For most of his career Schaffer has pioneered
in developing and applying consulting approaches that are based on the
idea of achieving performance improvement and capability development
through frequent and rapid client success experiences. The journal, Consulting to Management, called his book, High-Impact Consulting
(Jossey Bass, 2002) the “single most useful current book on the practice of management consulting.”
In addition to Rapid Results!, Schaffer authored The Breakthrough Strategy
(HarperBusiness, 1988). He has also published more than 70 articles on
performance improvement, change acceleration, and consulting, including
seven articles in the Harvard Business Review.
Schaffer was the first to write about:
-
the use of short-term
successful achievement projects as major stepping stones to large-scale
organization progress.
-
the
importance of ensuring that strategic plans are implemented in order to
achieve the desired results in Putting Action Into Planning.
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the need for much more powerful and effective demand-making by senior managers Demand Better Results – and Get Them (an HBR classic) was one of the ten most requested Harvard Business Review reprints in the decade 1990 to 2000.
He was also the first to emphasize that actual on-the-job
achievements of the right kind is the most powerful mode of developing
leadership capability in "Management Development Through Management Achievement" in Personnel.
Earlier
in his career Schaffer was Chairman of the Professional Development
Committee of the Institute of Management Consultants, and he is currently invited to address numerous professional associations and government organizations.
Robert Schaffer has advanced management thinking in multiple areas, and has helped senior executives of many companies and government agencies throughout the world apply the concepts to their organizations with great returns.
Currently Schaffer divides his time between working for Schaffer Consulting and supporting the Rapid Results Institute, the non-profit affiliate of the firm which applies Schaffer Consulting
modalities to the developing world – chiefly in Africa and Latin
America – and to ending homelessness in the USA.
Schaffer earned a BS in mechanical engineering at the
Columbia School of Engineering and a Doctor of Education in counseling
and management psychology at Teachers College, Columbia University. He
has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of Teachers College.