Consulting and Facilitation
Organizational Development
“We have used The Consulting Team to facilitate team building, assess and coach leaders, and mediate workplace conflicts. Marilyn’s warmth and ability to go into any situation and work with a variety of technical and non-technical people creates an immense resource for us. We love her enthusiasm and we love working with her.”
Maureen McGraw, Meyer Sound
Do you have a diverse group of individuals that need to work together for common goals?
Are you having challenges building trust and keeping your team motivated?
Whether your current team is not functioning at peak or you are forming a new team, we can help you build effective teams by providing facilitation, training, practical tools, and communication tips.
We have provided management consulting for over 20 years in both government and the profit sector, gaining both a broad perspective and deep organizational knowledge. We help teams navigate through big challenges and make appropriate changes to keep everyone engaged, motivated and accountable, therefore encouraging and reinforcing learning. We use a powerful change management model along with team building practices and customize all our processes to meet individual team needs while we help build relationships and collaboration.
We provide you with daily best practices to help teams develop trusting and open relationships, using our credibility and trust exercises and models to do this. Our sessions are skill-based and include:
- Leadership: Change management, strategic planning, delegating and motivating, accountability, emotional intelligence, and time management
- Communication: Listening, showing empathy, identifying needs, setting expectations, influencing, and resolving conflicts
- Relationships: Building trust and teamwork, giving and receiving feedback, working with diverse styles, using situational approaches, and creating community
Strategic Change Demanded Clear Communication:
After The Consulting Team facilitated a strategic planning workshop, the organization’s planning committee asked us to coach them to communicate proposed changes effectively. We helped them develop a plan that provided specifics of what, when, and how to communicate to all staff and stakeholders. The organization was then able to roll out their strategic plan with assurance, collaboration, and success.
City Council and Department Head Retreats:
We have facilitated successful planning sessions with over 35 City Councils, numerous Boards, commissions, various teams, and with corporation executive teams. Our sessions are engaging, lively, and get the results you want.
“Marilyn and the Consulting Team are truly the best of the best. They focused our City Council for a productive goal setting session which yielded positive results. They provided practical tools to the Council and executive staff helping us stay on track, identify city goals and initiatives, and improve teamwork.”
– Thomas C. Williams, City Manager, City of Millbrae
Strategic Change Demanded Clear Communication:
After The Consulting Team facilitated a strategic planning workshop, the organization’s planning committee asked us to coach them to communicate proposed changes effectively. We helped them develop a plan that provided specifics of what, when, and how to communicate to all staff and stakeholders. The organization was then able to roll out their strategic plan with assurance, collaboration, and success.
Strategic Planning, Goal Alignment, and Priority Setting:
“The Consulting Team expertly led our executive team through competitive assessments, strategic planning, priorities, and goal setting. More impressive, they brought out our untapped creative side to go beyond where we believed the company could.”
– Peter Nelson, CEO, California Water Services
How is your organization coping with today’s economic changes? As seasoned strategic planning facilitators, we facilitate all aspects of this discipline, from asking strategic questions and attentive listening to developing measurable goals.
We help you plan and run effective retreats and meetings as we build collaboration and commitment. We help keep your focus to reach measurable outcomes. We will also show you how to handle common disruptive behaviors and difficult group dynamics.
Our sessions lead you to build consensus for your mission, values, core values, and strategic priorities. We provide specific tools and easy-to-use templates for increasing respect, professionalism, courage, transparency, and creativity as you collaborate in setting goals with realistic objectives, actions, timelines, and performance measures. We show you how to hold individuals responsible and accountable for achieving all expectations with integrity.
Taking Command in a Demanding Environment:
An executive and her staff had been demoralized by retirements, a stringent budget, and unresolved issues. The Consulting Team facilitated several team building sessions to develop strategic plans, practice better communications skills, and use tools to manage change. She and her staff gained a firm foundation and created strategic initiatives to rebuild a stable, productive department.
POST Team Building (TBW’s):
“The Consulting Team helped our department in creating a realistic and achievable strategic plan. They had the talent for helping our planning team creatively develop priorities and a communication plan, while maintaining a strict timeline to keep us on task.”
– Steve Sweeney, City of Livermore Police Chief
These workshops are specially designed for Peace Officers. After an initial meeting with command staff to set goals and expectations, a customized agenda will be created. A typical workshop will include a strategic planning activity which can review mission, vision, values, priorities, goals, objectives, and action items. It will employ interactive small and large group team building activities, presentations, a SLOTs (Strengths, Limitations, External Opportunities, and Threats) assessment, and the DiSC communication assessment. Participants will leave with a better preparation for the future.
We customize these workshops with a focus on team building and strategic planning. We provide best practices to help teams develop trusting and open relationships as they create their measurable action plans. They will create the foundation of a strategic plan with implementation tools.
The Consulting Team is certified to be facilitators of POST Team Building Workshops. We have conducted these sessions for the police departments of East Palo Alto, Newark, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Union City, Pleasant Hill, Livermore, Modesto, Fremont, Daly City, Alameda, Sebastopol, Dixon, Turlock, and El Cerrito. We have also worked with Sheriff’s Offices of San Mateo, Monterey and Contra Costa Counties. In addition, we did TBW’s for the District Attorneys of Yolo and Tulare County.
Accomplished Police Captain Lacks People Skills:
We were hired by an unhappy Police Chief to coach one of his Captains, an extremely accomplished and highly educated officer whose only focus seemed to be checking the boxes on his to do list. Because of some incidents related to his poor interpersonal interactions he was given a choice – coaching or discipline, which might have had some big career implications. He requested coaching. We began with a call to have him understand our coaching process and to get him comfortable. After we reached agreement on the way to proceed, we gave him a set of resources for reading and made a strong case for the importance of relationships. We also discussed the specific behaviors he needed to begin practicing. He was a great learner. After only a few coaching sessions, the client reported that a new world of personal relationship and connection had opened up for him. His productivity, happiness and job satisfaction increased greatly. His colleagues, direct reports and family all reported that it was like having a new friend.
Assessments and Tools
Communication Style Assessment (DiSC):
Learning your own style and creating rapport with other styles. The DiSC profile, published by Wiley, is a non-judgmental well-researched tool used for discussion of people’s behavioral differences. When you participate in a DiSC program, you are asked to complete a series of questions that produce a detailed report about your personality and behavior.
Emotional Intelligence
We use both the EQ-i 2.0 self-assessment and the EQ360 in-depth analysis from MHS. These tools increase self-knowledge and awareness, the cornerstone to leadership development and professionalism. They help you see the impact of your behaviors and emotions on others and in group interactions, which can increase your effectiveness and help build mutual respect.
Weekly Log
Setting goals, metrics, tracking progress, accountability.
Active Listening
Showing empathy and compassion as well as being candid.
Conflict Resolution Model
Solving problems with specific tools.