Positive Disruption specializes in working with organizations who need to restructure in the face of a rapidly changing consumer and employee marketplace. This may be for a global company, one department in a larger company, or a fast-growing start-up that needs to take off. But that’s not all we do. We can help you gracefully navigate change at any phase. Do any of these scenarios sound like you and your team?
“I need to kick-start my team.”
“I need to stop the bleeding.”
“I need help with a BIG change.”
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“I need to kick-start my team”
You are: Motivated. High performing. You need help getting a new team up and running. Or you need to give a booster shot of high performance to an existing team.
You need: A short (most likely 1-day) session to ignite your team to deliver at the highest, most cohesive level possible.
And you want: Help turning a group of people who work together into a team. A team that can work towards objectives with enthusiasm, quality, and alignment to achieve the tangible results you know are possible.
So together we’ll: Start by gaining a clear picture of your desired outcomes. Then we work with you to craft a single or half-day plan that meets all of your needs. Depending on your goals we can select from our specialty workshops including: Insights Discovery, Change and Transition, Team Performance, and/or Becoming a Master Storyteller. We will also discuss the perfect length for your workshop to make sure you get the maximum impact in the most efficient amount of time. We’ll make it easy to get your workshop up and running by providing simple templates and communication for pre-work completion, helping you select an ideal venue, providing all the materials for the workshop itself, and the necessary processes for following up after the workshop and making sure that your changes are successfully implemented.
How long does a workshop take?
Most trainings we conduct are 1-day sessions. We also do half-day sessions for more simple and compact topics or a narrow slice of something critical, and multi-day workshops in which we dive deeper into a top issue. We will determine the right fit for your specific needs during the initial planning stages of our project.
Can we really get a tangible result from one day of training?
Yes, with all of the trainings, you will see measurable results on the same day. These case studies tell the story of the long-term impact our workshops can have on your team.
How much does this level of help cost?
It depends on a variety of factors, including the size of the program and intended outcomes. Once we have a sense of your project’s scope, we will give you a proposal that includes my recommendations and very accurate picture of costs.
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“I Need a Facilitator”
You have: Competing ideas. Competing stakeholders. Competing deadlines.
You need: A savvy facilitator with proven methods who can guide a room full of people to consensus, commitment, and a clear path forward.
And you want: Speed. No bullshit. People setting off in the same direction. Expert facilitation starts with innovation, problem solving that stays on track, and allows both leaders and teams alike to participate in the change-making and consensus-building process. What results is sincere buy-in, streamlined group processes, and highly actionable plans for forward motion.
So we: Listen to you. Get the skinny. Seek to understand. Where things are and where it is you’re trying to head. Who are the players? What are the possible roadblocks and outliers? We may ask for documents or short interviews with key participants to help me gain context so we can create a truly effective facilitation plan. And then the real magic happens. We lead your event and participation is unlike you’ve ever seen it before. Complex topics get tackled with real, tangible outcomes, nobody is taking up all the air in the room, and you’re having fun along the way. You leave with decisions, ownership, actionable plans, and enthusiasm. Someone on your team says, “We just did in 3 hours what would have taken us 3 months to do on our own.” Wow.
What is facilitation?
Facilitation workshops consist of several short, productive sessions (usually spread over a full day), designed to help teams work through 1-3 specific issues, aligning on decisions, quickly arriving at a commitment, and creating an action plan they can start right away.
How does it work?
First we create a clear picture of your needs by asking in-depth questions so your desired outcomes, team dynamics, and possible roadblocks become clear. With this information in hand from the outset, we will design a workshop that ultimately ends up taking less of your team’s time, while still delivering the results you need.
We are highly skilled in leading events that allow you to tap into the wisdom of your team. As neutral facilitators with strong emotional intelligence, our facilitation skills are based in sound research and best practices. The facilitation methods we use were developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs and have been cross-culturally tested with millions of people around the world.
Our facilitation specialties include strategic planning, solving for key organizational issues, facilitating difficult conversations, new team kickoffs, and organizational development initiatives.
Need something shorter than a full day?
Depending on the topic and desired outcomes, there are a variety of short sessions we can deliver in 3 hours or less.
What are some typical benefits of your facilitated programs?
The biggest take-aways from workshops we facilitate are a shared sense of aligned purpose, renewed motivation, and the feeling that participants have, as a group, accomplished something useful. My approach to facilitation allows for better ideas, increased engagement, easier decisions, clearer commitments, and actionable next steps.
‘Positive Disruption helped us create the team dynamics necessary to increase our comfort with addressing items that were “below” the conversation. They brought expertise in the areas of effective communication, personal insights, problem-solving, teaching a team to have fun while working, pragmatism, and how to apply it in the workplace. After working with them, it is easier for our team to raise and resolve issues. We have a better understanding of each other, and as a result, we are able to move more quickly.”
– Dan Shull, Chief Information Officer, Signet Jewelers
How do we get started? Can we start right away?
Contact us and we can discuss your goals and identify the type of program that will best serve your team. Some of our programs require a few weeks lead-time to align on goals, interview key participants, and design the program, while others can be delivered within the same week as our consultation. Once we have evaluated your specific needs, we will create an individualized proposal that includes my recommendations and a 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 sometimes as quick as the same day, and are typically achieved within days or weeks of delivery.
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“I Need a Navigator”
You have: Vision. Ambition. Talent. You care about success as well as people. You know that your team has a lot of potential and you need a guide to show you how to best tap into that potential, develop it, and keep your team focused in the right direction.
You need: A partner who knows how to build high-performing teams while navigating and negotiating change and transition.
And you want: Help. A Plan. Measurable outcomes. Periodic engagement that helps you meet the goals you’ve set, someone you can call on for input and ideas, but who will give you the space and time necessary to continue to move forward in your everyday work.
So we: Listen to you. Really listen to you. About everything. What’s working. What’s not working. Where you’re heading. Why that matters to you. You’ll have the opportunity to give voice to the uncharted terrain that feels so overwhelming right now. Next we’ll often interview or survey your team in order to get a sense of the team as a whole and come to an accurate diagnosis of what’s tripping you up. Then we work with you to craft the ideal plan to navigate the logistics and strategy required to get you the positive change you need.
Our specialties include: New Team Activation and Development, Navigating Change, Creating The High Performing Team, and a variety of hands-on approaches that help you clarify where you are going, commit to taking the necessary actions, and teach you the the tools you need to implement successful, sustainable change.
Based on the specific plan we create for you, we will be on-site periodically throughout the engagement – on average about 1-3 days every two months. We also will be available to you via email and phone. The typical Navigation program lasts anywhere from 3-12 months.
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. It includes tools that help them see how sometimes change first requires slowing down just a little bit 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.
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.
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“I Need to Stop the Bleeding”
You are: In the midst of a crisis. It’s big, it’s ugly, and it’s not going to get better with time. Perhaps there was a re-org and everything feels chaotic. Or maybe your team was delivering at an intense level for 2-3 years, and now you’re facing burnout while demands continue to increase. No matter how you arrived at this crisis, you have run out of room to work longer and harder. You can see the downward spiral but lack the time or headspace to figure out what to do next.
You need: Someone who can cut right to the chase and help you see exactly what needs to be done, in the shortest amount of time, so your team can get back on track and regain your sanity.
And you want: Hope. Clarity. Action steps that will actually work. And a renewed sense of confidence and trust that your projects and team will proceed on track and on-time. Like a well-oiled machine.
So we: Ask questions. A lot of questions. In such a high-stakes situation, we may need to speak with everybody who touches the project at every point in the process. That way we will be able to uncover what the hidden problems are, where the bodies are buried, and connect the dots so we can get a complete and accurate picture of what’s causing the issues and what we need to do to fix them. With change of this magnitude, first we stop the bleeding. Then we identify the actions and change the patterns that got you to this point, ensuring that the work we do actually has lasting success and moves you forward.
What types of problems do you tackle?
Dramatic change situations such as reorganizations gone sideways, high growth situations (how do we scale in time), out of control overtime coupled with ever increasing demand, as well as such classic organizational spirals as feeling like your team is constantly fighting fires and can’t go on working so hard for such little return.
How do you approach these types of complex, multi-layered problems?
Before we can create our change management plan, we need to assess the situation, find out exactly what is going on, and identify all the factors that are involved. Through surveys, interviews, and observation we work with you and your team to identify all the issues that affect your current situation. Our perspective as outsiders allows us to see the relationships between problem-causing factors in a clear and impartial way. With clear-sighted perspective, we can uncover what the true causes of the issues you face. Once we have a sense of what’s really happening, we will create a plan that outlines both short-term and longer-term approaches to ensure both quick wins and lasting change.
How much involvement is typically required on our end?
We won’t kid you. This is intense work, especially at first. You will need to show up. You will need to buy in to the change. And you will need to work to implement it. After so long being stuck in a problem it can feel safer to stay stuck than to move forward. You and your team need the willingness to take the leap and the fortitude to do the work required of you when you land on the other side. But we will be there to guide you through this transition, providing the support, training, and strategies necessary to get you where you want to go. If you commit to the change, the change will exponentially increase your ROI.
Our current situation is costing our company lots of money and we don’t want to waste any more. Are you worth it?
This is intense triage from an expert, so there can be a significant price tag to it. However, when you get real about how many dollars you burn every day in your current state, and factor in the cost of the potential negative impact on people’s careers (yours, your team’s, or your company’s), getting help now is a steal by comparison.
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“I Need Help with BIG Change”
You have: A big change or series of changes on the horizon. An opportunity to transform major aspects of your business. Or maybe it’s time to scale but you don’t quite know how to grow without losing the best of what you’ve created already. Or perhaps you’ve been offered a great opportunity to kick off a new project that will affect multiple areas of the company. No matter what type of change you find yourself on the edge of, you know the work ahead of you is important and exciting. And frankly, it’s also a little scary.
You need: Someone who can provide the structure and support, the knowledge and encouragement, the skill and savvy to help you move through this transformation in your business, to take advantage of all that’s on the horizon and generate greater ROI without losing direction, scope, or productivity.
And you want: An expert who knows how to effectively strategize on both micro and macro levels, and who can teach you the skills required to help you level-up by making change a sustainable part of your company culture. A pro who understands the nuts-and-bolts of how change works at the micro-level so that you can break large ideas into manageable daily steps, and who can also take a macro view of how you, your team, and your project’s progress affect the greater structure of your organization. Someone who stakes her reputation on efficient, high-quality delivery. Someone you can trust because she has successfully navigated similar changes with other teams. Someone who has the tools, strategies, and expertise to stand with you day-by-day to create the outcomes that you desire.
So we: Work with you to plot a course and create a timeline to get you there. Then we assess the people issues (stakeholder buy-in, employee readiness) so you have the support and manpower you need. From there, we build a comprehensive change management plan that incorporates and leverages best practices and cutting edge research from some of the best and brightest change experts in the world so that you can bring about this next big phase in your company’s development.
When it comes to big changes, what is it that you do, exactly?
Depending on the type of support and skill your change requires and your team desires, we offer either the hands-on tactical support necessary to implement and manage the Big Change, or we train you in the fundamentals of change psychology and strategy so that you and your team can facilitate it yourselves. Whether your team chooses me to lead your change efforts or to train you to lead your own, we use change management best practices and incorporate the latest techniques in the science of change to help make your Big Change easier, less stressful, successful, and highly efficient.
What kind of transformations do you work on?
We deal with many types of change such as reorganizations, leadership transitions, organizational start-ups, and technology changes. We also specialize in helping companies deal with global change that cuts across geographic and cultural boundaries.
Can you help us with additional resources if we need them?
Yes. We will work with you to ensure that you have everything you need, and that you have the right level of attention on the ground at all times. This may include bringing in consultants from our team or identifying resources within your team who are already skilled in, or who can be trained to successfully support and guide the change at hand.
What if we want to do the work ourselves but aren’t sure how?
You have options. If you need strategy, we can support you as a consultant to help you put a plan in place. If you need education or staff development, we can provide training for key staff members. Or we can work together to create a custom plan that combines both strategy and training.
Will I be running up a tab with you every time we have a phone call or a meeting?
No. We scope my work based on outcomes not hours, which means you will never feel pressured or “on the clock” when we have a conversation.