First Reads for the Foundation of Consulting

Since I began consulting, I have been absorbing all the information that I can to become successful. However, when combing the internet and searching for books to read, there weren’t many results that came up for “books for clinical consulting”. It took me a while to find some that fit,  so I thought I would share! Two books that helped me the most were: Leading Change and Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager.

One of the onboarding requirements for being a part of COR Consultants was to read Leading Change by John Kotter. It looked so dry from the outside and I was looking at my bosses like, “do I really have to”? But after studying it and implementing the take-aways, I can see why my they insisted and bought me a copy (plus left me a cute and inspiring message inside)! Leading Change is very well recognized in the consulting community and I hear it being referred to in different webinars and panel discussions. My eyes light up when I hear about it since I feel like an insider now ….I actually know what they’re talking about. John Kotter describes the foundations of consulting in this book. It’s not specific to clinical consulting per say but the principles are the same whether you are consulting for a small cardiac IT start-up or whether you are consulting for big companies such as Apple or Starbucks. He describes the current change problem in the industry and an eight-stage process on how to lead change. Some of the take-aways for me were establishing a sense of urgency, developing and communicating the change vision, and the significance of empowering your team with highlighting short-term wins and celebrating the milestones. As I grow in this industry, I see how important it is to communicate a shared vision and empower clients to adopt the changes necessary for their organizations to grow. Change is not easy and I think everyone can relate to that, especially from personal experience, but….if you have a vision in mind and a team empowering you, then it makes the change much more likely to be adopted and to result in success. Can you think of a time where you wanted to change something about your life, but it wasn’t until your friends or family pushed you to do it that you finally started making those changes?

Another book I learned from was called Project Management for the Unofficial Project Manager. Inside the walls of a hospital functioning as a staff nurse, I have had to help manage small projects for committees working on improving patient outcomes by finding ways to reduce Hospital Acquired Conditions (HACs). That background helped me to learn some of the basic principles of project management. There were actually a few examples in the guide from a committee working on a CLABSI reduction project so it was easy for me to relate. The authors used the simple equation of People + Process = Success and repeated that with different examples all throughout the book. They use the PMBOK (Project Management Book of Knowledge) to create an easy to learn guide without getting too caught up in the specific information people have to memorize and learn for the PMP (Project Management Professional) certification exam. Even though I’m not a project manager, I found that a lot of the key points helped me to understand the structure of an organization and how to connect with my clients by asking the right people the right questions at the right time on the projects we worked on.

The next book on my list is Everyone Communicates Few Connect: What the Most Effective People Do Differently by John Maxwell. Are there any books that you have found helpful learning how to be a consultant or working in the healthcare field? If so, share them here!