I partner with teams, organizations and associations to facilitate clarity, connections and positive change. I challenge leaders and organizational members to think differently about how we work and lead, and guide organization change initiatives. Some of the work I love includes:
There is a difference between how we talk and think about our organizations and communities, and how they operate in practice. Strategic plans and mission statements mean very little if they do not represent how leaders and employees actually work together. Every team, organization or community is composed of a collection of people relating to one another. How well they understand each other, communicate, share knowledge, and support each other in the fulfillment of their goals, determines the level of their success. Everyone in a team has their own hopes, fears, needs, resentments, mindsets, blind spots, passion, energy and creativity. When people work together a unique dynamic emerges that can be functional, dysfunctional or most often a mix of both. Until we gain clarity about who we are as a team, what we want to be, and how to get there, productivity will suffer. Meetings, pep talks, or references to strategic plans and mission statements will be ineffective without this core understanding. That is why so many change initiatives fail. Change the way people relate to each other in the pursuit of a common goal, and everything changes with it. Now, anything is possible, and success is inevitable.
As an organization process consultant, I am responsible for facilitating clarity, connections and positive change in teams, organizations, and associations. I love working with not-for-profit organizations and associations of all sizes and specialties, and have over ten years experience managing in publicly-funded not-for-profit environments. I also welcome partnerships with companies in any industry, from small and medium-sized businesses to large corporations.
My process can be simplified in this way:
CLARIFY - IMAGINE - CHANGE - BUILD
Clarify
When our partnership begins, I will spend considerable time gathering data from leadership and from those impacted by the challenges you wish to address. I prefer if some members of the team are involved in the analysis of the data, but this is not always necessary. Over time we will refine and clarify our understanding of the context, players, assumptions, and types of challenges we are facing. Often during this process we gain a greater appreciation of the complexities and equivocality of the presenting problem, and refine the parameters of the challenge we are trying to solve.
Imagine
As organization members gain clarity about themselves, their colleagues, and their unique working contexts, new possibilities that were previously not envisioned or seriously considered, begin to emerge. This is a time for divergent thinking, exploring diverse perspectives, and dynamically prototyping what solutions best suit the organization’s specific talents, context and environment.
Change
Changing the dialogue between members of the organization can lead to changes in organizational narratives – and this is critical for sustainable change. However, at this stage we move from dialogue into planning and implementation. We examine the principles, structural changes (e.g. roles & responsibilities, type and frequency of meetings, workflow processes, etc.), and practices required to realize the change we identified in the previous stages.
Build
As a process consultant I have an ethical responsibility to build capacity into the organization I am working with so that the changes you seek endure beyond our partnership. Part of this is achieved because of the way interpersonal dynamics and the understanding of what is possible changes during our work together. However, I also invite you to be explicit about how the changes identified in the previous phase are to be carried forward, and how leadership will manage the challenges and changes that inevitably arise in the future.
Another way to explain what we do!
EHS_OrganizationConsulting_Introduction. (pdf)
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