Strategic Partnering and Performance Consulting Workshop

Strategic Partners work with an organization’s managers to define, align, and implement people initiatives that benefit the business. Have you equipped your internal business-facing team members with the knowledge, skills and tools to perform this role successfully?

Our in-house skill-building workshops prepare your team members to fulfill the role of strategic partner and performance consultant. Prior to the workshop, our expert facilitators partner with you to learn more about your organization and can design skill practices and activities based on your unique needs. 

EP’s Strategic Partnering Workshops are based on research, models and proven practices developed by Dana and Jim Robinson. This approach features proven, practical techniques that have been successfully implemented in hundreds of HR, Learning and OD organizations to equip those functions to operate more strategically and build team capability to drive performance and results.

Our Performance Consulting and Strategic Partnering workshop with a contracting for assessment component is held over 3 and 1/2 days and consists of over 24 interactive skill-building activities that enable discovery, practice, and action planning. Over 50% of the workshop is invested in building skills. Equally important is the emphasis on the mental model of successful strategic partners. Mental models shape what we interpret and how we respond. Adopting a common business and performance results-focused mental model prepares those in internal consulting roles for success. Workshops are tailored to particular client needs by way of a needs assessment, internal best practice research and case-based skill practices. Business leaders are encouraged to discuss their goals and performance requirements.

Participants will be prepared to work more strategically with clients to drive business impact. Upon completion of the workshop, participants will:

• Define major accomplishments of successful performance consultants and strategic partners and plan to work more strategically
• Lay the interpersonal foundations for partnerships
• Adopt the mental model and results-based framework
• Apply a toolset to develop and deepen relationships
• Practice reframing client requests to shift the conversation from solution requested to desired results
• Conduct a proactive business discussion with actual clients following a discussion guide
• Execute a personal action plan for increasing your effectiveness
• Follow a job aid to complete an assessment contract for a particular strategic client need

Workshop participants learn to:

• Differentiate among business, performance, work environment and capability needs and requests
• Organize information regarding a specific client situation, determining what is unknown and critical to obtain
• Apply criteria to determine whether a situation requires a strategic or tactical approach
• Determine and discriminate among sustained clients, project clients and contacts
• Ask powerful questions and use compelling logic to reframe solution requests from clients, determining whether to move ahead strategically, move ahead tactically, or not move ahead at this time
• Engage in a proactive, “business first” discussion with leaders, moving to people and performance issues only after business goals are fully explored
• Contract with a client for a strategic project to determine root cause prior to solution commitments

Tool Kit

Participants receive an extensive tool kit containing 22 tools and discussion guides. The GAPS! Map, our core tool, is used to provide a performance and results focus and enable the identification of root causes to performance problems. Participants also learn and practice a questioning strategy based upon the GAPS! Logic in both reactive and proactive contexts.

What our clients are saying…….

“Our VOC process is gaining traction. The week after our workshop my boss spent the week in Hong Kong and met with a number of people. Many of them, including a couple of our business leader panelists, spoke highly of the workshop and of the direction we are taking in Asia Pacific.”   Director, Group Talent Management and Learning, Leading Apparel Company

“Our goal is to have the business agenda as the HR agenda. The HR Strategic Training gave us a lot of instruments and skills and abilities in how to be that close.”    Talent Manager, Latin America and Caribbean, International Manufacturing Organization

“The questioning framework enabled us to think at a deeper level about what we are trying to achieve in our goals.  It is key to anticipating what is needed and to understand what people need ahead of time.”    Australian Business Leader, International Manufacturing Organization

“I highly appreciate the simplicity of the course content and techniques on developing consulting skills.  This is extremely valuable to me and will help me develop in my role.”

“I feel very confident in having conversations with my clients that shift the conversation from being solutions-based to desired  outcomes.  I’m also very pleased to have an effective toolset that will enable me to have deeper and more strategic conversations with my clients.”

“GREAT content to develop consulting skills for HR Business Partner role.”

“Overall, the workshop was a great learning experience for me.”

“This is an exciting paradigm shift.  I’m looking forward to learning and implementing the tools to be a better strategic partner at my facility.”

• Available Workshops
• Front-End Analysis (FEA) Workshop
• Job Aids Workshop (JAWS)
• Strategic Partnering and Performance Consulting Workshop
• Training Design Workshop
• Training Development Workshop