The Journal of Practical Consulting (JPC) is a technical-refereed publication designed to provide an online forum for dialogue, dissemination, exploration, and examination of innovative insights, practical applications, and emerging trends, tools, and techniques in the world of consulting. The multidisciplinary nature of the JPC empowers consulting practitioners, leaders, educators, and other professionals to network across disciplines and gain a well-rounded perspective that promotes success in the consulting environments of today and of the future.

All of our journal articles may be reprinted in accordance with the doctrine of fair use as described in the U.S. Copyright Law. Anyone wishing to reprint School of Business & Leadership articles for commercial use or monetary gain must request permission and pay the associated fee.

Businesses and non-profit organizations understand the value of hiring consultants to provide analysis of their enterprises, develop leadership strategies, and help implement change initiatives that will provide a realistic opportunity for the organization's long-term sustainability. They have embraced the potential benefits of looking beyond their in-house talent to experts in the needed fields. While some churches have begun to use consultants, as a whole they are late adopters of this practice, often stating that church leaders should be able to discover solutions to challenges merely by listening to God. This article agrees the Holy Spirit should have a major influence as ministry leaders chart the course a church should follow, but it will posit that it is wise to seek the input of many counselors and that the most qualified consultant for any church is someone who has been called to ministry and is experienced in local church ministry.
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Leaders must develop expertise in executing by proxy to accomplish scale. These skills are acquired by experimenting with options available for the business model, tempered by the dynamics of the ecosystem in which the business competes. The people who leaders empower to derive results form a fraternity of stewardship in transforming strategy into results. Attracting, retaining, and motivating talented people to whom such empowerment is vested must be a continual leadership priority. While people are complex machines, leaders too often over-complicate the interpersonal dynamic. Revisiting some axiomatic principles within a practical organizational architecture may prove useful for institutionalizing competitively comparative "employer of choice" credentials.
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In today's global business world many organizations have turned to unethical practices in order to maintain the organizations and continue to be competitive. An example can be found in the lawsuit of the City of Los Angeles against Wells Fargo that began in May 2015. The city alleges that the bank has set unreasonable sales expectations of employees, therefore, causing them to turn to unethical practices to meet quotas (Whitehouse, 2015). These actions have caused an adverse effect on the employees and community in addition to creating a negative view of Wells Fargo. However, Wells Fargo is not alone in these unethical practices. It has unfortunately become a norm in today's business world. But, can businesses be fruitful and ethical at the same time and if so, how? This article will address the importance of creating and maintaining ethical practices and recommendations in pursuing the establishment of an ethical organization.
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An effective means of influencing positive change in organizations, the Organizational Development (OD) methodology on leadership training can help business leaders employ effective assessment strategies and focus on the important rather than the urgent in addressing organizational challenges. Focused on exploring the underlying needs of their clients, OD consultants help define the real issues and root causes of their clients' concerns. OD Consultants who systematically engage their clients with these strategies while also gaining trust can develop long term successful relationships that impact positively over time.
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An organization's culture and design are central to who the organization is, what they do, and how they do it. They offer consistency and expectations for employees and set the standards for output. Essentially, they are critical to not only the operations of the company but also their success. Change is inevitable and a part of growth, learning, and success. Through the course of an organization's existence, it will undergo changes in culture, design, and leadership. The strength of the current culture and design will determine the organization's ability to maneuver successfully through the changes they are or will undergo. However, when leadership itself changes, it is imperative that part of the succession planning involve safeguarding the key components of the current culture and design, while slowly implementing intended changes. Without proper planning and implementation, employees will begin to feel insecure and unstable which could influence the overall well-being of the company. It is, therefore, important for strategic teams to understand the importance of culture and design, the impact a succession can have on the organization, and develop a plan to manage these factors during succession – either planned or unplanned.
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Church consulting began centuries ago but has become somewhat lax on several issues. This article will clarify the definition of church consulting by first reviewing the history of church consulting, followed by developing a clear definition. The article will then turn to skills and competencies needed for such a career in church consulting, concluding with a review of options for church consultant certification including secular business certification, finishing with some action steps church consultants can take to instill integrity for authentic, credible consulting.
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Many questions arise for the aspiring leadership coach. This article explores common questions particularly concerning potential growth, understanding, and measuring coaching value, identifying opportunities and challenges in the coaching industry, as well as the importance of having coaching experience, certification, and credentialing. The authors interviewed coaches from both Malaysia and North America to assess commonalities and differences. The results indicate there are diversified perspectives on coaching standards and practices within each country. The coaching profession has many opportunities as well as challenges. Emerging coaches should place emphasis on experience and knowledge, as coaching clients tend to place more importance on the coaches' experience, knowledge, and the value they obtain from the coaching activities when seeking a qualified coach.
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The Master's hand fashioned each of us with a unique set of talents to assist in building the Kingdom. This paper explores the benefits of a relational covenant between the organization, individual, and professional coach coupled with the Clifton StrengthsFinder® assessment as organizations put their greatest asset, their people, to work. When strengths are uncovered and mobilized, it bridges the gap between our worldly work and God's handy-work, creating a breeding ground for increased engagement and collaborative relationships. As individuals and organizations embrace and encourage strengths, they empower, energize, and maximize the workforce. Strengths development allows contributors to bring their best offering to the talent table, crafting a purposeful competitive advantage and an opportunity to generate a healthy bottom line; managing performance by design rather than default.
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Academic literature argues against financial ROI as the sole metric for coaching effectiveness, in favor of well-validated, distal organizational and individual outcomes (Grover and Furnham, 2016; Wright, 2015; Grant 2012; Theeboom, Beersma and van Vianen, 2014). Two years of research on the links between coaching, and distal organizational outcomes, emphasizing engagement, well-being and work-life balance, carries deep implications for the kingdom impact of coaching in the marketplace. Workplace coaching has the potential to deliver organizational outcomes such as increased workplace engagement (Arakawa & Greenberg, 2007), decreased stress (Gyllensten & Palmer, 2005), and increased well-being (Grant, 2012); and individual outcomes such as increased performance, coping, and well-being (Hawksley, 2007; Bell, Rajendran and Theiler, 2012; Theeboom, Beersma & van Vianen, 2014). Academic literature holds strong implications for workplace coaching and presents the opportunity to examine how coaching impacts wellbeing to facilitate biblical kingdom living.

This research paper not only carries significant implications for organizational coaches, corporate decision makers, and HR directors to justify the common costs of coaching interventions; it also carries implications for marketplace ministry and ultimately for biblical kingdom living.
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As the profession of coaching grows, so does the need for the use of coaching skills by those who lead in organizations, communities and life. Recognizing that all leaders will not desire coach certification or indepth training, the authors believe teaching coaching skills to improve efficiencies and conversations is a necessity. Toward this cause, as Executive Coaches, the authors teach coaching skills to leaders as a part of the Emerging Leaders Coaching Experience as well as using the InDiCom Coaching Model from the book, Coaching for Commitment, to students in the Masters of Organizational Leadership at Columbus State University in Columbus, GA. Research shows the use of internal and external coaches brings value to organizations. If the process of coaching is valued, then the authors believe the use of coaching skills should be used by all leaders and not just those who are certified or credentialed as a life profession.
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Coaching is about improving performance. Coaching online faculty provides two unique challenges for the prospective coach: the individuals being coached are all highly educated, and all are located at a distance. It is proposed that coaching this unique group of individuals in this distinct context will require combining effective, service-focused leadership, with multiple coaching approaches. Servant leadership requires a focus on the follower, which is an approach favored by the highly educated faculty member, as it demonstrates a level of respect that has been earned through academic achievement. Additionally, these educators value coaching that comes from those above them on the organizational chart, as well as peers who have shared experiences. The relational focus of the Christian Scriptures provides a nice template for those who follow Jesus, who demonstrated the ability to listen intently, foster critical thinking, and teach in multiple settings – all of which are important for distant faculty members.
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The purpose of this article is to recognize the need of coaching skills within the workplace. In reviewing the approaches to coaching formats and implementing coaching processes organizations will find that coachees will experience noticeable growth, more confidence, focus, and self-worth. The underlying value will be organizations using some forms of coaching are more likely to experience higher employee retention.
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This article aims to highlight the advantages of integrating biblical perspectives and professional practices of the leader through coaching. The three basic biblical principles this article explores are faith, truth, and perseverance anchored in the biblical accounts of James. The integration of these three practical teachings adds value to the coaching profession while it fosters the establishment of deep-rooted and trusting relationships. These biblical concepts provide insight, understanding, and solutions for coaching practitioners in order to develop the leader to enhance relationships within the organization providing foundational competencies which improve the leader's performance in all areas of life. Trusting relationships are an innate necessity for leaders to partake in any endeavor throughout their personal or professional life.
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This submission is part one in a series of articles that explores and discusses relationships between coaching, organizational change and strategic leadership. The first article will explore the link between organizationwide coaching and organizational change, with special focus devoted to how the nature of organizational coaching reaffirms the classical/traditional perspective on organizational change. The second article will examine how organizational coaching initiatives integrate with the principles and practice of strategic leadership and organizational change. The second article will examine how organizational coaching initiatives (and coaching competencies) integrate with the principles and practice of strategic leadership and organizational change. The relationships will be examined on micro and macro levels by evaluating alignment between requirements for the implementation of a successfully organizational coaching initiative, and the outcomes of organizational change and strategic leadership. The third article will examine specific cases where organizational coaching initiatives were implemented within organizational contexts and evaluate the effectiveness of the initiatives. Initiatives will be evaluated based on how well the coaching initiative served the client's goals and furthered the objective of strategic leadership, and to what extent it reaffirmed the original suppositions of organizational change and facilitated a healthy balance between leadership and management principles.
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Organizational leaders must be clear about the value different leadership development options afford and the likely impact of each. As such, this paper will address three different leadership development options– self-directed, management-prompted, and coaching and then specify the likely return on investment organizational leaders can expect. In addition, it will go into greater detail regarding how leadership development programs that include coaching bring value to the individual and the organization, provided organizations are ready to align their program with business strategies, human resource initiatives, and client commitment.
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The purpose of this paper is to present information that supports the value and impact of diversity at all levels in an organization that would create a pipeline that, if leveraged, will lead to diversity at the leadership level. The paper seeks to examine the concept of why, if diversity is so valuable, is it not utilized at the leadership level in most organizations. It examines current research and opinions relevant to the importance of diversity and inclusion in an organization and the benefits of having diversity in the workforce. The paper goes on to outline why diversity and inclusion are important tools in today's multi-generational, multi-ethnic, multi-skilled workforce. Simply put, its value lies in the fact that it breeds creativity and innovation and prevents groupthink.
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