„‚ CONDITIONS THAT HINDER EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Objectives
A conceptual-input type of process intervention is intended to provide members of a
client group with an “organizing principle” that has, as its payoff, the power to help
them clearly see distinctions between typical but not optimal behavior (the things people
say and do and/or the style with which the things are said and done) and less traditional
but more effective behavior. Conceptual inputs also tend to be easily remembered and
can, therefore, be referred to in the future. When a consultant intervenes in this way, he
or she is providing clients with a new vocabulary and a conceptual system that is quite
explicit and is shared and understood by all client-group members. Confusion and
misunderstandings should thus be minimized, as clients are more likely to remember,
understand, and make use of the kinds of behaviors to which the new “language” refers.
Timing
A conceptual-input type of intervention can be used at any time during a process
consultation—as long as the contract between the consultant and the client group
legitimizes this type of consultant behavior. For maximum effectiveness and impact, the
intervention should come immediately after a transaction between members that clearly
illustrates the undesirable consequences of dysfunctional or ineffective behavior. In the
preceding example, the consultant timed his or her intervention to take place after
Member A’s expressed confusion (one sort of undesirable consequence). This was the
point at which the intervention was most likely to make immediate sense to the clientgroup
members. When an intervention makes sense, people are also more likely to make
use of it.
Form or Style
A conceptual input should be brief and succinct. Words and phrases that are
comprehensible to the members of the client group should be used. It does not help to
make the perfectly appropriate intervention at exactly the right time if, for example, the
consultant’s terms are so pedagogical that the listeners cannot understand them. Such a
style could result in clients’ disregarding the consultant as unable to relate to them.
COACHING INTERVENTIONS
A second type of process intervention aims at facilitating the acquisition of desirable,
functional habits of interacting.
Example
The scene takes place after the group has received a conceptual input on giving and
receiving feedback.
Member A (to Member B): “I experience you as acting in an arbitrary manner.”
(Silence.) [A is labeling B.]
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The Pfeiffer Library Volume 6, 2nd Edition. Copyright ©1998 Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer