Turn technical specialists into consultants.

Learning the five essential qualities of a consultant helps technical employees fulfill new roles as leaders and change agents.

When Jim started his engineering job five years ago, he expected to spend his time developing new products in a large research and development department. Today,

he is an internal consultant working with various customer groups in his company that require his technical expertise to solve problems and improve work processes and quality. Over the years, Jim has learned Baldrige quality measures, group facilitation skills, consultative tools and strategies, and interpersonal skills.

Melissa, who has a degree in finance, works for the investment division of a large bank, which has been growing rapidly through acquisitions. Management has asked her to help integrate the newly acquired banks into the culture of their new parent bank. But Melissa's financial background didn't prepare her for the challenges of helping employees adapt to a different culture, systems, policies and procedures. She has developed new skills to help her better manage organizational change.

Jim and Melissa represent a growing group of technical professionals, such as design engineers and computer programmers, who become internal consultants to help manage change in their organizations. They and their employers recognize that technical expertise alone is not sufficient in today's demanding and rapidly changing workplace. And these new internal consultants need to develop interpersonal and leadership skills to compete in a job market that increasingly seeks people with a broad array of abilities.

Technical professionals, who are trained in highly specialized areas, often feel insecure and unsure as to which skills they need to develop to become internal consultants. But employers often have difficulty hiring technical people with consulting skills, so they must develop those abilities in current employees. Employers can begin the development process by teaching five critical skill areas or qualities that lead to success as an internal consultant. Those qualities - credibility, customer orientation, leadership, diagnostic insight and versatility - were identified by Personnel Decisions International in studies of more than 1,000 people in a cross-section of industries and companies. The stories of Jim and Melissa show how the qualities can be developed and applied.

Credibility opens the door

Melissa's first challenge was to position herself as an internal consultant with the president of a recently acquired bank. She arranged a meeting to discuss how she might help his team overcome their frustrations with the merger. While Melissa's financial background gave her instant credibility with the president, she used her communication skills to learn more about the president's goals, his concerns about the merger and what impact it was hating on his management team and employees. She now had her foot in the door.

The day-to-day work of technical professionals gives them credibility on technical issues. But their internal customers may not view them as credible in other roles, such as consulting.

Thus, internal consultants can reinforce and expand on their credibility by building trusting relationships with customers and by tying their expertise to bottom-line business results. To begin the relationship, set up informal meetings with line managers to learn their business objectives, issues and concerns. Learning the business is necessary for consultants - who will eventually need to demonstrate their value by affecting business results.

Internal consultants also gain credibility by communicating consistent messages through their words and actions, respecting confidential information and refusing to change decisions based on what others want to hear. Maintaining composure under stress and delivering on promises are equally important.

A customer orientation

Melissa began her work with the bank's management team by conducting both individual interviews with key managers and focus groups with selected employees. In reviewing her data from those activities, Melissa realized she was not equipped to deal with some of the issues raised. She contacted the human resource manager, who agreed to co-facilitate team-building sessions to address the issues. Melissa knew when to bring in someone with the expertise she lacked. As an added benefit, she gained an opportunity to shadow and learn from an expert.

As consultants work with customers, they must recognize their limitations and be willing to bring in other resources when necessary. To do so, the consultant needs to be well-connected, both internally and externally, through professional networks.

A customer orientation also requires internal consultants to deliver high-quality, timely work and seek feedback from customers to ensure they're meeting or exceeding expectations. Thus, a consultant should begin every project with a clear understanding of the customer's goals, roles and expectations.

A contract, or friendly letter of agreement, is an effective way to capture the essentials: project boundaries, roles of the consultant and the customer, expected outcomes of the project, the deliverables and a timetable. Defining the relationship in writing before beginning a consulting project demonstrates commitment to getting started on the right foot and limits frustration and wasted time.

Finally, internal consultants with a strong customer orientation should take time to evaluate their progress throughout the project. Periodic evaluation allows both consultant and customer to discuss problems midstream and build on things that are working well.

Leadership may not mean supervision

While working with one team in his company, Jim found the members were frustrated by a company policy that required approval from a manager two levels above their immediate supervisor to purchase small replacement parts for an essential piece of equipment. The replacement parts were expensive, and the price fell outside the team supervisor's approval range. The approval process took extra time when the team was working hard to be efficient.

Jim approached management about the problem and the impact it had on the team's morale. Fortunately, he received permission to waive the policy for the particular parts. Jim's willingness to take a leadership role in addressing this problem enhanced his credibility and visibility with management.

Unfortunately, some internal consultants feel they aren't leaders in their organizations because they don't supervise others or they lack management titles. But internal consultants must understand that they're leaders because others depend on them to be valuable resources and advisers.

Internal consultants can develop and demonstrate leadership skills in several ways. One is to link their expertise to their line partners' business objectives. At the same time, consultants must be willing to take reasonable risks to help management achieve its goals. To do so, they must be aware of or learn which situations require them to enforce rules and which ones allow them to be more flexible.

A frequent criticism of line managers about internal consultants is that they act more like cops than consultants. Managers are looking for people who can help them achieve business goals. Knowing how to do that, while being flexible when appropriate, makes the internal consultant more valuable.

Diagnostic insight helps analyze problems

Melissa's work with the bank employees helped them cope with the difficult issues associated with the merger. Mergers are often handled by legal and financial experts who are looking more at the bottom line than at the effect on employees. Failure to consider the impact of mergers on people can result in poor employee morale, leading to negative business results. By talking and listening to employees, Melissa resolved issues that could have negatively affected bottom-line results.

Diagnostic insight elevates internal consultants from being "order takers" to people who analyze situations, define problems and determine what needs to be done. This process also involves gathering information from a variety of sources, including line managers and workers who may have entirely different views on a problem. The consultant needs to understand everyone's point of view so that complex issues can be explored thoroughly and resolved satisfactorily.

The effective internal consultant applies diagnostic models to analyze problems and make recommendations that address the root causes of problems.

Versatility

Both Melissa and John show the versatility that technical professionals who become consultants must possess. They willingly changed their roles, were committed to achieving success and could tell when they needed help from others. Most importantly, they were flexible as they worked to resolve organizational problems and to strengthen working relationships among their internal customers and their managers.

The versatile internal consultant can manage large, complex projects while working with management as well as other individuals and groups at all levels in the organization. Versatility also requires the consultant to collaborate in team situations and use experience from a variety of functions or line operations.

Working on a variety of projects, with different functional groups or different line operations, provides opportunities for consultants to broaden their experience and achieve that level of competency. Shadowing an external consultant is also a good way to learn new skills. Having broad exposure in the organization helps the internal consultant develop needed skills and gives the person exposure to potential new customers.

Developing internal consulting skills

The technical professional who wants to become an effective internal consultant might be asked to follow these steps:

* Begin by analyzing goals, abilities, perceptions and standards (GAPS). The GAPS analysis examines career goals, current abilities and feedback from others, such as co-workers and the manager. The analysis also requires a discussion with the person's manager about job standards. The goal is to develop a good sense of how to prioritize special developmental needs.

* After completing the GAPS analysis, the employee focuses on one or two development priorities and writes a plan for daily on-the-job activities to build skills. The development plan should have small, incremental steps requiring the person to invest five minutes a day in development activities.

* As the employee progresses, he or she should take time periodically to evaluate whether goals are being achieved. If not, the individual should alter the plan and involve others by engaging a coach or mentor, or by shadowing another consultant. Sharing new skills is important, and one of the best ways to test those skills is to teach them to someone else.

Technical professionals who are willing to work through the steps and broaden their abilities to become internal consultants will be valued by their customers and their organizations, giving them greater job security. The employer gains by having internal consultants available to help as the need arises.

One Company's Solution

Finding the Right Technical Employees

Technical employees may have strong skills in their chosen field, such as design engineering or computer programming. But they may need to develop communications skills, such as active listening (paraphrasing, summarizing, reflecting feelings and picking up nonverbal cues) and interpersonal skills, such as fostering relationships and working collaboratively.

PKS Information Services Inc. (PKSIS) of Omaha, Nebs., a company providing computer outsourcing, systems integration and Internet services, recognizes the importance of communication and interpersonal skills. A growing company that has doubled its workforce in the past two years, PKSIS recruits technicians worldwide but considers technical skills merely a "foot in the door" for perception applicants. The company hires technical experts who can analyze problems and show strong interpersonal and communications skills.

Bob Dombrowe, manager of PKSIS systems reporting, and Dave Haizlip, a team leader, say that when dealing with customers, company technicians must go beyond knowing what it takes to fix a customer's problem.

For example, technicians must fill multiple roles as technical advisers, project managers, service managers document writers and trainers. The technician must be deadline driven, but act in the customer's best interest - even if it means postponing a deadline to preserve the long-term working relationship.

This service orientation is what distinguishes PKSIS from its competitors, Dombrowe says. It requires going beyond the traditional expert perspective of "I know exactly what you need" to understanding how to partner with a customer to analyze and solve problems together.

Marilyn Condon is a senior consultant with Personnel Decisions International, a global human resources consulting firm based in Minneapolis.