History

CDI was founded in 2013 by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD, a principal consultant in CDI, and founding partner of Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Like CDI’s other principal consultants, he has successfully been training consultants since the 1990s.

He started by gathering the many useful guidelines and resources that had been used in his successful face-to-face consulting workshops over the years.
These were combined into concise, step-by-step courses and integrated into relevant series, or skill sets, needed by all types of consultants in any type of organization.

Courses were also integrated numerous, free, online practical articles and tools, including from Authenticity Consulting’s Free Management Library (managementhelp.org), one of the world’s largest collections of well-organized resources for all type of organizations.

Next, the courses and series had to be carefully customized to implement all of the best practices in online learning, and to be implemented in a convenient online learning management system. Courses and series were reviewed by 20 highly experienced consultants from a wide variety of backgrounds.

Research in self-paced, online learning consistently indicates that too few learners actually complete online programs. However, ongoing individual attention significantly increases the likelihood of their completion. Fortunately, Authenticity Consulting is an internationally known firm for customizing peer learning groups for different applications. So he added the groups as an optional component for learners and organizations in the series of courses.

A cadre of experienced consultant trainers was recruited as additional faculty to provide more perspectives and reliability of experienced resources in training. Personnel in various membership organizations for consultants were trained on providing the courses and peer groups, as well.

The series and peer learning groups combine to produce a state-of-the-art approach to learning and development called the “flipped classroom” approach. Hundreds of students have since enrolled in the courses and given strong testimonials about their learning and experiences.