TranslateAM23-PDW 6: Improving our practice as consultants and managers: A case conference method
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Professional Development Workshop: PDW6 (online)
26 June 2023, 2.00pm-5.00pm SAST
27 June 2023, 2.00pm-5.00pm SAST
Improving our practice as consultants and managers: A case conference method
Presenters: *Larry Hirschhorn and James Krantz
*Contact person for the workshop
A workshop for consultants and managers interested in improving their consulting or management skills by sharing issues and dilemmas associated with a particular case or situation. We will conduct the workshop using two methodologies, “Balint method,” and “Live Lab.” The Balint method is a four-step process in which:
- One participant presents a particular consulting or management dilemma which they currently face or have faced in the past.
- The other participants ask the presenter questions of clarification.
- The presenter moves to the side of the room and the participants develop hypotheses about the case issue the presenter faces.
- The presenter rejoins the group to reflect on what he or she has heard.
We anticipate that each case presentation will take between 30 and 45 minutes.
In live lab one participant has a case issue and a second participant agrees to consult to the first “in the round.” The remaining participants observe the consultation process. The workshop facilitators draw attention to how we listen for a client’s actual presenting issue, what emotional truth the client is working to express, and how the consultant can help crystallize that truth in ways that help the client move forward.
The only requirement for attending is that participants send the facilitators one or two sentences describing a case issue they would like present in advance of the workshop.
Biographical Summaries
Larry Hirschhorn is a founding principal of CFAR, a management-consulting firm in Philadelphia. He has a PhD in economics from MIT and was on the faculty of the Wharton school, the University of Pennsylvania. He is a founding member and past president of the International Society for the Psychoanalytic Study of Organizations (ISPSO) and was the co-chair of its 2007 meeting based on the theme, “Meaning and Motivation.” He directs the Dynamics of Consulting Program for experienced consultants and coaches. The program meets in New York City over the course of three modules, each three days in length. Larry consults to executive teams using his group dynamics knowledge to help them make better decisions. He has written five books, among then, The Workplace Within, Reworking Authority, and Managing in the New Team Environment. He won the 2008 Eliot Jacques award from the Society of Consulting Psychology for his article, "The Fall of Howell Raines and the New York Times," a study in the psychodynamics of leadership.
James Krantz, Ph.D. is an organizational consultant and researcher from New York City where he is Managing Principal of Worklab, a consulting firm focusing on strategy implementation and leadership development. His principal interests are with the impact of emerging trends on the exercise of leadership and authority; the social and technical dimensions of new forms of work organization; and the unconscious background to work and organizational life. Currently Jim serves as Visiting Professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow; Chair, Editorial Committee of the Journal of Organizational and Social Dynamics; and Faculty, Dynamics of Consulting at the Wharton Center for Applied Research. He has been on the standing faculties of Yale University and the Wharton School and has also taught at INSEAD, the McKinsey Center for Asian Leadership, Universidad de Chile, and Columbia University.