Coming into this course I had preconceived notions about what a consultant does. Some of these ideas were developed because of my own personal experience with consultants and other ideas were in my head because of popular media. I now see consultants as helpers. I believe that anyone in a helping type job should be required to take a class on process consultation. Even though most people may not see what they do as consulting, the skills learned in this class are invaluable to those in helping roles. I have noticed myself using active inquiry more and more in my work place. I stop and listen more. I believe that the skills I learned about process consultation will allow me to not only be a better employee, but I think these skills will be very valuable to me as I move up within my organization. I am actually anxious to try out more PC skills in my workplace. I want to become the education coordinator for my department, which involves teaching undergraduates and teaching med students and medical residents. This job also involves training new staff and integrated new techniques to current staff, while coordinating with management. We are constantly struggling with problems associated with training and education and I hope to use my process consultation skills to help solve these problems. I do a lot more shutting up now. I force myself to not fill the void in the conversation and let the person talking, complaining or venting to me fill that void and talk through their problem. I love this approach, I find it very productive and helpful (especially with my manager). I believe that process consultation could solve many of the problems in organizations today if people would take the time to using the steps and not just look for the easy answer.
I first learned about this in Dr. Muth’s Adult Learner class and I love the terminology. But more than that I love the feeling of having the moment. I had one of those moments during my consulting project. As I was writing up the analysis of the feedback meeting it hit me that our initial meetings caused the client to think about there problem and come up with a solution before we ever gave them one. What was even cooler was that we all came up with the same solution. While I was writing the analysis it dawned on me that our initial meeting had been an intervention and I had the Ah Ha moment. Sigh….what a great feeling!
I really enjoyed class this past week and the feel of all of us sitting around in a circle talking. I have always been a big fan of windows. I used to work in a lab that had no windows, it was hideous. I love that my job now has windows. I really do think that the hospital did us a favor by not giving us a stuffy old conference room. For staff meetings we all sit in the hall by the windows and it is very relaxed. We recently had an inspection by our governing body and one thing they mentioned in their summation is how much teamwork and spirit of cooperation we had in our lab. I think it definitely has to do with our environment and how relaxed we all are. I guess there is something to this caring about space after all, Feng Shui anyone?
After hearing Dr. Carter talk about her research on wikis and blogs and their use in the classroom and the conference she attended I got to thinking about interaction and technology. For some these two words many not seem to go together. Before taking this class I didn’t think they belonged together either. I thought that technology was making us a cold society, pulling us apart, discouraging human interaction. I have loved all my Adult Learning classes thus far and the discussions I have taken part in with my classmates, but I think I have gotten more out of this classes than the others because of the use of technology. I feel like I have such a great understanding of the subject matter because I get to read others thoughts on the matter. Yes we have discussions in class and they are good and sometimes amazing but the real amazing thing to me is to read the thoughts that come out after the class, the stuff we say after we have processed for a while. The wiki is also a great tool. I have loved reading everyones consulting pages. I think I have learned as much about consulting from everyone else’s project as much as my own. Although I still think that there is no replacement for face to face interaction and I am still disturbed at how much this generation communications via technology, I love the use of blogs and wikis to enhance, not substitute, our discussions and learning.
You know, the one thing that seems to be constant throughout Block’s book is balance. You have to balance the feedback and conversations you have with the client and know when to ask the right question. If you ask too early or too late you risk alienating the client. You have to balance. One thing that struck me from the feedback class is the balance needed in a feedback meeting with a difficult client. I didn’t have to worry about this with my consulting project but I can see how this could be a problem, especially for me. I think it would be a huge challenge for me to balance the act of being positive and not letting the client off the hook. I have a habit of trying to point out things to people in a positive way and when the person becomes defensive or starts explaining all the reasons they did what they did (resistance) I just fold and say that whatever they did was not a big deal. I am not really sure how I would have handled this in a real consulting environment. Would I have behaved differently viewing someone as a client rather than a family member or co-worker?
Can I just say that I love learning by teaching. When I was an undergrad I loved tutoring because I found that I developed such a strong understanding of the material by helping someone else with it. So needless to say, I am rocking with the Discovery and Data Gatrhering material. I loved preparing the presentation and doing the exercises, it was a lot of fun. Some people would cringe at have to do presentation like that and honestly I sometimes do too, but our class is so open and freindly I felt like a big tutoring session. I love peer teaching as a learning tool.
OOPS…. I had this post written over a week ago and I guess I never published it. Oh well……
I was thinking in class tonight when we were gving our project updates about resistance. Something someone said, it may have been Dr. Carter, made me think of this. When the group working with Mrs. Sanchez was talking about their update, they were mentioning how difficult it was to set up a meeting with her and thought maybe it was resistance. I think it was Dr. Carter that made the commnet that maybe Mrs. Sanchez was just too busy. This got me thinking about projection. Because we are learning about resistance are we projecting resistance onto our clients? Just a thought….
So as I was reading through the ORJI chapter I thought it was very interesting that what we show the world, what the world see in us, what no one see (the stuff we keep hidden) and even the unknown can affect our relationships, our communication, our decisions. Then reading the resistance chapter pulled this all together for me, showing me that these aspects we show and keep hidden effect whether we are accepting of ideas or resistant to them. I had one of those aha moments while reading which was totally awesome. I love having those moments, but this one was a little different. Instead of having that moment about understanding a concept, I had the moment about understanding something about myself. I am a (huge) control freak, ask my husband. Over the years of taking classes and having to work in groups I have learned to let some stuff go, but it still bothers me to relinquish control of pieces of a project. I am worse about control in my personal life. I am in control of everything, I do the bills, I take care of the groceries, I organize the house. Since having my daughter I did let my husband take over the clothes washing, but I still cringe sometimes if I walk by and see how he sorts the clothes. Anyway, getting to my point, my mom tries to help me out with stuff in my life, but I don’t let her a whole lot because that would be giving up my control. We get into arguments sometimes and I always pretty much wrote them off as her getting her feelings hurt because I wouldn’t let her help or I was short with her. After reading these chapters and thinking about our arguments I realized that every time we had an argument it was because I had a problem I was whining to her about and she would try and come up with solutions to my problem for me. Every solution I would shoot down and she would get mad a me. I was shooting down the solutions because I was afraid of losing control, of accepting help. I think my mom would enjoy this class! So I am going to talk to my mom about it and tell her I know I am a pain but that I may respond to Process Consultation practices.
So I am going to be a copycat also and post a Johari window also. I love the Johari windows, I think it is very cool. Here is mine.
http://kevan.org/johari?name=poohbouncer
This chapter and the one on resistance really allowed me to reflect and I actually realized something about myself that I didn’t “see” before. See my next post!!!
I seems like forever since my last blog post. First I was on vacation and then the Edublogs site was down. I have to admit I really didn’t know what to expect from this class when I signed up for it, but needless to say I am pleasantly surprised. Honestly, I was nervous about coming back to school. So much in my life has changed, for the better, but still different nonetheless. When my husband and I were on vacation, we spent a few days at my uncle’s house in Palm Bay, Florida and we were all talking at lunch one day about school and how different it is now. My cousins are in 1st and 7th grade so we were all thinking back to our own school days and how we were on our first day of school and I said I was ready to go and never looked back. My husband said “Yeah you always loved school, you still do.” I agree with this statement for the most part. I love that feeling of learning something new, it is an exhilirating. I used to get that feeling in almost all of my science classes, but when I started back to grad school in secondary education I didn’t have the same feeling. I still enjoyed the classes, but the old feeling wasn’t there. And then I started the Adult Ed program and I got the feeling again. Believe me I didn’t at first because EDUS 660 did NOT give me warm fuzzies. But then I had ADLT 604 and there was my old friend again. So I guess I was worried that since so much had changed in my life that I wouldn’t feel the same about school anymore, but I shouldn’t have worried because I have my feeling back. I have found myself using the PC rules in everyday interactions. I am looking forward to more warm fuzzies!!!!
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