Home Organizational Psychology Organizational Consultation: An Appreciative Approach–VIII. The Consultative Process: Stages 3, 4 and 5

Organizational Consultation: An Appreciative Approach–VIII. The Consultative Process: Stages 3, 4 and 5

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Preferably, the client and consultant both will be engaged in information collection. The consultant may ask the client to accumulate documents to answer certain questions while the consultant is conducting interviews or making observations. If the client is involved in information collection, she is more inclined to believe and take ownership of the conclusions derived from the information. Furthermore, the larger the number of people who are collecting information, the richer the quality of information obtained from a variety of sources will be and the less likely is a single bias or perspective on the data.

Numerous information sources are available to a consultant and client. They need not confine their attention to a single source. At least three different sources/perspectives should be tapped when conducting a consultation. When only one source is used, the method of information collection itself can influence the system being studied (a version of the Heisenberg Principle). If two sources are used, the consultant risks obtaining contradictory information based in part on differing methodological biases. There is no clear-cut way to resolve these differences. Three or more sources of information allow for constructive resolution of these discrepancies. Typically, at least two sources will yield similar information, or, at least, common themes. If all three information sources yield discrepant data, it is evident that the system being studied is complex, contradictory and in need of further investigation. These discrepancies cannot be dismissed as merely methodological artifacts.

Ten different methods for collecting information are available to most consultants and clients:
(1) interviews
(2) observation
(3) participant-observation
(4) document review
(5) unobtrusive measures
(6) obtrusive measures (participant-observation of reactivity)
(7) performance tests
(8) questionnaires
(9) critical incident checklists
(10) general information about comparable problems and programs at other institutions.
A consultant is limited only by time and imagination in her use of these information collection tools.

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