Frequently Asked Questions - Positive Disruption

What do you do, exactly?

We are HR Consultants specializing in reorganization for a rapidly changing marketplace. We help leaders and teams in organizations make changes more quickly, with less stress and with better results, while maintaining their sanity at the same time.

In short, we help you transform your business – because the more skillfully you and your team can navigate change, the more happy and successful you’ll be in your work and the rest of your life. We want to help teams to to move through change without freaking out and wreaking havoc on their lives.

Many business executives and managers are great with getting results when it’s “business as usual”, but when big changes come along, they just don’t have the time or experience to plan for and lead a team through transitions. When major changes like reorganizations occur, things can get even more crazy-making. That’s where we come in.

Here are a few of the many things we can assist you with:

Planning and executing reorganizations
Managing leadership transitions
Organizational design and development
Planning for change with less stress or productivity loss
Strategic Planning to create the future you want
New team activations to help you hit the ground running
Implementing a change management strategy
Executing change management plans
Cultural assessments and growth
Designing and delivering change communications
Storytelling for change and making change stick
Productivity acceleration workshops
Competency-based hiring processes

We can partner with you on “full meal deal” solutions for nearly everything listed above – leave the details to us and get back to running your business. Or if you prefer, we can help design a “change management recipe” for you and your team to implement.

Why should I make an already challenging situation more complicated by bringing in someone from the outside who isn’t familiar with our company and its struggles?

In an ideal world, you wouldn’t need help with change – nobody would. The right new behaviors would simply start happening and life would be sweet. But in the real world, it rarely works that way. People are hardwired to have different levels of change resistance. There is ever-increasing change in organizations coupled with tremendous competition for people’s time and attention. Leaders of organizations often tend to be quite good at dealing with change – they are also often pulled in a million different directions every single day, so they need someone who is an expert at change, who can customize an approach to their style and company culture, and help them be accountable so the right things get done at the right time.

If you want your team to manage change more quickly and avoid productivity loss, you need to be highly proactive about making sure they have the right tools and support. To keep your staff engaged and thriving under change, you need to invest the necessary time and money in a well-planned change effort.

What’s the most popular Quick Win you provide?

Our most popular workshop is Insights Discovery. We chose to become Licensed Practitioners of Insights Discovery because it’s a simple and accessible model that identifies and describes an individual’s unique personality preferences for things like communication, decision-making, and what motivates and de-motivates them. Based on a short online survey, each participant receives a 22 page personality profile that identifies their communication and decision-making style, possible strengths in those areas, and areas for development.

During the workshop, we’ll walk your team through a series of exercises designed to help your colleagues learn more about themselves, others, and how they might adapt their skills and behaviors to more easily connect with others. It’s fun, insightful, and delivers long-term benefits starting the day of the workshop. Insights Discovery is based in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung and is continually validated and refined to ensure that it is always accurate and deeply insightful.

Click here to view complete descriptions of all of our workshops.

How long is this going to take?

Most of the trainings we conduct are 1-day sessions. We also do some half-day, multi-day, or even long-term workshops or engagements where we may continue to dive into a top deeper over time. In the planning stages we will determine the right fit for your specific needs.

Can we really get a tangible result from one day of training?

Often, yes. But of course that depends a lot on the challenges you bring to the table. With any of the trainings, we can measure results the same day. These case studies tell the story of the long-term impact that the work we do can have on you and your team.

How much does this cost?

Costs depend on a variety of factors, such as the size of the program, the duration of the program, number of participants, complexity, and intended outcomes. Once we have evaluated your specific needs, we will create an individualized proposal that includes my recommendations and a very accurate picture of costs. Keep in mind that you will see a very fast return on your investment. Benefits and desired outcomes of my work are typically achieved within days or weeks of delivery.

How do you help us stay focused on the work at hand and avoid false-starts and red herrings?

First and foremost, we create reasonable goals that take into account your specific challenges, circumstances, and goals. Then, we work with you to build a comprehensive action plan. This plan is designed to create buy-in from your team and includes tools that help them see how sometimes change first requires slowing down just a little bit to course correct so that in the long run you can move faster and with more efficiency.

What if it’s not really the team – what if I’m a bigger part of the problem than I realized?

Acknowledging that you are contributing to the problem can be a huge and painful first step towards positive change. If it turns out that you need some coaching support to work on more individualized issues (whether it’s with me or someone else), we will tell it to you straight and we can build this coaching support into your plan.

If we hire you for a longer engagement, will you be here all the time? Not sure my team will be crazy about that idea.

No. In a typical engagement, we will be at your workplace for roughly 1-3 days per 6-8 week period. We tend to be on-site more frequently at the beginning of the project, tapering off to periodic support as you master the material. We are also available to answer questions or provide feedback throughout the engagement via email and phone.

Things are bad and it seems they might get worse, can you help me? I need to stop the bleeding.

Yes! If you are in the midst of a crisis and need someone who can cut through the crap and help you see exactly what needs to be done so your team can get back on track and you can regain your sanity again, call us. We have the experience to help you regain hope, clarity, and a renewed sense of confidence. Everything really will be okay. Read more about how we do this.

What if I don’t live that close to Portland, Oregon? Can you still help me and how does that work, exactly?

Yes, absolutely, we can still work together! We work with clients all over the world. We travel to our clients, and communicate via email, Skype, and/or phone on a schedule that works for you. We will spend time at your workplace on an as-needed or if-needed basis. If you are out of state or overseas, geographic distance is no barrier whatsoever. We want you to have the support and attention you and your project require.

What are the next steps?

We’d love to chat and find out how we can best help you. Just drop us a line with some details, or give us a call at (503) 704-5250 to discuss.