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PROGRAMS AND SERVICES

CCHPO works with Federal, State and Local agencies, profit and not for-profit organizations, as well as colleges and universities in a full range of organizational and management consulting services focusing on improving performance. As Organizational Development (OD) consultants, our ‘client’ is the total organization, not just the management team. Of course, the growth of an organization and the growth of the people in it, especially the management team, are inextricably tied. As such, we concentrate on individuals as well as the interactions between organizational units, people, customers, partners, and other stakeholders, and processes. We base much of our OD work on our High-Performance Organizations Diagnostic Improvement Model (HPODIM)© and on our Building High-Performance Organizations© seminar materials. This allows organizations to integrate new technologies and management initiatives within a context of performance management.

We offer the following Organizational Development and Management Consulting services:

 

A. Strategic:

    1.  Strategic Vision and Higher Performance (including Strategic Thinking and Planning, Tactical Implementation, Measurement,      2.  Monitoring, and Management)

    3.  Strategic Stakeholder Value Analysis (SSVA)©

    4.  Balanced Scorecard Development and Implementation (Performance Management Systems)

    5.  Needs/Gap Assessment

    6.  Leadership Philosophy: Development, Analysis, Values, and Behaviors Clarification

    7.  Facilitative Leadership

    8.  Human Resource Systems, Leadership at all Levels, and the Networked Talent Model©

 

B. Human Processes:

    1. Team building

    2.  Group Facilitation

    3.  Conflict Management and Resolution

    4.  Communication, Interpersonal Skills, and Personal Growth

    5.  Feedback and Coaching Skills

    6.  Meetings and Meeting Management

    7.  Change Management

    8.  Strategic Leadership Development

    9.  Organizational Structure – Roles and Responsibilities Clarification

   10.  Group Problem Solving

   11.  Time Management

   12.  Team Skills

   13.  Succession Planning

 

C. Work and Support Processes:

    1.  Project Management (integrated with Change Management)

    2.  Process Redesign: Reinvention, Reengineering, Benchmarking, and Best Practices

    3.  Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints, and other Process Improvement Tools

 

D. Instrumented Assessments

    1.  Individual Focus

    2.  Group Focus

    3.  Organizational Focus

 

 DESCRIPTION OF CCHPO SERVICES 

1.  Strategic Vision and Higher Performance (including Strategic Thinking and Planning, Tactical Implementation, Measurement,

     Monitoring, and Management)

Strategic Planning is only the first step in bringing your Vision to reality. We can assist in designing a process to begin this process by clarifying your vision with elements and outcomes and performance measures. We can then create a strategic plan with strategic goals and performance measures with feedback mechanisms. We will assess your Mission or Niche by identifying key products and services and creating a business strategy that incorporates consideration for your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and constraints. Next, we can evaluate your ‘theory of the business’ including strategies, structure and work and support systems and processes. We can then evaluate the ability of your ‘theory of the business’ in light of your mission/niche. From those processes we can create an operational plan and identify necessary resources. The plan incorporates milestones and measures that assist in demonstrating if we are on course and when it is necessary to take corrective action. Finally, we support development of an integrated and aligned management process that insures we are continuing to address the ‘right’ issues and make appropriate investments in our future. We can turn strategic planning from an episode into an improvement strategy and disciplined process.  

2.  Strategic Stakeholder Value Analysis (SSVA)©

We take our clients through the SSVA, which is an analysis that asks who ‘we’ are and who our ‘customers’ are and who they should be. In order to consider all relevant viewpoints (voices) we consider a broad definition of customers to include: those that benefit directly from delivery of our products and services (beneficiaries), those who provide policy and/or funding (food chain), those we must work with to satisfy our beneficiaries (partners) and our other stakeholders. We also need to consider our competitors. The SSVA asks what is happening in the larger environment and is an iterative process of examination and action by the organization. What do each of these ‘customers’ value – their wants, needs, and expectations – now and in the future. How do our customers see us? How do we see their needs and expectations and are their differences between the two views? What are our customer’s beliefs and philosophies and are they similar to ours or do they need to be managed? Are our partners and beneficiaries linked to those who fund us in a way that is advantageous to us? What do we need to do to link them? Finally, what is happening in the larger environment (competitors, technology, demographics, and world events) that affects our business? The quality of our SSVA ultimately determines to what extent we are making the correct strategic decisions. Results of the SSVA analysis become a major component of Strategic Vision and planning.

 

3.  Balanced Scorecard Development and Implementation (Performance Management)

We can guide organizations through creating and using a balanced scorecard to improve performance. The balanced scorecard has evolved to a full strategic planning and management system. The ‘new’ balanced scorecard transforms an organization’s strategic plan from an attractive but passive document into the ‘marching orders’ for the organization on a daily basis. We can assist in creating a framework that not only provides performance measurements, but helps planners identify what should be done and measured. It enables the organization to truly execute their strategies. It provides a clear indication of what should be measured in order to 'balance' the financial perspective with other relevant views. The balanced scorecard can be a management system (not only a measurement system) that enables organizations to clarify their vision and strategy and translate them into action. It provides feedback around both the internal business processes and external outcomes, as well as the leading indicators of learning, growth and culture, in order to continuously improve strategic performance and results. Financial measures alone are inadequate for guiding and evaluating the journey that information age organizations must make to create future value through investment in customers, suppliers, employees, processes, technology, and innovation. It provides the framework for objective measurable performance criteria for units, teams and individuals, thereby creating alignment with strategic direction.

4.  Needs Assessment

We can assist you to identify your organization’s key strengths and key opportunities for improvement. Through seven diagnostic questions, we can effectively diagnose the organization through a systems perspective and identify the areas where improvement is required and desirable. We can also use a variety of tools for the systematic assessment of the status of your journey to higher performance by comparing the organization’s characteristics and attributes with the world’s best and give rigor to the evaluation process. We will assist you in assessing your leadership philosophy and style, your strategic planning effectiveness including development and strategy deployment; your customer focus which includes customer engagement and response; your measurement analysis and knowledge management systems, which includes analyzing your use of measurement, assessing organizational performance and management of information and the use of information technology; evaluating your workforce focus emphasizing workforce engagement and workforce culture and environment; process management, using tools like Lean Enterprise System/Six Sigma, to assess work systems and processes; and mission results focus on product outcomes, service outcomes, customer-focused outcomes, process effectiveness, workforce focused outcomes, and work culture outcomes. We can assess where your efforts might most effectively be focused to bring your organization to higher performance levels.

 

        Through assessing your most pressing needs and designing improvement plans we can:

- Help improve organizational performance practices, capabilities, and results.

- Facilitate communication and sharing of best practices information among U.S. organizations of all types.

- Serve as a working tool for understanding and managing performance and for guiding organizational planning and

  opportunities for learning.

- Provide a third-party assessment to ‘jump-start’ a Baldrige or other award application process.

5.  Leadership Philosophy 

Development, Analysis, Values and Behaviors Clarification Management research shows that without the ‘right’ Leadership Philosophy, organizations can neither reach higher performance nor achieve their potential. We use a variety of survey tools to diagnose the current organization’s Leadership Philosophy and Values and Behaviors including, but not limited to: Performance Diagnostic Questionnaire, Leadership Philosophy Questionnaire, KEYS, Benchmarks, etc. We provide feedback in groups, one on one coaching, and other means to move the organization toward a Leadership Philosophy with appropriate behaviors that delivers better performance. We will assist the organization in institutionalizing these modifications to the full range of integrated Human Resource Systems and other processes.

 

6.  Facilitative Leadership

Facilitative leadership is a people-centered, results-driven process of developing and supporting a culture in the workplace that facilitates goal achievement through effective relational processes and increases the ability of teams to be self managing and self leading. We provide the tools and techniques that managers and other ‘leaders’ in the organization can use to be good facilitative leaders -- improving group processes, teamwork, workplace culture and change management. We assist managers to understand how group interaction impacts productivity; keep group discussion and interaction focused; ensure reasonable expectations; seek appropriate involvement in decision making; build agreements and solutions that capitalize on the group’s best thinking. Finally, we guide participants to secure commitments for projects, actions, and decisions that increase probability of success.

 

7.  Human Resource Systems, Leadership at all Levels©, and the Networked Talent Model©

One of the key success factors in improving organizational performance at all levels is requiring the workforce to focus on the whole, on ‘owning’ unit or organizational outcomes or impacts, and on the networks that must work smoothly to yield performance. The present and future require a workforce that sees work differently and possesses a wider range of skills: leadership skills, management skills, technical skills, and team skills. These individuals will need to integrate themselves into, and care about the results of, the networks of which they are a part. Organizations need Leadership at all Levels©. For your organization to de-layer, broaden spans of control, be more flexible and responsive, and reduce the cost of overhead, you will need ‘high-performing’ employees at every level of their organizations. We’ve called this concept the Networked Talent Model©. In order to fully integrate this new workforce concept, we can assist you in bringing the Human Resource System and all its components into alignment and integration. We will assist you in integrating all position management, hiring criteria, performance standards and appraisals, training and development, and discipline management systems, into a revitalized Human Resource System to bring the organization into today’s organizational realities.

 

8. Team Building

We work with intact work teams to improve team results by working with teams using a variety of team building strategies, which can be customized to your team’s needs. For example, we use The Five Dysfunctions of a Team© model , a variety of team building exercises, simulations (physical and conceptual) and real-world application, and similar approaches, as appropriate, to work with teams that are struggling or just want to improve team performance. When teams are brought together and left to their own devices, even the most well-intentioned have the potential as they move through the stages of team development to deviate toward some unproductive or even dysfunctional behavior. We will work with you to identify and explore team synergy and success as well as the fundamental causes of team weaknesses, resistance or failure. Through building trust, using conflict constructively, identifying common goals, we can enhance and restore the power of teamwork, and the competitive advantage that it can bring to any organization. We help team members to align the collective goals of the team with their individual needs for career development and recognition. Although it has been said that there is no ‘I’ in team, teams are comprised of individuals. Understanding oneself is critical to the success of the team. To that end, we can bring some insights to individuals using a variety of instruments (see Assessments)

 

9. Group Facilitation

We provide facilitation for all group functions from decision-making to strategy and tactics development. We have experience working with groups ranging from three to 200 members. We use a variety of facilitation techniques, including Open Space Technology, Appreciative Inquiry and a variety of other group problem solving techniques to advance the objectives of groups. We also use a variety of tools to run meetings for groups of any size. Our approach allows diverse people to address complex and possibly controversial topics and achieve meaningful results quickly.

We also provide Facilitation Skills training for clients, including:

     -  managing group processes and structure behavior analysis and group dynamics

     -  pragmatic choice of interventions and how to use them

     -  collaboration strategies

10. Conflict Management And Resolution

Conflict in work teams need not be destructive. Conflict can lead to new ideas and approaches to organizational challenges and processes, and increased interest in dealing with problems. Conflict can be considered positive as it facilitates the surfacing of important issues and provides opportunities for people to develop their communication and interpersonal skills. Conflict becomes negative when it is left to escalate to the point where people begin to feel personally attacked or defeated, and a combative climate of distrust and suspicion develops. We work with teams using personal conflict style assessments and conflict resolution strategies to understand how conflict is affecting the team. We facilitate teams to understand individual differences, understand constructive uses of conflict, active/empathetic listening skills, positive reacting skills, and how to manage conflict situations in order to use it constructively and optimize solutions.

 

11. Communications, Interpersonal Skills, and Personal Growth

We use a variety of inventories and instruments, including the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, the Strength Deployment Inventory® and the Lominger Leadership Architect® Suite (see Assessments), to help individuals identify their personality types, their personal preferences and their interpersonal skills in order to use them constructively. We focus on interpersonal, communications and other leadership skills to use them effectively in personal and organizational development. We assist individuals in identifying their conflict style and how to employ it to optimize solutions and improve interactions. We coach employees using these results for optimum outcomes for themselves and the organization. We enable employees to understand themselves and their fellow employees--both when things were going well and when there was conflict and opposition. This understanding of what drives themselves and what drives others is an understanding that empowers them to communicate in a way that achieves the results they desire.

 

12. Feedback and Coaching Skills

Feedback and development coaching skills are an essential part of good leadership and management and therefore of value to everyone in an organization. We provide the essential tools for managers and others to use in team and individual coaching interventions to achieve a beneficial work environment that results in continuous performance improvement and healthy employee morale. Our approach is targeted to the organization and focuses on building good leadership skills and strong coaching skills that can be used and transferred within the organization to proliferate application. We consider the differences in approach when one is managing from a position of authority or when one is coaching ‘up’.

 

13. Meetings and Meeting Management

Meeting management tends to be a set of skills often overlooked by leaders and managers. Yet, meetings are very expensive activities when considering the cost of labor for the meeting and what is accomplished in them. Because of the remarkable return on investment potential, we take meeting management very seriously. We support as well as teach how to tailor meeting processes to meeting purpose, e.g., staff meeting, planning meeting, problem solving meeting, etc. However, there are certain basics that are common to all types of meetings. Making a few key changes to your meetings can bring immediate improvements, optimizing meeting time, improving attendee participation and morale.

 

14. Change Management

The most common reason for less than fully successful change efforts is failure to acknowledge and accept that peoples’ natural reaction to change is resistance. Using the most current research in change management, we use best practices to bring about and support change. We help organizations tailor strategies and tactics based upon the needs of the organization to optimize the probability of success. We use benchmarking reports, diagnostic instruments, classroom instruction and practical application to support the people side of change and help ensure successful transformations. of any change strategy.

 

15. Strategic Leadership Development

We guide senior managers within the organization to create and provide the vision and direction, the purpose for growth, and context for the success of the organization for all employees. We initiate ‘outside-the-box’ thinking to generate future growth. Strategic leadership which we encourage (initially, though not exclusively) from the top of the organization provides the umbrella under which ‘subordinate’ organizations devise appropriate strategies and creates value at all levels of the organization by answering two questions:  (1) Where are we going? – providing the vision and direction, creating the context for growth, and  (2) How will we get there? – thinking strategically and developing a road map for the organization that will allow it to unleash its full potential by having all employees going in the same direction. We assist organizations to formulate the organization's portfolio, determine what ‘businesses’ should be there, what the performance requirements of the business are, and what types of alliances make sense. Moreover, we will assist the organization to define the means (the culture, values, and way of working together) needed to achieve the organization’s goals.

A key success factor in leadership development is identifying and cultivating the leadership competencies that matter and providing a common language to help employees identify the skills and behaviors needed to succeed. Through a variety of tools, including the Lominger Leadership Architect®, we can assist you in identifying desired competencies for key positions for your organization, assessing current leadership competencies, identifying competency gaps, and planning to fill the competence gap through training, coaching, developmental assignments, and hiring. We use a variety of tools including 360º feedback for evaluation and validation of identified competencies.

 

16. Organizational Structure – Role and Responsibility Clarification

We use a simple analysis tool RACI (Responsible, Accountable, Consult, Inform) as a method for defining roles and the interrelationship of these roles for specific areas of responsibility, projects, decisions and tasks. The charting becomes the foundation for understanding the gaps and overlaps in responsibilities and can lead to sound delegation and the basis for accountability for individual and organizational roles. The technique can become a short-hand language for communication about roles and responsibilities and a decision matrix or grid with actual and potential stakeholders (those involved in or affected by a decision or task) as well as decisions or tasks. Charting clarifies the level of participation of each stakeholder and therefore is instrumental in planning and evaluating organizational design and structure.

17. Group Decision Making and Problem Solving

We provide organizations an understanding of a variety of group decision strategies and help determine which is appropriate. To successfully use a group process for problem solving it is necessary to insure that the group’s norms and culture support group problem solving. We work with clients to facilitate group decision making and to teach clients how to facilitate the processes that ensure group decisions are best formed. (See also Group Facilitation, above, for a more detailed discussion.)

18. Time Management

We teach employees or team members personal time management skills. These skills help staff become highly effective, by showing them how to identify and focus on the activities that give the greatest returns. Investing in these time management activities will actually save organizational time, helping employees work smarter, not harder. What's more, these same techniques help control work overload – a key source of stress and burnout. We focus on goal setting, a vitally important skill for deciding what staff want to achieve. Finally, we help employees to identify low value activities and strategies to ‘unload’ or minimize them.

 

19. Team Skills

Work within organizations is done by teams. We work with teams of all sizes to build procedural, problem solving and behavioral team skills. Procedural team skills focus on team meetings and design. Group problem solving skills provide groups with approaches, tools and techniques that maximize creativity and synergy to solve problems and make decisions. Improved behavioral team skills assist team members on personal, interpersonal and team levels to use their strengths to maximum advantage for teams.

 

20. Succession Planning

As you look around your organization, do you have the capabilities you need to make your strategy a reality? We will help you answer that question and then determine how your talent lines up with those capabilities. Where there are gaps, we can help you acquire or develop the talent you need. Core capabilities that form the foundation of our unique solutions include leadership, management and talent assessment, competency strategy, and change and program management – all of which combine to lead to organizational transformation. Succession planning efforts that lead to quality leadership transitions depend on a system of meaningful employee comparisons and targeted development plans.

Through a variety of tools, including the Lominger Leadership Architect®, we can assist you in identifying desired competencies for key positions for your organization, assessing current leadership competencies, identifying competency gaps, and planning to fill the competence gap through training, coaching, developmental assignments, and hiring. We use a variety of tools including 360-degree feedback for evaluation and validation of identified competencies.

 

21. Project Management (integrated with Change Management)

Project management is a carefully planned and organized effort to accomplish a specific effort having a beginning and an end, for example, construct a building or implement a new computer system. We can assist in developing a comprehensive project management plan for any program or project, which includes defining project goals and objectives, specifying tasks or how goals will be achieved, what resources are needed, and associating budgets and timelines for completion. We can guide you through implementation of the project plan, along with careful controls to stay to ensure the plan is being managed effectively. The project may follow major phases, including feasibility study, project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation with corrective action. Additionally, we can provide the training necessary to transfer the traditional project management skill set: Scope Identification, Work Breakdown Structure, Sequencing, Scheduling, Estimating, Risk Management, etc., using the critical path and/or critical chain approach to the organization.

 

22. Work Process Redesign: Benchmarking, Best-practice, Reinvention, Reengineering

Process redesign examines the efficiency and effectiveness of an organization’s processes. It ensures that they deliver the appropriate quality goods and services, in the most productive way, at the most competitive prices, while satisfying customer expectations. We focus on meeting the needs of customers by delivering the right level of design and features in work products and services and improving execution by having effective processes and executing them efficiently. Our results are reduced cycle times and increased quality and customer satisfaction. Teams create value by identifying the right level of design and features; by eliminating waste from processes; and by making strategic use of outsourcing. This is accomplished through the application of the tools and techniques associated with this discipline from the ‘modern’ Lean techniques (see next paragraph), to those associated with more traditional approaches from the last few decades.

 

23. Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints and Other Process Improvement Tools

We can lead organizations through the Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints (ToC) processes using the most appropriate problem solving techniques and statistical tools to make the organization more efficient and more effective. We can also link Lean/Six Sigma/ToC to organizational strategic goals and objectives and identify projects that will most effectively lead change by identifying projects from the perspective of both the organization and its customers. We can assist in developing strategies and deploying the Lean, Six Sigma, TOC systems within any organization. Finally, we can guide identified selected projects through the Lean, Six Sigma, ToC process.

24. Individual Assessments

     -  Myers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI) – psychometric questionnaire designed to measure psychological preferences in how

        people perceive the world and make decisions. Improve team performance, individual comfort and effectiveness.

     -  Strength Deployment Inventory® (SDI) – understand and manage conflict and improve relationships.

     -  Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument© (TKI) – understand how different conflict-handling styles affect interpersonal and

         group dynamics.

     -  Insight Inventory – understand root behavioral influences, bridge communications gaps, and develop ability to ‘flex’ or adapt

         ones style to the situation.

     -  Benchmarks® – 360-degree assessment tool for experienced managers that measures 16 skills and perspectives critical for

         success, as well as, five possible career derailers.

     -  Leadership Philosophy Questionnaire (LPQ) © – 360-degree feedback instrument designed to assess an individual relative to

        the standards of a High Performance Organization (HPO) in respect to Leadership Philosophy.

     -  Interview Architect® -- identify ‘learning agile’ job candidates and employees allowing more effective implementation of

        succession planning and development efforts.

     -  Leadership Architect® -- identifies sixty-seven Leadership competencies and nineteen career stallers and stoppers for use in

        identify skills required for career advancement, position requirements and individual development.

     -   Life Style Inventory™ (LSI) – Individual and 360-degree versions promote self-understanding and guide self-development,

         improve capabilities as a team member or individual contributor.

     -  Voices® -- 360-degree feedback for ‘down-selected’ competencies based on Lominger Leadership Architect®

 

25. Group/Team Assessments

      -  Group Styles Inventory™ (GSI) – assesses the way in which team members interact with one another and approach problems

          and decisions. Enables teams to identify what they need to do to work together more effectively and achieve greater impact.

      -  Survival, Business, Challenge and Safety Simulations – experience the interpersonal and rational behaviors involved in

          successful teams. Demonstrate constructive group processes improve problem solving and decision making and strengthen

          cooperation and communication.

      -  Kirton Adaption-Innovation Inventory (KAI)© – based on the Adaption-Innovation Theory provides insights into how people

         solve problems and interact while making decision. Demonstrate how individuals within a team approach problems differently

         and that this difference can be used to strengthen the team.

 

26. Organizational Assessments

      -  CCHPO’s HPO Organizational Self-Assessment (OSA)© -- allows organizations and their members assess themselves

         against a series of ‘foundational’ capabilities to determine the maturity of their capabilities.

      -  CCHPO’s Performance Diagnostic Questionnaire (PDQ)© – assesses the organization’s readiness to deliver high

         performance in the areas of: Senior Management, Climate, Capabilities, Mechanisms and Motivation, and Outcomes and

         Performance.

      -  KEYS® to Creativity – measures the ‘creative climate’ of an organization: how well it supports creative endeavor and the

         people engaged in it.

 

For more information, contact us at: AGardner@highperformanceorg.com

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