High-Impact Consulting: How Clients and Consultants Can Leverage Rapid Results Into Long-Term Gains

by Robert H. Schaffer

The core idea of the book is that most consulting work is not effective because it emphasizes processes and deliverables rather than business results. Further, most consulting projects are too ambitious and long-term in definition, making it difficult for the organization to see and feel positive results and have the stamina to go on. To make matters more difficult, most clients collude with the consultants in this situation by placing all their trust...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0787903418
• ISBN13: 9780787903411
• Release Date: April 1997
• Publisher: Jossey-Bass
• Length: 234 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

High-Impact Advice

This is a high quality book that provides excellent advice to managers and consultants. The author explains the critical factors for an effective design of projects, especially the need to define project objectives in terms of client results instead of merely consultant deliverables. Schaffer identifies five serious flaws that he says low-yielding consultants suffer from of coming up with solutions with no regard on the capacity of the client to implement them. This is a must read for managers of companies that may need to employ consultants. These managers will be able to demand high value from the consultants. It is also very critical for practising and aspiring consultants as they can learn how they can add value to their clients by providing new methods or solutions to their clients, and ensure that clients achieve measurable improvement arising from the solutions they provide and finally ensure that the client is able to sustain the improvement in future. Schaffer presents useful and practical recommendations directed at both the consultant and client to ensure a win-win relationship. The book has several case studies and tips that help reinforce the concepts that he is propagating. This is a well written book that is easy to follow. The book is a useful addition to my library.

A must read for consultants and managers

High Impact Consulting is a must read for both consultants and managers striving to excel in today's competitive, fast paced market. The book provides a recipe for consultants to perform better in their job and tells managers what to expect from a good, high impact, consultant. I was first introduced to this book by Prof. Alan Goldman as a required read for the Organizational Consulting class at Arizona State University, MBA program. The author starts by comparing low-yield, conventional consulting to the high-yield, high impact consulting. He concludes that traditional consulting suffers from five fatal flaws that lead to an implementation gap in the client organization since most consultants don't make client implementation a central focus of their consulting practice. It is vital for consultants to make certain that clients absorb, use, and benefit from the solutions the consultants offer. In order to do that, the author advocates that high impact consulting corrects the five flaws of traditional consulting through the following 1. Define the project in terms of specific client goals that will be attained instead of defining the project in terms of the consultant deliverables. 2. Determine the project scope based on what the client is willing and able to implement instead of ignoring the client readiness. 3. Divide the project into increments with rapid cycle time for quicker results to give momentum to the project instead of aiming for one big solution that requires huge investments and long cycle time. 4. Consultants should work with clients in a collaborative, full partnership mode through every stage of the project instead of passing the responsibility back and forth. 5. Leverage the use of small consulting teams instead of labor-intensive use of hordes of consultants through active participation of the client and helping the client make better use of their own talents. The author uses a wealth of examples to support those ideas based on his personal experience and the experience of other consultants that worked with him. The remainder of the book provides recommendations for the consultant-client contracting process, the need for senior management support to ensure success of the consulting project, and how to overcome client and consultant anxiety. The reader would find this book easy to follow with clear ideas that are based on the author's experience, not on academic research. Working in the aerospace industry for a number of years, I can relate my personal experience to many of the conventional consulting flaws that the author introduced and attempted to fix. I have witnessed a number of consulting projects that companies would spent thousands of dollars on with no clear outcome or successful implementation. This book definitely made me an advocate of high impact consulting when I do internal consulting or when I seek help of external consultants. The main drawback in this book is the author's writing style. In his attem

A Consultant Buys This for Clients

I spent 15 years as a manager inside companies that had little to no idea how to work with a consultant. When I started consulting myself, I bought copies of this great book for my clients so they could learn how to get the most for their dollar. The great thing about the book is that the title might make you think that the value it promises is all long term -- quite the opposite. The entire concept is to look for value points and deliver them -- focus on results and not on inputs. Overall, this book is great for people who are not consultants because it really demystifies working with consultants by revealing things consultants woudl rather you not know. With a level playing field -- created of you read this -- you can really make your consultants work for you.

The Right Way to Consult...for THEIR results, not YOURS

This book gives an account of the absolute right way to consult. But there is a problem: One, however, I believe is a good one whose day in the sun has come.Consultants and consulting firms have different definitions of success. A GOOD and TRUE consultant wants to see his customer succeed, and this book shows how to accomplish that. A TYPICAL consulting firm wants to rack up the chargeable time. There is a dichotomy here, one with which I have dealt personally for 18 years before founding my own firm.The author correctly describes consulting success as client results. However, most large consulting firms describe success as a monstrous amount of chargeable hours. In short, don't you dare solve your client's problem before your billing has reached at least six figures!!! Read this book. If you are a consultant, celebrate it. If you are a partner in a major consulting firm, decry it. If you are a client, hold your consultants to it!

The best management book ever?

After having worked as a senior management and communications consultant for more than 10 years I have finally found a piece of work that really says it all. And gives it all. "High-Impact Consulting" carries great insights in the psychology and sociology of managing and developing an organisation and its co-workers. Mr Schaffer gives you cristal clear advice and methods that can be used right away. On the next day, in the next meeting, etc. This is a must-read for everyone living and working in an organisation. If there is any truth to the idea that our World is moving toward a work force of "homo consultus" and an economy of "service concepts" this book should be one of its guiding lights. I rate it in the same category as Thomas Kuhn's 1962 revolutionary piece "The logic...of scientific relvolutions", which was a ground breaking work for our science and its self-awarness. The big difference between these books, besides the subject, is that "High-Impact Consulting" is easy to read, easy to understand and easy to take to your heart. In other words, it is written in a "high-impact" mode and manner. "High-impact consulting" could be one of this "special order books" and carry a serious price tag. But its not. So why not get it? It can't be your fear of having a measurable and valuable impact...or?