Related Services

 

In addition to our work in training and publications, we offer the following services:

  • Strategic Counsel/Execution
  • Customized Course/Training Development
  • Crisis Intervention and Mediation
  • Team and Culture Building
  • Corporate/Executive Retreats

If you'd like to find out more about what we can do for you, a no-obligation phone call (519-924-2084) or an e-mail will give you the answer pretty quickly. We won't waste your time, nor will we "sell" you on anything. That's simply how we do business with all our clients.

 

Strategic Counsel/Execution

We have provided strategic counsel to over 600 organizations  in the public and private sectors. Our clients have included government ministries, the military, municipalities, school boards and hospitals to multinational organizations, professional services firms and small entrepreneurially driven companies.

We have shown these clients how to simplify complex problems,  design new business approaches and growth strategies, ensure their senior management team is equipped to respond to the dictates of the innovation economy, and engage their employees in building high performance teams.

We conduct operational/performance reviews and audits of corporate governance.  Our recommendations for instituting best practices, ensuring stakeholder accountability and streamlining decision making are highly regarded. We typically focus on issues of organizational effectiveness, ranging from executive alignment exercises to facilitating conflict resolution and developing protocols for less stressful working conditions and more productive outcomes. 

We are conversant with the challenges and paradoxes of the new world order  that confront and confuse businesses today. We understand the nature of forces that will shape the future as well as age-old problems every organization must address, whether these be increasing competition, diminishing resources, rapidly advancing technologies, cyclical economic pressures, changing consumer preferences or the need to empower employees to lead rather than follow.

 

Customized Course/Training Development

We have been developing "training experiences that actually work" for over 40 years. The results have garnered us formal recognition for "excellence in the design and delivery of lifelong learning" (University of Alberta) as well as repeat business from satisfied clients. Effective training is that which addresses the needs of the enterprise and reflects how adults actually learn. It is cost-effective, measurable and sustainable.  

 

Crisis Intervention and Mediation

We have been selected by numerous clients, often on a competitive basis,  to serve in the various conflict management capacities, including that of mediator, conciliator, ombudsman, facilitator, intervenor, fact-finder and lead investigator. The work we especially enjoy is as “the third party of last resort.”

We have designed and conducted advanced mediation and facilitation skills training programs  for organizations whose sole purpose is achieving consensus among parties in dispute. Our experience ranges from mediating collective bargaining agreements to disputes in the health care field involving physicians and administrators. We bring a proprietary methodology to bear on the resolution of conflict and assure complete confidentiality.

 

Team/Culture Building

We offer a variety of services to address the contentious, time consuming and expensive issues  of initiating enterprise culture shifts and building high performance teams. These range from proven and custom-designed tools for conducting culture audits and instituting dispute resolution mechanisms to exercises for nurturing innovation, accountability and higher levels of productivity.

Our reality-tested techniques  apply to a wide variety of organizational challenges that may range from accurately diagnosing team trust issues and aligning expectations to creating "new rules" that reduce workplace stress and disputes within departments or the organization as a whole.

 

Corporate/Executive Retreats

Properly designed and facilitated,  retreats should enable the aprticipants to learn new things – about their business, the competitive environment, the exponentially changing future and, perhaps most important, about each other – as well as to make new strategic action plans to more expertly and confidently go forward. 

Retreats are not “business as usual” meetings.  They have a different set of norms and dynamics that enable attendees the chance to interact in ways that may be difficult or impossible back home. They provide a rare opportunity to resolve really tough questions in a safe environment with the experienced guidance needed to make that possible.

Before you can jump forward with new energy, resolve and direction,  you have to step back and “double clutch.” To be effective, this process requires thoughtful contemplation, realistic appraisal, robust discussion and respectful disagreement in search of new and different ways of thinking. Success in realizing these objectives requires proven expertise in retreat design and facilitation.

We have designed and led hundreds of corporate/executive team retreats ranging in length from one to four days’ duration. Our retreat design invariably address the need for action planning and accountability. Without it, retreats are an expensive investment with little lasting return.

We can help your team focus on the real problems facing your business  and demonstrate how practical solutions can be generated in an upbeat, non-threatening environment.

Given the time, expense and expected outcomes of corporate retreats these days, you owe it to your organization to do it right.