Genesis Consulting & Coaching

Our clients often find themselves experiencing situations such as:

»	Team conflict and low productivity in a high-stress environment.
»	Highly successful, respected executive burning out.
»	It’s time for goal-setting again, and no one wants to do it. Why should they? We never follow through!

» Team conflict and low productivity in a high-stress environment.

The Situation

Imagine a field office with 5 teams of 20-30 members each. The teams are understaffed, have a huge backlog of work and productivity is down. Supervisors are besieged with complaints from employees about their co-workers while they try to put out one fire after another. Trust between team members is low and there is a pervasive lack of accountability at all levels. Your supervisors come to you for help. What would you do?

What We Did

After interviewing all the supervisors, manager and large percentage of the employees, we identified the key factors causing conflict and poor performance. We provided a systematic method to improve process performance and designed and conducted a series of workshops to address the conflict and trust issues. We established communication methods to ensure all workers received the same training and were apprised of new processes as they were added. In addition, we coached the supervisors on how to manage conflict in their teams more effectively.

The Result

Systems were put in place to ensure training and communication could easily be carried out. Teams created new cultural norms by identifying behaviors that didn’t work and replacing them with new ones. Rather than create a new set of “nice-sounding” ground rules no one questioned (or would follow), they analyzed each adopted behavior to determine how it would look, what it meant to everyone, how realistic it was, and if it contributed to their desired culture. They adopted new tools and feedback mechanisms to reduce conflict. Most importantly, individuals saw how they contributed to a culture they didn’t like, and learned how to change their own behavior to produce more desirable results. Finger-pointing stopped. Their backlog was quickly eliminated and the team’s productivity improved.

» Highly successful, respected executive burning out.

The Situation

A highly respected executive with an enormous amount of responsibility is feeling the burn and wondering how to get some balance back in her life. She is so well-thought of at work, that employees, peers and bosses often come to her for advice, request her presence in meetings and relying on her to manage the relationships and details that baffle and irritate others. She is constantly coaching others to smooth over communication and relationship rifts. The demands on her time have gotten out of control. She’s the one with all the answers. Where does she go for advice?

What We Did

We listened. We discovered, then pointed out that some of the coaching and advice our client so generously gave came at a cost to her own time. We helped her define her boundaries, and place accountability for results back on the individual or their manager while still maintaining the integrity of “we all work for the same company.” We provided her with tools to improve group decision-making and resources to manage complex organizational structures. Mostly, we provided her with an objective sounding board, a safe place to vent and get new perspectives.

The Result

The client is beginning to see the results of defining her boundaries at work. She is starting to spend more time at home and is seeing some of the conflict at work subside. While she is still in progress, she has said, “Until you put it that way, I never saw [the situation] in that way before. Now it all makes sense and I know what I have to do.”

» It’s time for goal-setting again, and no one wants to
do it. Why should they? We never follow through!

The Situation

Two teams work closely together to produce their joint results. Yet they have different goals and objectives. Neither team knows what the other team’s objectives are – many on the team don’t know what their own objectives are! The two leaders aren’t sure if their team members have all the necessary skills to accomplish the new company objectives. Every year teams are asked to define their goals, and no one ever looks at them again until the end of the year.

What We Did

We interviewed the leaders to determine what their objectives were and how they aligned with the new corporate objectives. We designed and conducted a workshop to cascade the objectives already in place and identified which of those objectives caused activities for their groups. Using a goal-setting methodology we developed, the groups developed their primary and secondary objectives, then discussed what skills were necessary to carry out those objectives. We defined which skills were missing or weak and whether the group would hire, outsource or develop the skills in-house. We developed a strengths and learning objective matrix, then set up learning/mentor partners to establish a supportive learning environment. We established milestones for checking in and measurements for them to use to measure progress.

The Results

The teams were excited about creating their objectives together and seeing how their individual strengths contributed to the whole. They also felt relieved as “perceived weaknesses” were not seen as “individual flaws” but as natural factors that all teams could identify and augment through training, outsourcing or hiring. A year later, the client remarked that it “was the most effective goal setting she’d ever been through.” They had followed through on their objectives for the first time and had the added result of team bonding through the mentor/partnerships that were created.

» Now read about Kate Arendt, the founder of Genesis Consulting
& Coaching.

Email Us • Telephone 925.706.9858