Advances/Off-Sites –
Few forums can have as powerful an effect on organizational direction as well-executed executive off-site meetings. With suitable planning, these gatherings can re-energize and re-focus an executive team. Engaging in discussions about the organization’s future can prompt appropriate mid-course corrections.
Organizations invest substantial time, effort, and money in off-sites, but frequently overlook a key opportunity to ensure that the off-site produces significant results. Most organizations abide by the fundamental rules of setting goals and scheduling sufficient time. Few, however, consider the importance of bringing in an effective facilitator. That’s where the Mejorando Group comes in.
We refer to off-site meetings we design and facilitate as an Advance as opposed to a Retreat, the commonly referred term applied to these types of meetings. Our approach enables a group to focus on future business conditions and generate progressive strategies and innovative tactics to effectively anticipate and respond to those often changing circumstances. This results in a proactive and dynamic approach to sustaining a high-quality, high-performance organization.
Selection of a facilitator is a key to successful off-site meetings. Experienced facilitators ensure all points of view are aired and considered. We utilize thought-provoking and relevant exercises to actively engage the group, use consensus decision-making techniques, guide group discussions to stay on track, manage conflict using a collaborative approach, and create an environment where members enjoy a positive, growing experience while they work to attain group goals.
Business Process Improvement –
Business process improvement is the redesign of work
processes and the associated systems and organizational structures
to achieve a dramatic improvement in business performance. We
focus on systematically increasing operating performance, reducing
costs, increasing reliability, improving cycle time, reducing
hand-offs and downtimes, and ultimately meeting and exceeding
customer requirements. We accomplish this by eliminating non-value-added
processes and procedures and fortifying the linkage between the
organization's people, processes, systems, and business results.
Based on our experience, business process improvement helps employees understand the value of their individual contributions to the organization and its overall effectiveness. Experience and research indicate that employees who clearly see the effects of their work have higher morale and are more motivated to perform at their best.
Change Management –
Managing change is the most important aspect of any effort to improve organizational performance. We view change management as a deliberate process that starts with an understanding of the need for dealing with change, as well as the motivation for causing positive change. Once we help you accomplish this step, we can then move on to helping you develop internal and external support for your vision, manage the transition, and sustain the momentum.
Keynote Speaking Topics: Changing Organizational Structure and Managing Change
Leadership & Management,
360-Degree
Assessment and Feedback –
360-Degree Assessment and Feedback is a process that
collects confidential performance information about an individual
from multiple perspectives to identify individual and team
strengths and developmental areas.
By providing feedback on various performance factors, 360-Degree Assessment and Feedback can enhance awareness, facilitate learning, and motivate behavioral change for increased workplace effectiveness and long-term performance improvement.
The 360-Degree Assessment and Feedback process can:
- Target individual and group strengths and developmental needs
- Create action with development plans for lasting change
- Build trust and communication between individuals and groups
- Support ongoing performance improvement with follow-on services
Contact us today at patrick@gettingbetterallthetime.com to find out more about the Mejorando Group’s 360-Degree Assessment and Feedback processes and tools and how it can be used as part of your performance improvement initiative.
Executive Coaching –
The Mejorando Group provides coaching services to middle and senior level managers and seasoned executives designed to improve individual performance and organizational effectiveness. Essential to our coaching approach is the belief in our role as the equivalent of a Fitness Trainer with those whom we establish a coaching/partner collaboration. Similar to getting in physical shape, the fitness trainer is responsible for co-creating with the person a results-based work out plan that enables the person to achieve their desired goals. The fitness trainer then serves as a facilitator and coach providing guidance, support, and technical expertise to assist the person so progress can be sustained and goals accomplished in a timely manner. In many situations, getting in shape can be defined as improving management skills, relationship building, decision making, supervisory abilities, individual performance and respective work groups' effectiveness. We blend our extensive background in government and in-depth expertise about employee performance to provide powerful and contextual advice, guidance and support enabling the employee to raise their confidence and accelerate their performance.
Our specific approach is to confer with the sponsor who is seeking coaching services for their particular employee(s). A recent trend is the use of coaching services for those employees who seek to sustain high quality performance and want to maintain a positive performance trajectory. The initial discussions with the sponsor will focus on clarifying the desired performance for the employee and exploring the potential benefit from providing the coaching services for that employee. Subsequent to these discussions, a recommended work plan will be provided that may include the administering of a 360-degree assessment, crafting a tailored development and training plan, and the on-going coaching services supporting the implementation of the plan. These services focus on techniques, tools and tactics the employee can utilize to sustain high-quality performance.
Mentoring Programs –
A critical element to ensuring that an organization’s people have the necessary skills, knowledge, and capabilities to continue the organization’s mission is the transfer of expertise from senior to junior employees. A mentoring program is a structured mechanism that keeps the tradition and vitality of an organization alive.
The core purpose of the mentoring relationship is to develop the protégé through the counsel and guidance of the mentor. Mentoring programs benefit organizations by developing high-potential employees, improving employee productivity and performance, making succession planning easier, improving communication, and deepening loyalty.
The Mejorando Group can implement every facet of a successful mentoring program for your organization, including design, communication, facilitation of mentor/protégé pairings, and evaluation.
Organizational Effectiveness Evaluations –
Budget belt tightening, outsourcing as the “force du jour," the wonders of information technology, and the ebb and flow of demands by customers/constituencies are forcing organizations to evaluate how they operate and, in many instances, embrace new strategic initiatives.
The Mejorando Group helps organizations succeed in their efforts to excel by utilizing a results-oriented approach that assesses the current effectiveness of existing strategies, structures, programs, work processes, and measurement systems. Strategies and tactics are provided to disrupt the status quo, and breakthrough practical solutions are implemented to align the organization’s people and work processes toward high performance.
Performance Management –
Today's conventional wisdom asserts that performance
management is no longer a luxury for only the most advanced organizations.
It is a necessity for governments and businesses to function
at an optimal level.
Best-practice organizations implement performance management systems that are results-driven and aligned with organizational objectives. We work with each client to help them understand that managing performance is a process, not an event, and to that end we develop performance appraisals and standards, establish competencies, facilitate periodic updates and reviews, implement reward systems, craft employee training and development plans, and create an organizational culture that encourages optimal performance.
Download Patrick Ibarra's Article
On Effective Performance Management
Keynote Speaking Topic: What Gets Measured Gets Done
Performance Consulting Needs Assessment –
Frequently, organizations concentrate narrowly on formal training programs as the only available performance solution at the expense of equally effective programs such as coaching, cross-functional job rotation, work process improvements, team-building, mentoring, or committee and task force assignments. A performance consulting approach recognizes that training cannot automatically solve every employee performance issue. Instead, training is viewed as one segment of a larger “bundled solution.”
The Mejorando Group collaborates with organizations in accelerating employee performance by executing a Performance Needs Assessment designed to discover the root causes of performance problems and identify performance solutions comprised of training and non-training actions. Training is consequently linked to enhancing organizational performance and strengthening the employee development process.
Keynote Speaking Topic: When Training Isn’t the Answer
Strategic Planning –
Government leaders are increasingly turning to Strategic Planning as a technique to equip members of their workforce and community in translating the forces for change into new opportunities.
The Mejorando Group's approach to strategic planning blends the experience and insight from key internal and external stakeholders along with a reliable process for preparing the plan and the capable facilitation and consulting services from our group of seasoned consultants. These essentials combine for an effective, strategic planning process that will meet desired outcomes.
Our approach and accompanying work plan in developing the strategic plan satisfies the criteria by which successful strategic planning efforts are evaluated, and the client is seeking:
- Leads to action
- Builds a shared vision
- Is an inclusive, participatory process in which policy makers and staff take on a shared ownership
- Accepts accountability to the community
- Is externally focused and sensitive to the organization's environment
- Is based on quality data
- Requires an openness to questioning the status quo
- Is a key part of effective management
In summary, our approach ensures the Strategic Plan becomes a collectively supported, integrated road map of how the community will begin to move toward its desired future.
Succession Planning –
Many organizations are, or soon will be, facing a leadership crisis as large numbers of upper- and middle-management employees are readying for retirement. High-performance organizations don’t passively wait for the future. They create the future by investing their time and energy into ensuring the continuity of their leadership talent.
Succession planning is an ongoing process of identifying, assessing, and developing talent to ensure leadership and management continuity throughout an organization. It ensures that replacements have been prepared to fill key vacancies on short notice, and that individuals have the development capacity to assume greater responsibilities and exercise increased technical proficiency and expanded management role in their work.
The Mejorando Group partners with organizations in creating and implementing a systematic succession planning process, by employing the following approach:
Best-practice organizations use succession planning to develop and maintain strong leadership and to ensure that they address all the skills and competencies required for today’s—and tomorrow’s—work environment.
For additional information on how you can immediately begin improving your organization’s Succession Planning and Management process, click here.
Keynote Speaking Topic: My Most Experienced People are Retiring
Team Building/Team Performance –
Fostering teamwork is a priority for many leaders and the benefits are abundantly clear: improved productivity; more effective execution of organizational priorities; and enhanced employee empowerment.
Our work is aimed at helping teams perform better while satisfying individual needs at the same time. Through effective team-building activities, goals and norms become clearer and team members become better at confronting difficulties and understanding the roles of their teammates.
The Mejorando Group has partnered with boards and executive management teams at off-site planning sessions.
We have:
- Helped leadership teams take organizations through times of change
- Shown shop-floor/field workers how to collaborate more successfully and integrate new members into existing teams
- Contributed structure and process to team interactions, so groups, teams, boards, and governing bodies can function effectively and make high-quality decisions.
Two members of our firm are qualified administrators of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The MBTI is a reliable assessment process designed to help individuals better understand themselves and others in an effort to improve interpersonal relationships.
Keynote Speaking Topic: Building Teams the Lewis & Clark Way and Keys to Building Great Work Team