Lessons Learned from a Class Project

By second year I/O student, Meha Nepalia


I am very excited to share my experience of working on a class project. I did a team project for a course in my I/O program in which we conducted an employee attitude and behavior survey for an organization. The aim of this project was to learn about the process of assessing employee attitudes, apply research to a real world situation, and enhance our consulting skills. For this project we interacted with the client, conducted interviews, did a lot of research, created an employee attitude survey, analyzed the findings, and provided recommendations to the client.  During this project, I learned a lot from the experience and relied heavily on Peter Block’s book “Flawless Consulting”.

There are simple things that Peter Block talks about in his book “Flawless Consulting“such as sharing your thoughts about working with the client in your first meeting; this creates a comfortable environment and puts the client at ease. Also, just listening and restating what the client wants helps in securing the client’s trust.  Block (2011) suggests that the most important question to ask the client is “what do you want from me?”(p.76). Furthermore, it is also essential to know what support the client can provide. These questions help in knowing the client’s expectations from you and also help to inform client that their support is required for the successful completion of the project. According to Block, it is very essential to communicate to the client what you as a consultant expect and want from the client. Additionally, discussing with the client the next steps and making sure they agree to them is also important. These tips on contracting by Peter Block helped our team in communicating with the client successfully.

The attitudes project was a great learning experience. I was very anxious and nervous about the first meeting with the client and wondered about how things would go, but it all went well. This project helped in developing my skills on maintaining good client relationships as well as keeping the project on the right path. Indeed, the suggestions from the book “Flawless Consulting” seemed to make the interaction with the client flawless. I recommend this book to all and hope that everyone benefits from it as much as I did.