Consultancy skills and the role of psychologists as consultants are discussed. Key points include: 1) Consultants provide benefits to organizations through their specialized expertise and to researchers by applying work to real-world situations. Consultancy involves advice, training, applied research and evaluation. 2) The consultancy process involves contracting, information gathering, developing evidence-based plans and actions, implementation and review, and evaluation. Models like PDSA cycles and action research are applied. 3) Successful consultancy requires skills like relationship building, understanding organizational context, project management, and producing quality evidence and advice. Challenges include differing views between clients and consultants that must be reconciled.

1. Consultancy Skills
Research Support and Consultancy Services
Institute of Mental Health
&
Division of Psychiatry and Applied Psychology
University of Nottingham

2. Outline
• Introductions
• Why Consultants?
• Challenges within Psychology
• The Consultancy Process
• Key Skills and Good Practice
• Putting your Expertise into Practice

3. Why Consultants?
• Benefits to organisations
– specialists, objective, easier to contract, time-limited involvement
• Benefits to researchers/psychologists
– Application of work to real-world situations – i.e. impact
– Variety of interesting applied work
– Opens up multi-disciplinary and collaborative approaches
• Types of Services
– Advice, training, applied research, evaluation
• Different employment models

4. Difference between Research,
Evaluation and Consultancy?
• Research
– Generation of new knowledge, potential to generalize to the population
• Evaluation
– Assesses the effectiveness of an existing programme/intervention/system
• Consultancy
– providing a specific service based on expertise of the provider
Not mutually exclusive

5. Roles of a Consultant
• Expert – To provide specialist information or advice
• Executive – To manage or control the assignment
• Researcher – To gather, analyse and interpret information
• Tutor – To help clients arrive at their own informed decisions
• Educator – To impart knowledge through formal methods
• Conciliator – To get individuals and groups in conflict to work together
• Powerbroker – To change the balance of power within the client system
• Synergist – To enhance the effectiveness of existing work units
Williams & Woodward

6. Psychology and the ‘real world’
• How well do psychologists engage with the ‘real world’?
• How do the public (and potential clients) perceive
psychologists?
• What are some of the challenges to effective engagement?

7. Consultants: Service Providers
vs Professionals
• Service providers?
– ‘Guns for hire’
– Providing whatever service the client wants
• Professionals?
– Approached by client with a presenting problems
– Analyse, diagnose, assess by collecting evidence
– Propose possible solutions based on evidence, discuss their likely
effectiveness and downsides
– Discuss with client and agree (or not) Briner (2015)

8. Evidence-based Practice
• Solution-based practice
– Use practices/techniques that are not supported by evidence
– The ‘solution’ in search of a ‘problem’
• Evidence-based practice
– Use the best available evidence in a decision-making process
– Evidence from 4 domains: external, stakeholders, context, practitioner
experience
(Briner, Dreyer and Rousseau, 2009)

9. Scientist-Practitioner Model
• Reciprocal relationship between two roles
– allow empirical evidence to influence their practice
– allow experience of practice to influence their research
• Evidence-based practice
• Practice-based research
• Cross-disciplinary

10. The Consultancy Process
• Client’s perspective
• Various improvement models used by organisations
– PDSA cycle
– Action Research model
• Psychologists can apply their scientific knowledge, methods and
evidence into these problem solving cycles
– Theoretical understanding
– Reliable and valid data collection
– Sophisticated data analysis
– Ethical and professional standards

11. PDSA Cycle

12. Action Research
Presentation
Of Problem
Preliminary
Hypothesis
Data
Collection
Data Analysis
And Diagnosis
Action
Planning
Implementation
Evaluation
Entry

13. BPS Consultancy Cycle (2019)
1. Contracting
2. Information gathering
and analysis of issues
3. Using an evidence-based
approach to formulate plans
and actions
4. Implementing and
Reviewing solutions
5. Evaluating outcomes
6. Reporting and reflecting
on outcomes

14. Key Consultancy Skills
• Making links and building relationships
• Understanding the organizational context
• Writing a proposal
– Listening, adapting, but also setting the expectations
– Establishing timeframe, budget and dependencies
• Maximising the use of your expertise
– Acknowledging expertise and skill gaps
• Project Management Skills
• Producing quality evidence, information and advice

15. Good Practice
• Participative methodology: involvement
• Inform and educate stakeholders: shape expectations
• Recognise client expertise: knowledge elicitation
• Reconcile different languages and cognitive models
• Do not challenge ownership of problem or solution: advocate,
expert provider and facilitator
• Professionalism

16. Challenges
• Key areas of discrepancy between the views of the client and the
views of the consultant:
– Need for analysis
– Cause of the problem
– Nature of good leadership
– Nature of interventions
– Effective implementation of change
– Need for evaluation
– Concept of helping
• Need to examine underlying value differences in initial entry stage
to ensure successful client-consultant relationship

17. The Consultancy Report
• Structure
– Similar to a research paper
• Concise and Focused Writing
– Write it in a way the audience will understand
– “Write to express, not impress”
– Use short sentences to avoid over-complexity
– Be direct and clear, don’t leave your reader to guess what you are saying
• But how do we ensure it gets put into practice….?

19. Successful implementation requires
• Knowledge
– awareness of the information by the right people
– willingness to use knowledge to inform decision-making and actions
• Behaviour and organisational change
– Capability, opportunity and motivation
– removing the barriers to achieving change

20. Force Field Analysis
Assisting Forces Resisting Forces
• Social trends
• Dissatisfaction with
present situation
• Recognition of the need
to change
• Top management
commitment
• Economic climate
• Threat to power bases &
vested interests
• Fear of the unknown &
feeling insecure
• Disruption to existing ways
of doing things
Kurt Lewin, 1943

21. Consolidated Framework for
Implementation Research
Damschroder et al (2009)

22. What next….?
• Registration
– BPS: Codes of Professional Conduct, Ethical codes
– HCPC: statutory body for the registration of UK psychologists
• Experience in organisations
• Develop confidence and inter-personal skills
• Maximise opportunities in your research project

23. Questions….?