Shortly after earning a BS degree in engineering and a doctorate in counseling and management psychology at Columbia University, Schaffer began his career in management consulting. Impressed by the wealth of good ideas and untapped potential that he found in most organizations, Schaffer launched a firm that would be devoted to helping managers exploit that hidden potential," not just providing expert advice. Robert H. Schaffer & Associates has been pursuing that goal for the 30-plus years since.
Schaffer is the originator of the firm's unique results-driven approach described in his 1988 book, The Breakthrough Strategy: Using Short-Term Successes To Build the High Performance Organization. RHS&A has used this and related methods that employ "rapid-cycle successes" to help many organizations improve performance and accelerate the pace of change.
He headed the firm for many years and directed its practice. In recent years he has been playing a lead role on certain major consulting projects and he continues to develop and write about the firm's innovative concepts. Schaffer is senior author of RHS&A's latest book Rapid Results! How 100-Day Projects Build the Capacity for Large-Scale Change (Jossey-Bass, 2005).
Schaffer has long advocated the need for the entire consulting profession to do more to ensure that their work actually yields significant and sustainable returns for their clients. This view is elaborated in his book, High-Impact Consulting: How Clients and Consultants Can Work Together to Achieve Extraordinary Results (Jossey-Bass, second edition, 2002). The journal, Consulting to Management, called this book "the single most useful current book on the practice of management consulting".
In addition to his books, Schaffer's publications include over fifty articles. He has written six articles in Harvard Business Review, including two best-sellers, "Demand Better Results — And Get Them" (1991) and "Successful Change Programs Begin with Results", co-authored with Harvey Thomson (1992).
High Impact Consulting: How Clients and Consultants Can Leverage Rapid Results into Long-Term Gains