Edgar Schein, who coined the term “process consultation” refers to it as “the central discipline for helping professionals to build strong helping relationships that result in sustained change and improvement” for groups and organizations. Differing radically from what most people think of as “consulting”, process consultation (PC) refers to a comprehensive collection of educational, mentoring, facilitating, and data collection activities that help others while simultaneously teaching them how to help themselves.

As COR teaches and practices it, the PC model offers a tremendous resource not only for consultants, but also for managers, counselors, therapists, social workers, educators—actually anyone who wants to learn to “see” and interpret complex situations more clearly and to increase their choices of helpful responses.

A central tenet of the PC process is that the consultant is a partner, an “outsider friend,” who works with clients rather than “pouring expertise upon them” or “as an inferior minion carrying out the client’s every wish.” Because of this foundation of mutual responsibility, PC offers a powerful advantage: it does not rely on “pre-packaged programs,” canned techniques, or “dog-and-pony shows.” Instead, a skilled professional helper (or team) works with a committed client group/organization to tailor assistance specifically to the needs of a unique situation. The concept of the “learning organization” has always been at the heart of the PC philosophy, as both helpers and clients diagnose, plan, and consistently evaluate together as the process emerges. Clients bring their intimate knowledge of an organization’s history, culture, and strategic challenges; PC professional helpers bring expertise in organizational change. The partnership almost always proves powerful.

COR’s Basic Certification in Process Consulting (PC) assumes all of the other competencies in the other basic certification areas. It represents the most comprehensive area of professional helping. The competencies required for COR’s basic certification in this area are:

• All Foundational Competencies plus


• All Data Collection Competencies plus


• All Presentation Competencies plus


• All Facilitation Competencies plus


• All Training Competencies plus


• All Mentoring/Coaching Competencies plus


• These Process Consultation content competencies (PCC):
  PCC1: Possess working knowledge of models of group and organizational effectiveness
  PCC2: Possess working knowledge of individual and organizational change theories
  PCC3: Possess working knowledge of group dynamics
  PCC4: Possess knowledge of characteristics of healthy and unhealthy groups/organizations
  PCC5: Possess knowledge of basic concepts of group conflict prevention, resolution, and management
  PCC 6: Possess working knowledge of several group problem-solving
  PCC7: Possess working knowledge of basic group interventions and relative contextual criteria for eachmodels


• These Process Consultation skill competencies (PCS):
  PCS1: Able to contract with client groups for clear scope, outcomes, roles and responsibilities
  PCS2: Able to build a trusting relationship with client organization based upon mutual responsibility for achieving goals
  PCS3: Able to effectively use several models diagnosing client needs and organizational situations
  PCS4: Able to distinguish between content and process issues and respond accordingly
  PCS5: Works collaboratively and effectively with p.c. colleagues


• These Process Consultation dispositional competencies (PCD):
  PCD1: Consistently models process consultation as a helping relationship

COR will provide at least one workshop per year which addresses the competencies in each area of certification, although individuals are not required to participate in order to apply for Basic Certification in any area. Demonstration of the competencies required for this basic certification can be achieved through the portfolio process