The Consultant's Blog June 2012
How character type profiling can give consultants an inside track to success!
We are what we are. It is a combination of nature and nurture, your genes handed down from your parents and then your upbringing
and life’s experiences which have created you. As an experienced consultant, you would probably state that you know yourself
pretty well. You understand your own character – its strengths and weaknesses, you get on well with ‘most’ people that you
work with, even in the mixed setup of project teams.
But if everyone was the same the world be a very boring place!
SAP project client sites are a mix of people, all trying to work together to achieve the same ultimate goal – successful implementation!
The implementation partner brings along a range of management consultants, from experienced task orientated SAP gurus to the more
flamboyant ‘people’ orientated project managers, partners and administration experts. Add to that mix a full range of people seconded
from the client’s business to work at their sides, often including those who know their own business inside and out, and sometimes a few who
fear there working lives will never be the same again! Top it off with some third party software providers and a few young graduates fresh
out of uni or the SAP academy, and the mix is complete! With some hideous deadlines thrown in to add pressure, it becomes even more important
to understand who you are working with and how to communicate effectively to each individual.
Consider these scenarios:
- You are presenting your solutions for a gap to the project management team. How do you ensure that every one of them fully understands the presentation and supports your preferred option?
- Your team manager is changing and you will now be reporting progress to someone you have not met or worked with before. What is the best approach to take to ensure a good working relationship develops?
- A very confident SAP academy graduate from your firm and a quiet spoken graduate scheme employee from the client have been added to your SAP functional team. How will you ensure that both new members integrate easily into the team and become productive resources as quickly as possible?
Successful and professional consulting is about more than knowing how SAP works and getting the tasks done correctly and on time. Recognising and understanding the different character types that you have in your project team mix means that you can adjust your behaviour and approach to suit each one, improving efficiency, creating harmony, increasing acceptance of your ideas, exceeding targets and improving the relationships that you have with your colleagues and clients.
On our ‘Knowing Me, Knowing You’ training course, we will show you how to identify the main character types in anyone around you, and how applying the right choice of words and technique for each type will get you the results you are after again and again.
An inside track to your success!
Past Blogs
Please click on the appropriate link below to view past blogs or return to the current blog:
The Origin of the Functional Spec - April 2012
The Life of the SAP Functional Spec - May 2012
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