Articles: High-Impact Training
Here is a list of publications focusing on High-Impact Training by Schaffer Consulting consultants.
Active Facilitation: How to Help Groups Break Through Mutual Stalemate, Celia Kirwan and Wes Siegal, chapter 14 of "The Handbook for Working with Difficult Groups" Sandy Schuman (ed.), Jossey-Bass, 2010.
This article describes how groups might abdicate their responsibilities for achieving results by waiting for another group to make the first move - and the steps consultants can take to help organizations break through this paralyzing dynamic.
Request a Copy Make Results Part of Your Process, Robert H. Schaffer, AIMC Newsletter, Winter 2007.
When internal consulting projects fall short of expectations it is frequently because the groups who have to carry out the changes lack change implementation skills. This article describes how to develop these skills and how to ensure that all the modifications in work processes necessary to make the project succeed are also carried out.
Request a Copy Attention HR: Managers Need Help, Robert Neiman and Rudi Siddik, Canadian HR Reporter, September 13, 2004.
Human resource professionals could sit around, hoping to come up with that big idea that will get them to the boardroom table ... but this article details a less idealistic path, but one that is much more likeley to succeed.
Request a Copy Get More Mileage From IT Investments, Robert A. Neiman and Stephen W. Reilly , Executive Action, September 2003.
Far too many IT projects deliver only a fraction of what they promise. When it comes to maximizing the value of IT investments, companies need to shift from a mindset of simply "installing technology" to one of "creating business payoff". This is how you get there.
Request a Copy Use Lessons of Crises to Escape the HR Trap, Robert A. Neiman, Online:
HR.com, 2002.
To prosper, HR people are now getting directly engaged in creating breakthrough projects which measure success in terms of bottom line gains achieved with clients. These HR people are becoming sought-after value creation catalysts.
Request a Copy High-Impact Consulting: Achieving Extraordinary Results, Robert H. Schaffer, C2M: Consulting to Management, Volume 13, Number 2, June 2002.
Focusing directly on results is the critical difference between conventional consulting and high-impact consulting. This article tells why a solution for your client is not enough; it has to work.
Request a Copy From IT Solutions to Business Results, Nadim Matta and Sandy Krieger, Business Horizons, November-December 2001.
If IT projects take on a life of their own, business users‘ interest often dissipates. This article describes two subtle but powerful shifts that can help managers and IT professionals avoid getting caught in this trap - and actually maximize the return on their IT investments.
Request a Copy To Make Consulting Impact: Use the Lessons of Crises, Robert A. Neiman, Online: InternalConsulting.net, 2001.
Crises reveal the enormous untapped potential for achievement in human organizations. Consultants can help managers become skillful in creating breakthroughs which develop this same zest without actually creating a crisis.
Request a Copy Rapid-Cycle Successes versus the Titanics -- Ensuring that Consulting Produces Benefits, Robert H. Schaffer, chapter 17 in M. Beer and N. Nohria, eds., Breaking the Code of Change, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000, p. 361-380.
Conventional consulting practitioners usually want to create the best, most complete and most encompassing solutions to client needs. Doing so, however, frequently leads to huge projects whose recommendations go way beyond the client’s capability to implement. The alternative is dividing titanic projects into rapid-cycle segments.
Request a Copy Replacing Recommendations with Results: A New Paradigm for Consulting, Robert H. Schaffer, Consulting Psychology Journal, Fall 1999, Volume 51, Number 4.
This article contrasts High-Impact Consulting with traditional approaches, emphasizing the psychological dimension.
Request a Copy Overcoming the Fatal Flaws of Consulting: Close the Results Gap, Robert H. Schaffer, Business Horizons, Volume 41, Number 5, September-October 1998.
This article outlines five characteristics of typical consulting projects that prevent clients from achieving measurable performance improvements. It recommends a more effective, results-focused, collaborative approach.
Request a Copy Why Pay for Recommendations When You Need Results?, Robert H. Schaffer, Strategy and Leadership, Volume 26, Number 3, July-August 1998.
Based on the book High-Impact Consulting, this article describes how a strategic consultant can help to effect real change in organizations.
Request a Copy Beginning with results: the key to success, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal for Quality and Participation, Volume 20, Number 4, September 1997. Published as a two-part series with Looking at the 5 fatal flaws of management consulting, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal for Quality and Participation, Volume 20, Number 3, June 1997.
The earlier article explains why failures are a direct outcome of the way consulting is usually practiced, and why consultants and clients collude to perpetuate this wasteful pattern. It suggests a radically different approach. The later describes how both consultants and clients can avoid "fatal flaws" by shifting to the more effective, results-focused, High-Impact consulting paradigm.
Request a Copy Planning For Succession, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal of Management Consulting, Volume 9, Number 3, May 1997.
A personal account of succession planning in a unique and innovative consulting firm, with consideration of identity, governance, and financial issues
Request a Copy Where Consulting Goes Awry, Robert H. Schaffer, Across the Board, Volume XXXIV, Number 9, October 1997.
Describes five frequently fatal flaws of conventional consulting projects and outlines the alternative High-Impact approach to project design.
Request a Copy Getting Your Money’s Worth, Ian White-Thomson and Robert H. Schaffer, Chief Executive, No. 129, November 1997.
Ian White-Thomson, Chairman and CEO of US Borax, and Robert Schaffer discuss how client-consultant collaboration and rapid-cycle projects dramatically improved product quality and strengthened relations with a key customer.
Request a Copy Time To Reengineer Management Consulting!, Robert H. Schaffer, Consultants News, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 1997.
Management consulting needs to reconsider its most fundamental assumptions: what constitutes value-added to clients; appropriate scale, scope and cycle time of projects; and the nature of the relationship with clients.
Request a Copy When Consultants and Clients Clash, Idalene F. Kesner and Sally Fowler (comments by Robert H. Schaffer appear on pages 34-36), Harvard Business Review, November-December 1997.
Case study of a problematic consulting project. Four experts, including Robert Schaffer, advise on how to proceed. Schaffer focuses on learning opportunities and business goals.
Request a Copy Habits of the Lethal Consultant, Robert H. Schaffer, CIO, Volume 10, September 1, 1997.
Applies High-Impact Consulting principles in the context of the IS function, which is successful only when their internal clients achieve better results.
Request a Copy Results-Driven Change: A New Look at Re-Engineering, Elaine M. Mandrish and Robert H. Schaffer, Human Resources Professional, Volume 8, Number 5, September-October 1995.
By concentrating on results in one area and using initial success to expand into other processes, results-driven process redesign proves to be an effective mechanism for implementing organizational change.
Request a Copy Consulting for Results, Robert H. Schaffer, Journal of Management Consulting, Volume 8, Number 4, Fall 1995.
The "multiplicative" consulting strategy is outlined, focusing on tangible results defined in client terms, a collaborative consultant-client relationship, creativity, and accountability.
Request a Copy The Quality Quagmire, Robert H. Schaffer, CIO: The Magazine for Information Executives, November 1, 1992.
How information systems groups can shift to a results focus to improve their own performance.
Request a Copy How IS Groups Can Create More Value: A Financial Services Perspective, Robert A. Neiman, Journal of Systems Management, May 1992.
Technology doesn’t guarantee performance improvement. IS groups can create value by increasing productivity, designing projects to achieve business goals, and applying their insights to a range of improvement situations.
Request a Copy The IT Professional as Consultant: To get there, start from here!, Harvey A. Thomson, Canadian Information Processing/Informatique Canadienne, September-October 1992.
How IT professionals can add value and assume a more powerful consultative role through making the IT function more productive and cultivating a customer perspective in IT projects.
Request a Copy Anxiety: The Consultant’s Unwelcome Companion, Robert H. Schaffer and Ronald N. Ashkenas, Journal of Management Consulting, Volume 1, Number 2, Summer 1983.
How anxiety affects consultant-client interactions and how to manage it.
Request a Copy Consulting for Results, Harvey A. Thomson, Business Horizons, November-December 1981.
Helping clients to achieve urgently-needed results and expand their capacity to manage change.
Request a Copy Making Staff Consulting More Effective, John K. Baker and Robert H. Schaffer, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1969.
Union Carbide’s Management Services Department becomes more valuable to client managers.
Request a Copy Putting Action Into Planning, Robert H. Schaffer, Harvard Business Review, November-December 1967.
This was one of the first articles ever to sound the warning about the dangers of elaborate planning that is not effectively implemented. An approach is outlined to help managers link long-term plans with short-term sub-goals and action steps.
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