Developmental Process Consulting
Have you often wished you had a deeper understanding of your client as you work with him or her on life or performance issues? At IDM, we define a ‘deeper’ understanding as the ability to think about the client developmentally, and consequently be sensitive to the client’s level of adult development. This level manifests in two ways: cognitively, in the way the client ‘thinks’, and social-emotionally, in the way the client takes, or does not take, responsibility for him- or herself in daily life and at work.
The two best-researched ways in which adults mature, namely cognitive and social-emotional, have been lumped together for a quarter century. At IDM, we see this false merger fraught with the risk of losing the possibility of understanding the relationship between these different developmental strands. We also perceive in the merger an obstacle to attending to gaps between cognitive and social-emotional development which frequently pose a coaching problem. Therefore, IDM offers two separate professional courses:
- Cognitive Process Consulting for Professionals
- Social-Emotional Process Consulting for Professionals
Each course consists of two parts:
- A self-study part obtained on-line prior to the start of the class.
- Eight hours of tele-class (4x2 hr sessions) extending and applying the knowledge acquired through self study. The tele-class takes place within 2 months from the time of tuition payment.
Benefits of Developmental Process Consulting
Individuals differ in their way of making meaning and sense of the world. The first is a social-emotional, the second a cognitive, issue. An individual’s developmental profile produces the content s(he) brings up in conversations. Content is thus an outcome of developmental structure. Since the same content can be produced based on different developmental structures, it is the structure, not the content that is in focus in developmental process consulting. This structure speaks to an individual’s present potential capability to deliver work, as well as the way in which the individual constructs his/her internal workplace.
Developmental Process Consulting is structured along the lines of semi-structured interviewing. The benefit of this kind of consulting lies in the precision with which an individual’s present developmental potential as well as performance level can be ascertained and acted upon. Cognitive and social-emotional process consulting, separately or in combination, far exceed the depth of insight into an individual or team that can be achieved through conventional content-focused conversations.
Nature of Developmental Process Consulting (DPC)
Developmental Process Consulting is a theory-based skill that requires learning a theoretical framework called Constructive Developmental Framework (CDF for short). It is semi-structured in the sense that the same framework is used for each consultation regardless of the particular client’s concerns and stage/phase of development.
Going far beyond ‘behavioral interviewing’ in rigor, depth, and subtlety, developmental process consulting is both an art and a science. The science part consists of using a conceptual framework that elucidates stages and phases of adult development, respectively. The artistic aspect lies in developing subtlety in one’s technique of using the framework while simultaneously attending in full to the emotional and practical needs of the client.
Principles of Developmental Process Consulting
Developmental Process Consulting differs from conventional ‘expert’ and ‘doctor-patient’ consultations as well as the strategies proposed in Edgar Schein’s work mainly on account of introducing “triple loop learning”. In this kind of learning, the assumptions made by the client are not only noticed, but are located within an adult-developmental grid. This grid pairs clients’ social-emotional level with their phase of cognitive development. It sheds light on why a client makes the assumptions s(he) is making, since these reflect the client’s present meaning making and sense making capabilities.
More specifically, Developmental Process Consulting focuses on the ‘social-emotional’ and ‘cognitive’ dimension of the client’s work and practice separately. This is useful because it often occurs that a client is social-emotionally or cognitively “ahead of himself”, and thus shows a gap between how s(he) makes meaning and sense of world and self. Principles of developmental process consulting are designed so as locate adult-developmental gaps in the client, whether they are social-emotional or cognitive, and thereby help the client to gain self-awareness of potent ways of improving his or her performance at work and in life, as well as getting to the root of difficulties in living and at work.
Function of the Process Consultant
Developmental Process Consulting requires of the consultant an awareness of his/her own developmental level. Through such awareness on the side of the consultant, the client’s developmental whereabouts become evident, assuming that the consultant is more highly developed than the client. To lead conversations that yield developmental evidence about the client, the consultant must know the Constructive-Developmental Framework. Learning this framework mightily contributes to being an astute and empathic listener. Theoretical knowledge and emotional intelligence must be merged in the act of consulting. A developmentally schooled consultant can place individuals onto the correct social-emotional level and into the correct phase of cognitive development, respectively. S(he) can also be trusted to attend to the emotional needs of clients and formulate cogent plans for intervention.
We invite you to examine our two main courses on developmental process consulting. Also see the left sidebar menu for related Professional Development courses.
- Cognitive Process Consulting for Professionals
- Social-Emotional Process Consulting for Professionals