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Ants Parder
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Development Facilitation - guidance towards positive action
Development facilitation is shaping up to become a term which encompasses a wide variety of strategies used by generalist consultants to help their clients make the changes necessary to move from one set of uncomfortable circumstances to a positive situation. The discomfort of the present has to be superseded by a more positive future.
Many of the elements of a therapeutic approach are a necessary but not sufficient part of the work of a Development Facilitator. They have to know and understand the human experience simply because all change in organisations involves a change in behaviour, expectations and attitudes of people. Bringing about or facilitating change while enhancing the lives of those experiencing the change has to be at the core of the change process.
Being involved with individuals and organisations as they move into a new phase of their development is an exciting and rewarding process .
The Facilitation process includes:
- Helping organisations maximize the way all resources are used
- Reducing costs in understanding and overcoming problems
- Improving a client’s current position
- Training Needs Analysis
- Problem Solving and Decision Making skills
- Exploring process alternatives
- Creative solution generation
- Sharpening people’s ability to visualize the future plan
- Scenario building
- Guiding individuals towards more effective engagement and involvement with clients and their stakeholders
- Developing envisioning and modelling skills
- Undertaking simulation model construction
- Building team consensus
- Preparing people for change
- Identify constraints and potential problem areas
- Accurately predicting the output of the proposed system
- Optimize the system for various product mixes
- Understanding how their operations impact on others
Understanding the Problem
After a client’s problem has been evaluated a number of alternative processes can be followed. These can be pursued as single distinct actions or a number can be linked together. The following are some of the processes I use to enable clients to gain a satisfactory outcome.
Training Needs Analysis
A computerised Management Training Needs tool has been found to be useful in this area. This instrument was developed with a colleague some years ago and has enabled managers of smaller enterprises to make a quick assessment of where they should be placing their training dollar. Not all small or medium sized businesses have a HR department capable of focusing on the real needs of their business and matching those needs with the skill components of their people.
In some larger enterprises many managers have the freedom of making the decision where a particular section should be heading and need to call on external advice to act as a sounding board to clarify their thinking. Many times the use of an external facilitator avoids deflected thinking and situational blindness developing.
No two organisations have the same needs, aspirations or skills sets. Many skills are transferable and have a generic quality. These transferable and generic skills are the core skills which give an organisation the capacity and resilience to make changes work.
Improvements and Revitalising Present Position
Over time, customers have higher expectations of products, and services offered. Competition is always there to challenge an organisation to grow and prosper. It becomes necessary to improve an organisation's offering to stay on top. By redesigning the product and service delivery or repackaging it, the organisation can offer a greater value or satisfaction to all of its stakeholders. Temporary short-term fixes seldom work. A long term strategy and vision are imperative if change is going to be effective and able to generate the needed outcomes.
Introverted self-focused thinking does not allow an organisation to correct its course. There are times when an outsider who is capable of asking the hard questions and capable of challenging preconceptions can add value to the skills and talents already in place.
Harnessing the Power of People
Many organisations are unaware of the range of talent locked into their pool of people. Intellectual capital is mentioned but so seldom measured or evaluated in a positive way. Accounting for the potential talent allows an organisation to recognise values and skills amongst its people.
In my practice I have focused on the core principle of releasing the hidden talents of people. These talents do not need to be demonstrated to others. It is sufficient for people to recognise their own worth and resilience in order to make giant strides in their own development.
A sense of individual success along with a perceived heightened level of realistic self evaluation leads to a higher workplace morale.
Listed below are some of the areas I have found interesting and of value for my clients.
Group Dynamics
People working together in groups all have personal agendas and points of view that they want to express. The understanding and the ability to cope with these hidden agendas is an integral part of group leadership. So many are still under the illusion that these skills are somehow an in-built arcane talent. We can learn from mentored observation of our behaviour or we can learn from a suitable group training programme how to achieve the necessary appropriate behaviour.
Mentoring and Executive Coaching
Executive Mentoring and Coaching assists with individuals gaining an unbiased view of their leadership challenges. Today with the many facets of business and organisational issues that exist in the work environment a higher level of personal resilience is required. Resilience is a component of awareness and self knowledge. Those who understand themselves make a greater contribution to their organisations.
Coaching and mentoring can be carried out on individual or a group basis. Executives who mentor others find it valuable be trained in specific skills and to be supervised in the transfer of these skills to others.
Benefits of Mentoring and Coaching for Individuals Are:
- Have a better understanding of the key roles of executive leadership
- Learn how to tap into the organisation's intellectual capital
- Understand their individual strengths and weakness
- Improve their communication styles and processes
- Realign their aspirations to their life skills
- Overcome crisis points in their lives
- Gaining a better life balance
Mentoring and Coaching will:
- Provide assessments of the individual’s current position for their future development
- Prepare individuals for transformation and change
- Prepare a sequence schedule for deployment
- Provide one on one coaching for the CEO, an Executive Team Member and or Team Coaching for the entire Executive Team
Executive Team Ants Parder’s Mentoring Experience:
- Business experience at an executive level in multiple industries
- Government departments
- NGOs
- Real estate sales company
- Consultant Engineering
- General retail
- Accountancy
- New product assessment
Assertiveness
We all want to be heard and listened to when we have a point to make. Shy diffident people find this to be a struggle and at times a frightening experience. Consequently too many people find themselves underperforming and unable to make the contribution they want to make to any communication. The flow of information, ideas and energy that are essentials for an organisation’s well being become stifled and suppressed. Work flows are hampered. The aggressive and manipulative ride rough shod over the intellect bound up within the less assertive. A win- win attitude and approach can be learnt and can become part of the organisation’s ethos.
Stress
The stresses of the last century are still part of the modern life style. Living with stress becomes a life skill that enables us to regain a more balanced approach to the modern condition. So many of us intuitively know what it is to be stressed but have lost the natural positive responses embedded within our individual psyches. Management of stress is not an instinctive talent or skill. Once learnt, these skills lead to a healthier and happier workplace.
Crisis Intervention
Life has a way of throwing situations at us that make us call on deep hidden inner resources. There are times when our own resources are seen to be insufficient and we need professional support to get through and past tragedy pain and upsets. No organisation is exempt from calamities and catastrophe. Having a planned resource that can be called on at short notice is of great benefit. Having someone who can help people come to terms with their crisis has enormous benefit for the morale of those who need to be more than survivors.
Mediation and Conflict Resolution
There are times when individual aspirations and intentions of different groups are in conflict. Conflict management has people working around a conflict without coming to terms with the sources of the conflict. The mediation skills of someone who has no investment in the personal agendas of the conflict partners helps in the resolution of conflict. Conflict can be a positive force as it can bring to the surface skills, talents and ideas of protagonists. These ideas have the potential adding to the effective desired outcomes of the organisation.
Organisational Alignment
What an organisation professes to do in its mission and what it actually accomplishes are often incongruent. Incongruent behaviour produces a culture of suspicion, mistrust and conflict between the whole catchment of stakeholders. There are situations when time has to be taken out to reexamine strategy, outcomes and out put. An external facilitator can add an extra challenge and enable participants to generate strategies which fulfill the organisation’s long term aspirations.
Problem Solving and Decision Making
Without problems to be solved an organisation loses its need to exist. Once the “real” problem has been identified the decision making process takes over. The quality of a properly implemented and staged process is more effective than an ad hoc process of happy, boring and bland solutionism.
Market Development Facilitation
Organisations by their very nature have to grow and change their focus. An external Development Facilitator can guide members of the organisation to actively pursue their goals and reach their target markets more efficiently. An external contribution and oversight has the capacity to challenge old thought processes and bring a fresh perspective to the problem.
The most common areas for contribution are:
- In developing business plans, including evaluating in house or consultant based market research
- Advising the management of client and stakeholder relationships and identifying potential new clients
- Guiding professionals through their project management cycle
- Ensuring that Key Performance Indicators and way points are set when developing and implementing processes and systems
- Helping staff to provide written input to senior management on strategic marketing decisions. Making such information clear and informative.
Employee Research and Motivation
Customer care has an implication beyond just meeting the needs of external customers. Many organisations make the claim that their staff are their most valuable resource but forget to look after the internal customer. Of course, the external customer matters. However if the important needs of the “internal customer” are ignored the interface between internal and external becomes a facile cliché. We need to:
- Examine the cultural gap in the organisation
- Have the courage to examine the “Interpersonal personalities” which make up the management team
- Be willing to have an independent person conduct exit interviews with exiting employees
- Set up an appropriate 360° feed back system
- Examine why the past alignment plans have produced the results the organisation has to live with
- Know how the team’s individual personalities fit into their mission
- Engage teams to come up with creative and innovative solutions
