Consulting Services
Leadership and Management Development
Our work in leadership and management development includes working with intact executive teams and with groups which include people from various parts of an organisation. We have considerable experience of corporate settings as well as large and smaller not-for-profit organisations.
Executive/Board Workshops
Our particular skill is in the design and facilitation of workshops with a dual focus. We enable leadership teams to attend concurrently to:
- Particular managerial tasks (such as strategic/operational planning) and
- Improving the way the team functions.
Workshops have centred on strategy development and strategic planning, dealing with specific issues of strategic importance, improving governance and as an integral part of an organisational review process. We have also designed and facilitated workshops with the main aim of ‘improving how the team operates’.
When we are asked to assist a team or group to work more effectively, this often involves probing beneath the surface of current or long-standing difficulties such as unresolved conflict, differing perceptions and interpersonal tensions within the group. We aim to do this collaboratively with the group in the workshop setting. We have found that the best outcomes are achieved by using a venue away from our client’s usual workplace.
PREPARATION FOR AN EXECUTIVE OR BOARD WORKSHOP
Careful preparation and detailed attention to workshop design are critical success factors in our approach. Every workshop is designed with the desired outcomes in mind. When necessary we adjust a design as the workshop evolves in response to emerging needs, in consultation with the project’s sponsor.
Preparation begins with a briefing meeting with the workshop’s sponsor (Board Chair, CEO etc.) to enable us to understand your objectives and any particular issues. We then prepare an interview ‘framework’ in consultation with the sponsor to guide an in-depth interview session with each participant. We use what we learn about your organisation, participants’ roles, their experience of the organisation and the issues to be dealt with in the workshop to guide the workshop’s design.
For more information about our methodology or for a discussion of your particular needs, please contact us.
Action Research/Action Learning based projects
We work with project based groups of leaders, managers and professionals facing complex organisational problems or situations when successful outcomes depend on a capacity for dealing with uncertainty, skill in exercising judgment and effective leadership in changing and often unpredictable circumstances.
We work with such groups to design and implement action research/action learning based projects to address the problem of concern. Our role usually involves:
- Working with you to define the project’s scope,
- Support for the project’s design,
- Assistance if necessary with project management,
- Workshop design and facilitation in collaboration with the project team,
- Progressive transfer of skills in action research and action learning.
Project aims are achieved through an iterative process of data gathering and analysis, workplace-based actions and review of interim outcomes as a basis for informing later actions. Throughout we aim to engender a mindset of continuous improvement and learning from experience.
In parallel with achieving a project’s aims, Action Research/Action Learning programmes provide a professional development opportunity grounded in participants' first hand experience of issues.
Individual Role Consultation
Organisational Role Consultation is a highly effective form of one-on-one guided professional development for leaders and managers. A role consultation can be focused on a particular issue of concern or it can be scoped more broadly with the aim of improving your overall performance. We pay particular attention to self-awareness, leadership style and interpersonal skills.
Organisational role consultation uses a facilitated learning approach in which your first hand experience of your organisation, its people and systems is an essential ingredient. Organisational role consultation provides you with new insights into your own thought patterns as well as your own and others’ behaviour, in parallel with development of new and existing skills and creative solutions to particular problems.
Professional Development in Change Leadership for Groups
We develop and deliver tailored professional development programmes for in tact work groups and for groups of people from diverse backgrounds. We create student centred, highly interactive learning environments in which people develop and enhance their skills in managing organisational change, change leadership, team building, understanding organisation dynamics and self management. When appropriate we use professional actors to support workplace simulations.
Click here for examples of our work developing and delivering professional development in change. management.