Areas of Practice
For individuals, strength comes not from bones but from muscles, tendons, and other connective tissue. In organizations, it works much the same way.
Talent Management
You can implement a collection of human resource best practices as part of your effort to create a world-class or preferred employer organization. Still, it won't work if the practices aren’t connected and mutually reinforcing.
We bring that connective tissue to organizations of almost any size. That “tissue” comprises research-based and experience-tested content in a framework that will connect all you do with people.
Utilizing that content and framework, we can show you how to efficiently build profiles by level or by job and use strategic talent management tools that pertain to everything you do with people:
• Interviewing
• Assessment and Selection
• Onboarding
• Performance Management
• Development
• Feedback
• Coaching
• High Potential Identification
• Succession Planning
Why spend years inventing this content when it’s readily available, and you can use it to produce results for your organization right now? Research teaches us that about half of performance is driven by being good at the competencies or practices most important for success in a role, so why not identify those competencies and practices so that you can start using them to select, develop, and manage people?
It’s the connective tissue that gives any organism its strength.
The quality of leadership matters for an organization's success. Great leaders are made, not born.
Leadership Development
There is a process to follow to become a great leader or to grow great leaders in your organization. We know the process, and we can help you follow it yourself or install it in your company.
It all starts with awareness of a need. Someone once said, “We don’t know what we don’t know.” It’s true, and 360-degree feedback is the way to find out.
Research shows that when individuals self-assess, they are less accurate than their direct reports, peers, or bosses. While we’re pretty good at figuring out our own strengths, we don’t do as well with weaknesses, and we’re particularly prone to miss weaknesses related to personal or interpersonal skills. Facilitated 360-degree feedback helps leaders better understand how others see them and motivates them to improve.
Awareness is the first step in the six-step process that leads to lasting change, and there is no better way to create it than through skillfully facilitated 360-degree feedback. Our team of experienced feedback providers has delivered over 2,000 feedback sessions using competency-based or practice-based methods for people on five continents. We’ve done that work for organizations where we were employed, we’ve done it for client organizations, and we’ve done it for executive MBA students in top-rated business schools.
Gap analysis identifies competencies or practices that are high in importance but middle or low in performance, and from that group, 2 to 3 are selected for development. Effective results-oriented development plans are crafted, including highly practical resources that can be used on the job. The leader will use their team as a “learning lab,” trying new approaches to gain new skills.
This very practical and affordable process is often called Leadership Development for the Real World. It’s not about attending a conference or reading a book. Both are fine, but change and improvement come from actually trying out new approaches, and that’s the process we support for leaders motivated to change.
We’ve seen many people achieve significant change following this method. If you’re ready to learn some new approaches that will pay off or if you’re interested in learning more about this approach for your organization, please be in touch.
Great leaders are made, not born.
While there was a time when having an executive coach was viewed as a negative, those days are long gone.
Executive Coaching
Today, having a coach means that your organization sees value in you and wants you to become all you can be. Much of our coaching practice is focused on helping leaders transition to more senior roles.
Executive coaches play four roles:
First, a coach is a professional development expert in a specific discipline, such as leadership development, performance management or emotional intelligence, who provides guidance and insight.
Second, a coach is a partner who challenges your thinking as a leader.
Third, a coach is a confidant and trusted advisor.
Fourth, a coach is an objective outside resource.
As coaching engagements progress, the roles tend to shift, but we’ll often play all four roles simultaneously for a client.
Examples of the events that prompt the desire for a coach include:
A significant new challenge. Perhaps your organization’s VP of Sales has been named President and COO for the past ten years with a shot at CEO if all goes well. Providing some support during the transition can make all the difference.
Identification as a High Potential. High Potentials often have an edge to two that needs smoothing if they are to succeed. They also need to begin developing some competencies or practices that may not yet have been tested but will become important in the near future.
Moving to a new organization with a different culture. Often, an executive coach with knowledge of corporate cultures can help make that transition successful.
Promotion to a leadership role. It’s probably the toughest transition anyone makes, but some coaching support at the right time can dramatically increase chances for success.
Depending on the circumstances, a new team, new leadership, or new direction can be challenging, but coaching support can smooth things out.
Every coaching engagement is different, and since each requires good coach-learner chemistry, we offer a no-obligation intake interview. At the end of the initial 1- or 2-hour meeting, no professional fees are due if either party feels it’s not the right combination or isn’t confident about moving forward. We often include 360-degree feedback and Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment as part of executive coaching, but neither is required since each situation is unique.