send an employee assess the work performance of another employee, instead of his superior.

 Use the evaluation only to award rewards and disincentives: also serves to identify areas to
improve.

 Introduce the evaluation process without providing the training of the personnel involved.

 Include seniority among the factors of personnel evaluation systems. Overlooks the need to
assess current capabilities

 Use the same evaluation forms for all job profiles

 Using generic and inadequately defined evaluation forms.

 Use evaluation systems imported from outside and not suitable for the organization.

 Evaluate the achievement of results without the objectives having been previously
communicated and explained.

Evaluation of the potential: provides an analysis of the worker’s skills that aren’t being used in the
current position because aren’t required. That helps understand if its possible to assign the person
to other job position (E.g. career advancement; assignments to job positions of greater
responsibility).

Assessment centre
Evaluation methodology used to select employees to be assigned to other job positions.
o How? Verifying skills when observing and judging the worker’s behaviours.
o Type of activities: competitive or cooperative.
o Uses various techniques evaluation
o Implies a significant number of evaluators
 Reduce the risk of Challenging
subjective detection methods
Avantages assessments
Fatigue and stress
High quantity and of the participants
quality of collected
information
Costs

Disadvantages
Flexibility in its
application Time consuming

Training impact for the

subject(s) reached

The offered situations are similar to the organizational reality.

The behaviours observed:

 analysis of a problem and choice of the best solution

 choice of strategies to negotiate successfully

 ways organized decisions are made

 effective presentation of proposals

Example of individual tests:

 leaderless group discussion: focused to solving a problem, but without the presence of the
leader. Can be a cooperative or competitive discussion.
 business game: make decisions using instrumentation, graphs, etc. Requires a high
organization.
 fact finding: given some information about a situation and they must ask an informant in
order to reconstruct the incident.
 advocacy case: each participant has an assigned role and must achieve their goal by negotiate
with the others. Detect leadership skills, etc.
 group objectives: Each participant needs to collaborate with the group in order to achieve the
solution that leads to the goal.
 in basket
 interview simulation
 presentation
 role play
After the evaluation process:
o Is given and requested feedback on the results. Comparison related to a growth project for
the subject.
o No more than a month between the conclusion and the return (so people still remember
all the process)
o Awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses
o The results can be used by the organization to initiate professional development plans
 Lesson 5: Skills Assessment/Evaluation
Knowledge: knowing. Theoretical, technical, concepts related to the work performed.
Skills: know how. Being able to apply that knowledge.
Ability: knowing how to be. Use of skills and knowledge in complex organizational situations (make
decisions, take responsibility).
When assessing knowledge, a verification has to be done, and its carried out by:
1. Make sure that a person has successfully completed a specific training program (document
that confirms they have that knowledge).
2. Check previous application of this knowledge to ensure isn't just theoretical but has been
effectively used in practical (internship).
3. Get to work with the team of examiners to see if the person has the competences.
4. Practical testes under the supervision of competent people.
o It can be used a questionnaire of multiple choices if the group to be examined is large.

Checklist to verify knowledge (Coco, 2001)

1. What is the educational path and level of knowledge?
2. How many years have passed since the diploma attainment?
3. Has the person attended post diploma training courses?
4. What about courses, seminars within the organization? How many of them?
5. How often is the person asked to apply this knowledge?
6. How does the person apply this knowledge? (notions, concepts)
7. Does the person read books related to the knowledge? How often?
8. How long is the person using this knowledge?
9. Have the person been a speaker in conferences? How often?
10. Has it provided significant contributions in services?
Why is assessment so important?
o Discover gaps and fill them
o Arrange training interventions when the level possessed ≠ level required
o Collect another knowledge that isn’t being used

Professional figure can be divided into:

1. Basic skills: elements necessary for individuals to enter into the world of work.
2. Techincal-professional skills: knowledge necessary for carrying out work activities.
3. Transversal skills: “soft skills”; personal characteristics (cognitive and behavioural skills
required by the work environment).
Skills/ competences envolves the capacity in which observable cognitive, social and behavioural
skills must be organized effectively. Those behaviours are:
o Observable variables (personality traits)
o Associated with successful performance
o Identified when implemented

Also, competences are related to:

1) The will
2) The action
 3) The result
Isn’t merely about possessing skills and knowledge but also about the proactive intention, effective
application, and meaningful outcomes derived from those competencies.
Competence/skills assessment:
1. Identify the skills that you intend to assess
2. Define each competence so you know what the subject must be able to do
Some mistakes to avoid in this step:

o Putting together more skills to describe a complex behaviour

o Specify behaviours that can only represent an expressive moment of a skill
o Confusion social attitudes with capacity
o Defining skills in terms of values
o Confusing technical-professional knowledge with skills

3. Establish the indicators to detect their presence (more than 4)

4. Establish how to define the level of mastery (using Likert scale)
Interpersonal skills:
o Teamwork: collaborative effort of individuals working together to achieve a goal.
o Management of groups and meetings: coordination of several people, ensuring effective
communication, collaboration, and goal achievement (harmony isn’t necessary).
o Organization of one’s work: systematic planning and arrangement of tasks to achieve goals.
o Leadership: organize consensus, to obtain collaboration and to guide individual or a group to
achieve a certain goal.
Skills assessment process in an organization:

Identify the skills necessary:

identify, in each area, the skills workers need to
possess;
in this phase, we can distinguish between:
Phas Threshold skills: necessary for the profile
e I. Distinctive skills: add quality; identified who achieve
above-average results

Detect the skills already present. How? By:

Administration of questionnaires and tests
Phas Carrying out interviews
e II. Self-assasment or evaluation through a servey form
Those last two are delicate because it can be offending
or demotivating for thesubject

Skills management: Compare the skills present with

the necessary or strategic skills.
Phas Now is possible to implement a training plan!
e III. Essential to share the results with those directly
involved

How to identify the skills related to each job position?

1. Analysis of the organization chart and function flow chart/ interviews w/ subjects
 o Use previous inventories of competence and compare the results with pre-established
models
2. If the skills analysis is aimed at an organizational reorganization, further methodologies can
be adopted:
o The critical incident method
o The Behavioural Event Interview method

Organization chart: bodies of an organization and the hierarchical relations among them.
Function flowchart: functions, activities and criteria of their articulation.
The limits of a competence-based approach:

 Measuring is different from evaluating

 It offers the manager a limited possibility to grow in its management skills
 Operationalization of skills is difficult
 Lesson 6: Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM)
It’s a planned model of Human Resources Management aimed at making the organization achieve its
objectives.
Promotes integration of people in the strategic objectives and efficient management of employees.
Psychological contract refers to the unwritten, intangible agreement between organization-employee
that describes the informal commitments, expectations and understandings that make up their
relationship.
Positively linked to:
1) Organizational citizenship behaviours: behaviours which favour the organization.
- Altruism: behaviours carried out in favour of specific people.
- Compliance: conducts favourable to the organization in general (arriving on time).
2) Organizational commitment: organization-employee link.
- Affective commitment: emotional attachment felt for the organization you work.
- Normative commitment: moral obligation, responsibility and felt has a duty.
- Continuance commitment: perception of costs that may experience after leaving.
3) Engagement: positive persistent state of satisfaction.
- Vigor (high energy levels and perseverance when difficulties), Dedication (high
involvement and enthusiasm) and Absorption (fully emerged and time passes
quickly).
- Personal (ability to recover quickly) and Job Resources (social support and variety of
tasks) are involved.
- Consequences: Individual (reduce depression and increase performance),
Interpersonal (better relationships w/ colleagues) and Organisational (reduce
complaints due to job stress).
- ≠ Burnout: meaningless work, exhaustion and ineffectiveness.
Workers obligations: protect image of the company, work in team, take responsibility
Organizations obligations: Provide training, safety, offer career progression opportunities
3 Approaches to SHRM:
1) Best fit: align corporate strategy w/ HR strategy. Doesn’t care about Personal motivations.
2) Best practice: adopt practices to improve work well. Models are external to the organization.
3) Best process: implement practices to create sustainable competitiveness. Reduced emphasis
on the plan that defines organizational objectives.
4 Connections between SHRM and SOM:

The SHRM Plan:

Learning is about experience, can be direct or indirect not necessarily associated with desirable
change, changes behaviour in a stable way and takes place in a social context.
The Experiential Learning Cycle of Kolb et al: learning is a circular process with different possible
activities and learning styles. From experience is more solid but takes time. Reflection is important
for a good application of what has been learned.

Obstacles to learning: lack of time to reflect the experience, absence of tools or ability to analyse
experiences and since they are simulated may seem artificial and irrelevant.
4 individuals learning styles:
1) Active: engage in problem solving and accept challenges.
2) Thoughtful: ponder situations before actions and are cautions.
3) Theorists: create rational schemes and opt for a logical approach.
4) Pragmatic: implement ideas to see if they work and experiment through application.
Training or learning?

o Performance issues arise from aspects like leadership  training or learning isn’t successful.
o Gap between necessary skills and individuals’ capacity  training or learning is successful.
o Gap between real and desired returns  may not depend on the lack of training.

Job training analysis can be developed through:

o Comprehensive analysis: detailed analysis of every aspect of the job. Very long and expensive
o Problem centred analysis: analysis of the difficulties and criticalities encountered
o Competence based analysis: identification of the skills necessary

SHRM is a success when:

 Organizational structure: having the best specialists

 Task design: definition of responsibilities
 Employee education
 Rewards, incentives, career advancement system (for old employees)
 Informative system
 Lesson 7: Performance Assessment and Appraisal
Evaluate Job Performance is measuring and assessing the work done and results achieved.
o Important because it:
- Motivate staff
- Promote recognition of merits
- Improve communication.
o Requirements:
- Should be carried out at regular intervals (1 year, 6 months)
- …
o 2 critical issues when evaluating:
- Evaluation criteria and measures
The stages of the evaluation must incorporate the identification of objectives, monitoring the results
achieved, offer feedback and identification of actions for further development.
Objectives: skills, competencies- must be clear, measurable, consistent w/ tasks, scheduled.
Performance Evaluation Form: focus only on job performance, limiting areas of interest, measure
work habits (establish number of times a worker can be late during a given period of time).
o Possible areas to consider: skills, quality and quantity of work done, work habits and attitudes
o Other areas (manager): motivate, provide guidance, manage a team and solve problems
o Evaluation Measures: 1) job description (duties and tasks), 2) key factors (areas) and 3)
integrate key factors with quantitative data and information
o Important: job descriptions must be measured up to date, if organization and evaluated are
large an ad hoc working group can be entrusted, tell if position provides salary revision

- Feedback
Give and receive feedback about positive aspects and those to be improved! There must be a balance
in order to not overlook or just focus on their strengths. We are talking about:
o Indicate areas to improve
o Explain how to help the employee
o Offer examples of desired behaviours, training and suggestions
o Ask employee to comment on the evaluation received
o Create open communication is the goal!
o Constructive feedback: focus on behaviours and not personality, clear goals and language,
future-oriented, avoid judgements and it´s a two-way process.
Disciplinary procedures are necessary when an employee continues to perform poorly even after the
evaluation. The procedures should define the actions that will be taken if the problems persist:
 Verbal warning Written warning

informal more serious

comes first comes second
communicated privately must include:
specify the behaviours and description of behaviour and
consequences consequences
give the opportunity to reply changes expected
employee suppor over his
improvement
description of what will happen
employee's signature and date of
notice

Lesson 8: Green Human Resource Management (sustainability)

Transforming their business into a more sustainable (“eco-innovation” and “people empowerment”).
Organizations must proactively respond to environmental issues  GHRM
- Involves a set of policies and practices of protecting the organizational workforce for
preserving the abundant knowledge capital through best eco-friendly and cost-
efficient ways.

GRHM Conceptualization- 2 schools of thought:

1) as a tool for environment changes, with a focus on specific HRM practices like recruitment
and performance management
2) as a means to promote employee attitudes and behaviours for enhanced environmental
performance, involving individual and collective capabilities, leading to the emergence of
green teams.

Antecedents Outcomes Contingencies

- external environment - Green specific outcomes: Contextual factors and
 sources of pressure  organization level (collective employee characteristics
 sources of guidance behaviour) shaping outcomes
 sources of awareness  employee level (green E.g.: availability of
- organization level citizenship behaviour) resources may enable
antecedents (leadership, organizations to access
strategy, culture) - Green general outcomes: relevant information for
- employee-level antecedents  organization level (financial, efficient execution of green
(individual characteristics) reputation) decisions.
 employee level (job
performance)

Ability-Motivation-Opportunity theory: to identify key areas of HR that will impact GHRM

AMO Description HR Practises

Ability attracting and developing - Recruitment and selection
high performing employees - Employee training in EM
Motivation rewards and effective - Performance management and appraisal
performance management - Pay and rewards systems
 Opportunity knowledge sharing and - Green employee involvement and empowerment
problem-solving activities

3 pillars of sustainability- interact with each other:

- Environmental: regulations, laws, direct management (address issues such as land

management, fresh water)
- Social: public policies, social issues (poverty alleviation, social justice)
- Economic: business must be generating profits to be sustainable
 Lesson 9: Knowledge Workers

Knowledge workers: knowledge as a main productive factor in the contemporary economy.

Taylor-Fordist model:
- Manual work is analysed and repeated in a mechanical way (doesn’t need training)
- Knowledge creation ≠ Manual work: Some people organized the work, others do it.
- Worker is cost and machines investment
- Objectives: increase productivity, reduce costs and time. -> capital increase
With the globalization of markets: Knowledge becomes the only source of competitive advantage!
Knowledge must be created and transferred into activities capable of creating value for the company.
People interaction is important because sharing individual knowledge create more knowledge.
Knowledge workers:
- Operate on intangible processes
- Transform their professional knowledge into cognitive inputs and knowledge output
of greater value such as problem solving.
- Key competencies:
 Critical and strategic thinking (develop new strategies)
 Continuous training
 Working groups aimed at innovation (aware of the competitiveness)
 Think of risks as an opportunity for success
 Must be able to share knowledge
 Must translate into decisive and responsible actions (analyse the product)
 Responsibility towards learning and knowledge (expected to support their
colleagues and generate appropriate knowledge in order to find the best
solution)
- 6 factor that define the productivity of knowledge workers:
 Define what his tasks are
 Must act autonomously taking full responsibility for their work performance
 Innovation is the main task
 Involved in a process of continuous training (teaching of knowledge)
 Evaluating the productivity involve mainly qualitative factors
 Knowledge must be considered as a long-term investment and not a cost
 Lesson 10: Consultation Models
Change requires unlearning old habits. But which are the requirements for change?
1. Understand the existence of a problem in order to ask for help
2. Recipient must be capable and willing to accept help
Managers have to choose between providing advice or ask someone else to provide the most suitable
solution. They can choose either one of those 3 Models of Consultation:
 Skills Acquisition Model: client identify the problem and decide who to ask for help.
Client loses power once the consultant is involved. The consultant is seen as an expert
bringing external knowledge.
 Doctor-Patient Model: consultant identify the problem and decide how to fix it.
Consultant diagnoses and prescribes solutions. Potential difficulties in finding
information and client's compliance.
 Process Consultation Model: consultant help the client to perceive and fix the
problem. Focus on guiding the client to self-diagnose and solve problems. Overlap of
diagnosis and intervention; consultant teaches problem-solving skills.
Client Types:
1. Initial Contact Clients: Seek help initially.
2. Intermediate Clients: Participate in meetings and intervention planning.
3. Primary Client: Owns the problem; pays the consultant.
4. Involuntary Clients: Suffer effects without direct contact.
5. End Clients: The organization or group directly dealt with.
6. Non-Interested Clients: Members not interested in change.

Orji Cycle represents how humans process, interpret and act on information, evolving 4 phases:
1. Observation: recording what happens in the surrounding environment; risks of perceptual
distortions; most important step
2. Emotional Reaction: respond emotionally to what we have witnessed
3. Judgment: evaluate, process, and form judgments based on our observations and emotions
4. Intervention: if the intervention is logically correct but based on incorrect data, the final
result may not be effective
 Relevant to this model is the consideration of the role played by emotions in the overall process!

Active Feedback Principles:

1. Provider and recipient must Agree on Objectives
2. Clear Communication of Behavior
3. Concrete and Specific Feedback (avoid the risk the feedback is a judgement)
4. Provider and recipient must have Constructive Intentions (more willing to listen and accept)
5. Do Not Avoid Negative Feedback
 6. Feedback should Refer to Personal Observations
7. Provided When both provider and recipient are ready

Psychological Contract with the Client:

 Defined objectives, times, and methods through a "psychological contract."
Principles of Process Consulting:
1. Always Be Helpful
2. Stick to Current Reality
3. Acknowledge Ignorance
4. Any Action Constitutes an Intervention
5. Problem and Solution Belong to the Client
6. Go With the Flow
7. Choice of Time is Fundamental
8. Take Advantage of Opportunities Constructively
9. Everything is a Source of Data
10. If in Doubt, Share the Problem

Three Stages of Change:

1. Defreezing:
 Retraction or lack of confirmation.
 Onset of a sense of inadequacy.
 Creation of psychological security.
2. Change Through Cognitive Restructuring:
 Identification and exploration.
 Manager/consultant as a model or exploring the environment.
3. Refreezing:
 Personal and relational refreezing.
 Fixing new habits, attitudes, and behaviors.