Consulting Services

Improving your organization's performance is a problem with many possible solutions. Organizations are inundated with management techniques, all aimed at doing just this. Have you ever felt that no matter what management concept you've tried, nothing seems to work in the long term? You're not alone. Most of the ideas for improving organizational performance are valuable — but implementing them is tricky. Unless the people who must use them actually learn the concepts and methods, and care about using them — with a passion — the chances of a lasting difference are slim. I can help you make a lasting difference in your organization.

By working at the level of the humanness of the people in your organization, you can create an environment that supports real growth, real learning, and lasting change. This can be difficult, especially if the working environment already involves rapid technological change. But it can happen, if people can focus on working together effectively, respecting themselves, and respecting each other.

To serve problem-solving organizations, and their leaders and managers, as they set about improving overall organizational performance, I offer services in team development, technical leadership development, change management, conflict management, facilitation, and project management.

My style is collaborative. I work with you as a colleague to help you address the issues of improving organizational performance.

And I promise you will be satisfied.

Consulting Services

Insight into Conflict

Whether or not you are engaged in a program of intentional change, change envelopes you — it's a fact of life in dynamic problem-solving organizations. And with change can come conflict. Conflict between pairs of people or within groups of people. Conflict between organizations or within them. I can work with you to find and understand the sources of conflict, to understand the costs of conflict, and and to find ways to work differently to reduce its occurrence.

Facilitation

Even though you always have the option of having an outside facilitator help you conduct a meeting, you usually run your own meetings. But when you anticipate a particularly difficult meeting, either because of stress, tension, complex issues, or even crisis, an outside facilitator can make a real difference. Because I have a strong technical background, I am not easily confused by complex technical issues. I can help keep your meeting on a productive course, help manage its path through complex questions and difficult decisions, and help steer around patches that could defocus the meeting and drain energy unnecessarily.

Quandary Consulting

What do you do when you're just plain stuck? You've run out of ideas for dealing with a block of some kind — organizational, technical, interpersonal. You need a jiggle, some fresh air. Take a look at my essay "What Do You Do When You're Stuck?", and if that doesn't give you an idea or two that gets you out of the jam, perhaps I can help you with some Quandary Consulting. I can facilitate a group or work with individuals as they try to find new ways to deal with problems of long standing.

Collaborative Consulting Style

When I work with you and your organization, I work with you. Following the guidance of Peter Block, I have three goals:

• To establish a collaborative consulting relationship
• To help you to solve problems so they stay solved
• To give attention both to your business problem and to our relationship

Promise

I back all this up with a simple promise. If you are dissatisfied, you need not pay me.

Reference

Block, Peter. Flawless Consulting: A Guide to Getting Your Expertise Used, Second Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 1999. Order from Amazon.com