1. Consultancy Skills
Research Support and Consultancy Services
Institute of Mental Health
&
Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology
University of Nottingham
2. Outline
• Introductions
• Why Consultants?
• Challenges within Psychology
• The Consultancy Process
• Key Skills and Good Practice
• Putting your Expertise into Practice
3. Why Consultants?
• Benefits to organisations
– specialists, objective, easier to contract, time-limited involvement
• Benefits to researchers/psychologists
– Application of work to real-world situations – i.e. impact
– Variety of interesting applied work
– Opens up multi-disciplinary and collaborative approaches
• Types of Services
– Advice, training, applied research, evaluation
• Different employment models
4. Difference between Research,
Evaluation and Consultancy?
• Research
– Generation of new knowledge, potential to generalize to the population
• Evaluation
– Assesses the effectiveness of an existing programme/intervention/system
• Consultancy
– providing a specific service based on expertise of the provider
Not mutually exclusive
5. Roles of a Consultant
• Expert – To provide specialist information or advice
• Executive – To manage or control the assignment
• Researcher – To gather, analyse and interpret information
• Tutor – To help clients arrive at their own informed decisions
• Educator – To impart knowledge through formal methods
• Conciliator – To get individuals and groups in conflict to work together
• Powerbroker – To change the balance of power within the client system
• Synergist – To enhance the effectiveness of existing work units
Williams & Woodward
6. Psychology and the ‘real world’
• How well do psychologists engage with the ‘real world’?
• How do the public (and potential clients) perceive
psychologists?
• What are some of the challenges to effective engagement?
7. Consultants: Service Providers
vs Professionals
• Service providers?
– ‘Guns for hire’
– Providing whatever service the client wants
• Professionals?
– Approached by client with a presenting problems
– Analyse, diagnose, assess by collecting evidence
– Propose possible solutions based on evidence, discuss their likely
effectiveness and downsides
– Discuss with client and agree (or not) Briner (2015)
8. Evidence-based Practice
• Solution-based practice
– Use practices/techniques that are not supported by evidence
– The ‘solution’ in search of a ‘problem’
• Evidence-based practice
– Use the best available evidence in a decision-making process
– Evidence from 4 domains: external, stakeholders, context, practitioner
experience
(Briner, Dreyer and Rousseau, 2009)
9. Scientist-Practitioner Model
• Reciprocal relationship between two roles
– allow empirical evidence to influence their practice
– allow experience of practice to influence their research
• Evidence-based practice
• Practice-based research
• Cross-disciplinary
10. The Consultancy Process
• Client’s perspective
• Various improvement models used by organisations
– PDSA cycle
– Action Research model
• Psychologists can apply their scientific knowledge, methods and
evidence into these problem solving cycles
– Theoretical understanding
– Reliable and valid data collection
– Sophisticated data analysis
– Ethical and professional standards
13. BPS Consultancy Cycle (2019)
1. Contracting
2. Information gathering
and analysis of issues
3. Using an evidence-based
approach to formulate plans
and actions
4. Implementing and
Reviewing solutions
5. Evaluating outcomes
6. Reporting and reflecting
on outcomes
14. Key Consultancy Skills
• Making links and building relationships
• Understanding the organizational context
• Writing a proposal
– Listening, adapting, but also setting the expectations
– Establishing timeframe, budget and dependencies
• Maximising the use of your expertise
– Acknowledging expertise and skill gaps
• Project Management Skills
• Producing quality evidence, information and advice
15. Good Practice
• Participative methodology: involvement
• Inform and educate stakeholders: shape expectations
• Recognise client expertise: knowledge elicitation
• Reconcile different languages and cognitive models
• Do not challenge ownership of problem or solution: advocate,
expert provider and facilitator
• Professionalism
16. Challenges
• Key areas of discrepancy between the views of the client and the
views of the consultant:
– Need for analysis
– Cause of the problem
– Nature of good leadership
– Nature of interventions
– Effective implementation of change
– Need for evaluation
– Concept of helping
• Need to examine underlying value differences in initial entry stage
to ensure successful client-consultant relationship
17. The Consultancy Report
• Structure
– Similar to a research paper
• Concise and Focused Writing
– Write it in a way the audience will understand
– “Write to express, not impress”
– Use short sentences to avoid over-complexity
– Be direct and clear, don’t leave your reader to guess what you are saying
• But how do we ensure it gets put into practice….?
18.
19. Successful implementation requires
• Knowledge
– awareness of the information by the right people
– willingness to use knowledge to inform decision-making and actions
• Behaviour and organisational change
– Capability, opportunity and motivation
– removing the barriers to achieving change
20. Force Field Analysis
Assisting Forces Resisting Forces
• Social trends
• Dissatisfaction with
present situation
• Recognition of the need
to change
• Top management
commitment
• Economic climate
• Threat to power bases &
vested interests
• Fear of the unknown &
feeling insecure
• Disruption to existing ways
of doing things
Kurt Lewin, 1943
22. What next….?
• Registration
– BPS: Codes of Professional Conduct, Ethical codes
– HCPC: statutory body for the registration of UK psychologists
• Experience in organisations
• Develop confidence and inter-personal skills
• Maximise opportunities in your research project