SERVICES

Team & Organizational Effectiveness

Creating an effective team is crucial for any business, but the dynamics of a team are many and nuanced. Is it essential to have a team per se, or is a strong work group sufficient for achieving strong results? This coaching service helps leaders create a work environment geared for success. We work with the leader to identify the vision and goals for the team and support the leader and his/her team in achieving the desired results by enhancing team dynamics and communication, goal clarity, leadership discipline, and much more.

Leadership Team Coaching

There are many essential elements of an effective leadership team. The leader sets the tone and moves the team; therefore, he/she is the central figure in a team’s performance. A leader’s strong engagement is essential for a shift in a team’s performance. The need for improved team dynamics and enhanced communications are often identified for enhanced focus and performance. While these are important areas, they are usually symptomatic of the need to strengthen other areas within the team.

CSC often identifies the following foundational elements as inherent contributors to less-effective communication or working relationships:

Listed below is a set of possible deliverables.

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Mission and Vision Clarity Questions
  • Where are we going?
  • What does it look like?
  • When will this happen?
  • How and why is this needed?
Goal Setting Questions
  • What do we need to achieve in the short and long term?
  • Are the goals clear enough to effectively drive performance?
Team Charter and Commitment Questions
  • What is the purpose of this group?
  • Are we set up to accomplish the charter (which includes: agendas, frequency of meetings, organization, members, etc.)?
  • Are we, as a team, committed to achieving the desired outcomes?
Team Values and Dynamics Questions
  • How do we work as a team?
  • Are we honoring our values and communicating effectively?

 

Individual Expectation and Accountability Questions
  • Do the individuals know and understand their performance expectations as a team member and as a functional leader and/or individual contributor?
  • Are they held accountable for both or doesn one trump the other and what are the implications?

 

Team Composition Questions
  • Is the team comprised of the best individuals for the job?
  • Will these individual leaders make your vision a reality?
Team Leader Questions
  • Does the leader of the team (or organization) provide leadership in all its aspects?
  • Does he/she also provide the support and structure to maximize the team’s performance?

Meeting Design and Group Facilitation

On the surface, meeting design and facilitation can appear to be nothing more than creating and moving through an agenda and ensuring that all items are covered. That is a tactical piece of the facilitation, but artful leadership is moving a group through the steps and process to achieve a desired outcome. The outcomes can be any number of things:

  • A feeling or insight
  • Stronger teaming
  • A breakthrough strategic plan

Questions Leaders Should Ask Themselves:

 

How important is it to achieve the outcomes you seek in your upcoming off-site or strategic meeting–quality, quantity, and timeframe?

How important is it that the participants engage in the creative or decision-making process?

Do the individuals need to be enrolled to execute the goals and strategies effectively?

Who is the best program, meeting or retreat leader to achieve the desired outcome, and what will that take?

What’s at stake?

Superior Meeting Design

CSC begins by gaining a deep understanding of the organization’s goals and how the meeting(s) are intended to support them. We gather comprehensive context on all stakeholders, including any potential resistance or challenges that could hinder progress. The leadership is interviewed to understand their perspective and to help them gain clarity, if necessary, on what they hope to achieve. Once this is understood, the design of the meeting is crafted, and a draft chronology and methodology is created.

The Purpose of Strategic Planning Session 

Our facilitators make sure all of our sessions are designed to do the following:

  • Create new ideas
  • Support breakthrough thinking and bold initiatives
  • Reinforce existing thinking and behaviors that are working

However, strong implementation and execution are the real measure of success. The meeting needs to have a strong takeaway for the attendees and also create engaged and committed participants to make the vision a reality.

The facilitator’s role is to keep the result in mind and work toward that end.

The Importance of Keeping the Group Engaged

When difficult work needs to be done, it is even more important for the facilitator to be able to read the group and keep them engaged. Participants may come to the group feeling at risk, vulnerable, or angry not wanting to participate. The goals of the organization could be in opposition of their own needs and desires.

At the end of a workshop or retreat, the result may be achieved, but the process of getting there can be difficult. It is the responsibility of the facilitator to make sure participants stay engaged and understand where they are going and why. The facilitator needs to be aware of the group’s energy and work to blend their needs with those of the organization.

When this is accomplished, a strong outcome with committed advocates is the result.

“You have made me a better leader…”

“Thank you seems so inadequate to truly express how grateful I am for all the support and assistance you have given me over the past year. Please know how truly thankful I am for all you’ve done to equip me to better express myself, plan and prepare, and be a better employee and manager. I truly hope to have the opportunity to collaborate together in the future.” Melanie Burzynski, Former Executive Director of Development, UCLA

Business Leadership Consulting

If a professional is seeking support in improving his/her bottom-line results, Business Leadership Consulting is a powerful service and tool. By beginning with the desired outcome, we identify the action steps to operationalize the mandate. By aligning with the objective, designing for the desired outcome, and integrating results into the broader system, we produce a higher-quality deliverable with lasting impact—CSC works with the organization to bring the outcomes to fruition and to help ensure long-term sustainability.

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Depending on the desired outcomes, these may be the resulting deliverables.

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Leadership Development
  • Modeling
  • Messaging
  • Reinforcement of culture
  • Consistency of actions
  • Strategic thinking
  • Creating vision
  • Supporting bold moves
Organizational Culture Refinement
  • Vision
  • Mission
  • Values
  • Long-term goals
  • Short-term imperatives
  • Key organizational messages
Operational Implementation
  • Operational timeline
  • Action planning
  • Measurement system development
  • Recognition and reward systems tied to desired outcomes
  • Staff alignment, development, and hiring plan with timeline
  • Job responsibility development and accountabilities

Organizational Effectiveness Programs and Workshops

Organizational effectiveness refers to the extent to which an organization successfully reaches its intended objectives.

First, you must:

  • Identify a vision (your specific future state)
  • Propose a mission (purpose and why you exist)
  • Outline values (how you conduct business)

As an organization you are creating the culture to drive the above. Effectively leading and working through people to achieve short-term objectives and a long term vision is what leaders and organizations grapple with daily.

CSC provides foundational workshops and comprehensive programs that introduce the principles of organizational effectiveness, focusing on enhancing both individual and enterprise-level performance.

Listed below are just some of the workshops and programs we offer. You can also contact us directly for a more custom approach.

Click below for more details:

Executive Meeting and/or Group Chartering and Development
  • Determining the Purpose of Your Team or Team Meeting
  • Designing the Meeting to Support the Goals of the Team
  • Establishing the Standing Agendas for the Meeting
  • Creating Group and Meeting Behavioral Norms
  • Establishing Meeting Length, Frequency, Owners, and Accountability Measures
Impact of Working as a Team Versus a Work Group
  • Understanding the Impact of Team versus Work Group Dynamics
  • Understanding the Impediments to Teaming
  • Creating a Path to Teaming
Leading Like a Business Owner
  • From any Leadership Position, Adopt a Successful Business Owner’s Mindset
  • Create a Personal Leadership Vision for Your Business of One
  • Develop a Business-Building Vision for Your Organization
  • Integrate High-Level Leadership Thinking and Business Building to Propel Your Organization Forward
Building a High-Performance Team
  • Developing a Clear, Consistent Vision for Success
  • Creating Ownership and Accountability
  • Providing Feedback
  • Investing in the Team
  • Willingness to Make Hard Decisions
Creating Your Organizational Values and Culture
  • Vision and Mission Creation or Confirmation
  • Gaining Clarity on the Values to Support Your Purpose
  • Aligning the Organization
  • Assuring the Values Live and Breathe

Organization Effectiveness Assessments

There are a myriad of business assessment tools such as 360° Feedback, Climate Surveys, Myers-Briggs, DiSC, and many others which can be used to generate specific information and openings for meaningful dialogue and shifts. In recent years, many organizations have administered assessments to gain information, but this knowledge has not been tied to specifically defined outcomes. While the information is interesting and potentially actionable, the missing link is the translation of the information to real, sustainable, behavioral shifts. What’s missing?

Questions Leaders Should Ask Themselves:

 

1) Are there dynamics or behaviors in the organization, teams, or individuals that are not supporting high performance?

2) Are there other behaviors that, if leveraged, could produce quantum leap results?

3) How do we identify these and create an opening for the awareness, development, and growth necessary?

Many organizations use assessments to gather insights, but without clear outcomes, the data rarely leads to lasting behavioral change. What’s missing is the bridge from information to action.

Translating Assessment Data

A bridge must be built to be able to translate assessment data into actionable sustainable results. For example, the recognition of the need for improved communication doesn’t directly translate into one’s ability to alter behavior.

Behaviors are hard-wired and have been reinforced over years of experience. If simply knowing the need to diet or having a solid plan were enough, why do so many still struggle to lose weight? The answer is, to augment or shift a set of actions or behaviors, the focus must be on the individual’s beliefs and frameworks. The focus must also include the insights, skills, and the practice necessary to create and sustain a behavioral shift.

Coaching-Based Dialogue

Coaching is a process that expands an individual’s, group’s, or leader’s frame of reference by introducing new behaviors to their existing repertoire. Instead of reacting based on an imprinted, historical framework, the individual or team would act intentionally based on the outcome desired. Coaching also provides a new framework in which a situation can be viewed, thus allowing an additional set of behaviors to become relevant.

Coaching conversations and practices help anchor new insights and behaviors, enabling lasting and repeatable behavioral shifts.

Primary Business Assessments

Listed below are the assessments that CSC offers. For additional information regarding a particular assessment, please inquire directly.
Click below for more details:

360° Assessments
  • Korn Ferry Emotional Intelligence 360° Assessment—Emotional Intelligence, Leadership Styles, and Organizational Climate
  • OSI Polaris Leadership Competency 360° Assessment
  • CSC Interview 360° Assessment
  • Excelerate Communication 360° Assessment
Enneagram Personality Profile
The Enneagram describes nine different sets of values and filters through which the world can be seen. It does not “put people in boxes.” Instead, it actually helps people learn to recognize and expand the boxes they are already in, and ultimately to dissolve those boxes.

It’s a respectful and dynamic system that provides a path of healthy development for each type, including how to build on strengths and avoid pitfalls. It assists leaders and employees in understanding themselves, clients, customers, others in the organization, and the organization itself through new eyes. Energy is freed for productivity and creativity that was previously lost in frustration and agitation.

Integration of the Enneagram allows teams and organizations to optimize individuals’ strengths, take advantage of synergy, improve teamwork, enhance mutual understanding and respect, improve leadership, enhance communication, and increase customer satisfaction, morale, productivity, and employee retention.

Take the free Enneagram Test.

 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®)

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C. G. Jung understandable and useful in people’s lives. The essence of the theory is that much seemingly random variation in the behavior is actually quite orderly and consistent, being due to basic differences in the ways individuals prefer to use their perception and judgment. Through the MBTI®, 16 distinctive personality types can be identified based on the interactions among the preferences.

Excerpted from the MBTI® Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®

Preferences:

  • Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).
  • Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).
  • Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).
  • Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P).

Your Personality Type: When you decide on your preference in each category, you have determined your own personality type expressed in 4 letters, e.g., ENTJ, ISFP. All types are equal. A mixture of types is best for a work group or team because many points of view are represented.

https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

DiSC Profile Personality Assessment

The DiSC personality report or inventory, developed by William Moulton Marston, profiles four primary behavioral styles, each with a very distinct and predictable pattern of observable behavior. Applied in corporate, business and personal situations, the DiSC inventory can lead to professional and personal insights. Understanding the DiSC patterns has empowered millions internationally to better understand themselves and others. The results of the online DiSC profile report are designed to provide targeted insights and strategies for interpersonal success through more effective communication, understanding and tolerance. DiSC is used for personal growth and development, training, coaching and managing of individuals, groups, teams, and organizations.

It helps people explore behavior across four primary dimensions:

Dominance: Direct and to the point, decisive and bottom-line-oriented. These people tend to be independent and results driven. They are strong-willed people who enjoy challenges, taking action, and immediate results.

Influence: Optimistic and Outgoing. Often highly social and outgoing. They prefer participating on teams, sharing thoughts, and entertaining and energizing others.

Steadiness: Empathetic & Cooperative. Typically team players and are supportive and helpful to others. They prefer being behind the scene, working in consistent and predictable ways. They are often good listeners and avoid change and conflict

Conscientiousness: Concerned, Cautious & Correct. These individuals are often focused on details and quality. They plan ahead; constantly check for accuracy, and what to know “how” and “why”.

Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI)

Because no two individuals have exactly the same expectations and desires, conflict is a natural part of our interactions with others. The Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI) is designed to measure a person’s behavior in conflict situations. “Conflict situations” are those in which the concerns of two people appear to be incompatible. In such situations, we can describe an individual’s behavior along two dimensions: (1) assertiveness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy his own concerns, and (2) cooperativeness, the extent to which the person attempts to satisfy the other person’s concerns. Through effective communication, emotional mastery, self-awareness and verbal and nonverbal communication skills, conflict can be navigated more effectively. Managing conflict isn’t always about resolving an issue; it’s about creating healthy environments that enable engagement and productivity. The TKI is a self-scoring assessment that takes about fifteen minutes to complete. Interpretation and feedback materials help you learn about the most appropriate uses for each conflict-handling mode.