Navigating the Helper’s Maze: Helping is Client Specific

This is a continuing reflection on three foundational values we hold in Design Group International: Listening, Helping and Learning.  Think for a few moments on your own context. What Design Group has learned as a community of practice is this:  Each client is unique and real help for an organization is always specific to that organization!

When I was first dating my spouse-to-be, I joined her at a family reunion.  As we sat together among a large group of strangers (at least to me), someone approached a podium and began to assign tasks.  “You three will sing a special song.”  “How about the two of you work up a duet?”  We need a men’s quartet, how about, Rick, Rod, Kenny and Donny?”  It was all I could do to keep from hyperventilating.  I’m sitting in a puddle of my own fear terrified that this host would look at me and call me out to do something completely outrageous, to sing.

What I didn’t know, what I was completely unaware of, was this was a family of singers and the culture of that family for years was to express joy, love and faith through song.  They had no fear about joining with others to sing because most of them had sung with their brothers, sisters, cousins somewhere before!  Ultimately, I would come to know the culture and the context from which this family derived great happiness when they gathered together.  

Process consultants are constantly invited into diverse organizational cultures.  To help an organization about which the consultant knows nothing prior to engagement requires a number of skills.  One of those skills is to listen deeply, conceptually, structurally, and adaptively.  In every early conversation with a stakeholder, a process consultant adopts a posture of curious listening and deeper questions.  Hopefully, out of those conversations, an initial framework is outlined for work together.  

From the initial encounter, the trained process consultant enters into the organizational culture and discerns the context of the work.  A skilled process consultant continues to listen carefully, discerning what is unsaid and seeing that which is unknown.  An experienced process consultant must identify cultural touchstones.  This is an important truth: an organization’s cultural DNA is discerned contextually.  Applying intuition to every context includes the absorption of organizational meta-data and filtering contextual information with experience and knowledge.  The old adage still applies there is no short-cut for wisdom and experience. 

Without understanding context, the technical work may thrive but the ability to think fruitfully about the distant and unknown will be largely left dangling.  Understanding the context of a client makes all the difference.

I had a church client that functioned in a hierarchical organizational structure.  The leadership structure was top down.  Without certain officers in place the entire structure broke down.  There was, at the same time, a vibrantly creative stream of work and ministry taking place.  How was this church able to function without their chief executive officer, who is the pastor, to remain vibrant?  The context of their adaptive functionality is attributed to two very distinct workflows.  The hierarchical flow was top down through the organization chart.  However, the dynamic ministry flow was horizontal, weaving its way through the organizational chart with vibrant new ideas and efforts introduced into the church.

The argument could be made that the hierarchical flow hindered the dynamic and vibrant contribution of the people.  However, this workflow adaptation fit the context of the congregation.

What is your context?  Do you need someone who brings experience and wisdom to the challenges with which you are wrestling?  The best hope for your organization to return to vibrancy and vitality might be to engage a process consultant for whom solutions are adaptively and collaboratively resourced for the unique context you know!

Walking Alongside,

Dr. Gerry Krupp
Design Group International
Senior Consultant

Dig Deeper:
Want to explore more on this topic? Take a look at these resources:

• "Helping is a performance art laden with often mis-aligned expectations…The helper must vary their behavior according to the stream of feedback signals." from Process Consulting Revisited: Building the Helping Relationship by Ed Schein.
• A scholarly article about proactive and reactive help in work settings: Lee, H. W., Bradburn, J., Johnson, R. E., Lin, S.-H. (J.), & Chang, C.-H. (D.). (2019). The benefits of receiving gratitude for helpers: A daily investigation of proactive and reactive helping at work. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104(2), 197-213.m
  

Process Consulting competencies identified and implemented through
the Society for Process Consulting.