One of the small number of books that I have dipped into over and over again over many years is Edgar Schein’s ‘Process Consultation Revisited: Building the Helping Relationship’
For anyone who takes part in groups or who facilitates them it is a treasure trove of insights into how individuals and groups behave and into how consultants and facilitators can help them to develop and complete their tasks. Schein holds the view that the consultant or facilitator can best help groups and organisations through what he calls ‘process consultation’. He sees the consultant or facilitator as an expert in human processes rather than in the particular problem that an organisation is seeking help to address. He contrasts this approach with others such as the ‘doctor-patient’ model where the assumptions is that ‘doctor knows best’ what is good for the patient. Schein takes the view that members of organisations are likely to have sufficient knowledge and expertise about the presenting problem. If so, the consultant or facilitator can help them to develop and work processes to help them think through how to address the problem.
I had the pleasure of meeting Edgar Schein some years back. I arrived accidentally far too early for a workshop that he was due to deliver in University College Dublin’s Graduate Business School. He struck me as a very modest person for someone who had such a ‘big name’ in the consulting and facilitation world. He’d strike you as someone who has distilled years of personal experience and reflection on that experience into his work and books.
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