Process Consultation is a set of activities on the part of the consultant that help the client perceive, understand, and act upon process events that occur in the client's environment in order to improve the health problem and situation as defined by the client.

The events to be observed and learned from are human actions that occur in the normal flow of work, in the conduct of meetings, in the formal and informal encounters between members of the organization, and in the more formal organizational structures. Implicit in this model is the idea that all organizational problems are fundamentally problems involving human interactions.

The short-term goal is to change values, and task and interpersonal process skills to insure that:

• goals are clear, shared by all, all care about the goals and feel involved;
• participation is by all and all are really listened to;
• feelings are freely expressed and that there are empathic responses;
• diagnosis of group process and content problems is carefully done before action is proposed; remedies go to the basic causes;
• leadership is met by various members as the needed, anyone feels free to volunteer as she or he sees a group need;
• decisions are made by consensus that is sought and tested, deviates are appreciated and used to improve decisions, and when made are fully supported;
• members trust one another, they reveal to the group what they would be reluctant to expose to others, respect and use responses they get, freely express negative reactions without fearing reprisal;
• creativity and growth are achieved by the group being flexible, seeking new and better theory- and evidence-based approaches with individuals changing and growing, being creative and individually supportive.

The ultimate outcome is achievement of the organization's mission with improved performance and productivity. Measurement of these is by movement toward the organization's objectives such as employees and students being alert, present, and able to work and study (reduced absenteeism and attrition, increased retention); and improved production of ideas, knowledge, products and services.

Process Consultation Tools (click for eight more tools, sets of PC questions and assessments)

Rating Group Effectiveness - Try an on-line version - click here