In an earlier blog, Lidia Swinkels, co-founder of Summiteers, explained why effective transformation requires close collaboration between content, process, and behavior. But there is something else that contributes to a better and faster result in change processes: a deep, personal connection with the people you work with.

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My piece of cake

Many consultants take their clients' ineffective behaviors for granted. After all, that's not what they were hired for. They are also not trained to be sharp on this, because “that's what other agencies do”. They focus on the decision that the steering committee should make or the document that needs to be approved, and that's when the job is done. A shame. When we started Summiteers, we consciously decided to take a broader approach. I already said that in an earlier blog. We always include the behavioral component. We often talk about this with the client during the intake. When we see ineffective behavior, we don't ignore that, we do something about it. In addition to the substantive issue, this way, you also contribute to the formation of an individual and a team, which therefore not only functions better and more effectively, but also works more smoothly together. And yes, intervening on that behavior takes a little extra time, but makes you much more effective in the long run.

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Deep connection leads to better and faster results

By also including behavior as a component in our assignments, we ultimately also make cooperation smoother. This also makes working on a project a lot more fun and effective for us. When you have conversations about personal effectiveness — or ineffectiveness — and the challenges that come with it, a deeper, personal connection quickly occurs with the people you work with. Of course, you can play the distant consultant who observes from the sidelines, completes his task and then leaves, but we don't choose that. By gaining deeper insight into someone's interests and challenges, we can also be more effective in terms of content and process. There is understanding and trust, which is why you simply work together much more effectively. Not only is that more fun, but it makes the result much better and deeper and you will eventually achieve it faster.

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Being vulnerable takes courage

This approach requires a lot of us as consultants. You're actually playing chess on quite a few boards at the same time. You tackle a substantively complex issue, work on the process — think about the steps to take, stakeholders, communication — and at the same time you observe what is happening, with an individual and in the team. By making interventions on this, we help the organization and the process move forward. We think this is very cool, we wrote about that Paul and Dolf previously a blog, but it also involves complexity. Content discussions are nice and safe, but talking about behavior gets personal. This requires that we ourselves too vulnerable dare to draft. And we do that with love.

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Need help with strategy execution?

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