How We Work

Your organization is a vast and complex landscape of human interaction. When it’s not functioning optimally, it’s not always clear what the disconnect is or how to address it because there are so many elements at play. Quite frankly, setting out to do the work necessary can feel like undertaking a mountain expedition — which may leave you wondering exactly what to do, and where to start.

That’s where we come in. Consider us your mountain guides. 

Like any good and trustworthy mountain guide, we’ve been up, down, and around a lot of mountains with all kinds of people. 

We know mountains. We get (and quite frankly, love) people.

However, your organization has a completely unique terrain and ecosystem that needs to be honored and adapted to. That’s where you come in. You know your organization - its history, quirks, and gifts. Together, we can figure out how to get you where you want to go.

We work with you to: 

• Zoom out and understand the lay of the land so you can get fresh perspective on where you are exactly - it’s hard to see the forest when you are in the trees.

• Explore the terrain with the people in your organization to determine what’s working, what’s not, and, most importantly, why.

• Cover new ground and create new trails that take you, your teams, and your organization in the direction you want to do.

• Update or re-create your “map” and tools for navigating what’s ahead together in new ways.

If you’re looking for a predetermined, one-size-fits-all approach, we don’t have it. In fact, it doesn’t exist. If it did, you would have found it already. 

You need an approach and solution that fits your system and people. That we can do!

We draw on the practices of Identity Mapping®, emotional intelligence, nonviolent communication, group dynamics, complexity science, Liberating Structures and more to help you navigate the terrain you need to cover. Whether the terrain is your team's tricky dynamics, your organization's culture, or a personal leadership challenge, we will help bring clarity to whatever complexity you face by helping you understand what's happening beneath the surface.

Client Stories Coming Soon

Meanwhile….ask us about how we:

• Helped a CEO 1 year into his tenure at a small manufacturing firm with a big brand reputation get a jump on turning around the culture and improving morale.

• Helped a new Executive Director at large library system pull together the Leadership Team, Senior Team, and Public Services teams in ways that strengthened the teams individually and together, started to shift the culture, and prepared them to respond to the demands of COVID-19.

• Helped 8 teams in the Yukon (yes, Canada!) strengthen their teams through Team Elements coaching.

• Helped a large non-profit develop its leadership over the last few years through supporting 3 cohorts of leaders in a 360 Feedback learning experience.

Services We Offer

Teams matter.  Teams are where people make sense of and respond to the challenges they face. They’re where people create community and metabolize change (or not). They’re crucibles of trust and conflict, grounded by purpose and fed by aspirations of how great things could be. They’re where identity is co-created and meaning is made. They’re vibrant little ecosystems where value is created, meaning is made, relationships are forged, and organizational goals are brought to life.

And, these little ecosystems need to be regularly tended to - now more than ever in these COVID times - especially as we consider returning to work. Some of us want to. Some of us don’t. Some of us feel safe. Some of us don’t.

How do we do this?

We would love to help you and your team have the conversations you need to figure it out through a Team Refresh.

We also offer longer team coaching engagements using the Team Elements™ model, app, and methodology.

Shannon and Greg equip teams with the data, insights, and coaching necessary to help a team develop their ability to SNOW - see, name, own, and work - the relational and operational dynamics they face and change them. We’ve seen a lot of team things and we bet you have, too. But, we’ve never seen a team effectiveness solution like this one. It’s definitely not your typical team building experience.

Team Elements is data-driven, allowing a team to see how their profile of team strengths and weaknesses changes over time in response to the actions they take. Seeing their team data change over time allows teams to see their progress – and to stay focused on what matters as their work together unfolds. 

It really doesn’t matter if your team is falling apart, or excelling in just about every way –  there is almost always a conversation that the team can have to reveal new possibilities to amplify it’s well-being and productivity.

Culture is not something big that's made small – rather its something small that's made big.  Instead of approaching culture change as a huge initiative that is driven or cascaded down from the top that is complete when we come to the end of the "change management plan,"  we approach culture change as a series of small shifts in the interactions and conversations that happen every day, everywhere, between everyone. Small things matter.

Like we are learning from the complex patterns that occur in nature, "simple rules" of interaction can reliably produce aligned yet emergent systems. Consider the starlings pictured here – researchers discovered that the birds followed 3 simple rules which produced beautiful, complex systems – called murmurations. And these murmurations could collectively respond to their environment within moments. 

Imagine having your own set of organizational simple rules that supported the creation of a resilient and responsive organization.

Well, we can help you create them! By having conversations across your organization and with your customers, we help you unearth, amplify, and stop the patterns of interactions that will cultivate the culture you are wanting to create. We then partner with you over time to help build people's capabilities to practice, assess, and adjust to whatever emerges along the way.

The organizations leading the way today recognize that leadership is best distributed throughout an organization, not centralized at the top. This means offering leadership development opportunities to nearly everyone, which we believe creates a more meaningful work experience. After all, everyone has lives to lead and all the better if we can support good leadership in work and life. Connection Works supports the creation and implementation of robust, holistic, and impactful leadership programs in a number of ways.

Individual Coaching

Often reserved for executives, we have found that coaching at any level of an organization can help individuals get “unstuck” and find more meaning and engagement in their work, unlock their leadership potential, understand their next steps, and contribute more in their role. We view coaching as a highly personalized process that values the journey as well as the destination. We work with individuals who are:

• In the middle of a significant transition that is impacting how they are showing up (in their work role or in their lives);

• Trying to understand what is newly needed in how they show up as a leader – those times when what “used to work” no longer seems to;

• Navigating a challenging situation with another individual, and who are trying to understand what they can do themselves to show up differently.

• And much more.

Programs

The most relevant leadership simply isn't taught through traditional training methods. We support organizations in building leadership development programs that are unique to their own needs, in service to organizational culture they want, and integrated with people’s day-to-day work experiences.

Our approach to leadership development is built upon what is known as the “3 E’s of Learning." 

• Education– Working with your organization’s training department to ensure it is helping you deliver on your business strategy, foster the culture you want, and helps people understand their path to growth.

• Exposure– Looking for opportunities across your organization and/or external networks to cultivate social learning through special projects and peer-to-peer forums for discussing work challenges.

• Experience– Crafting on-the-job experiences, such as job shadowing, job rotation, stretch assignments or interim positions, that intentionally support the learning and immediate application of new leadership behaviors.

We work with you to design a  leadership development program that is agile, relevant, and capable of supporting your organization’s most critical needs.

Facilitation is much more than ensuring a meeting stays on track and is productive. Ultimately, facilitation is ensuring that the group in the room has the right conversation for the moment – a conversation that only they can have. We do a lot of work with clients that on the surface looks like creating a meeting (or series of meetings), ensuring that they happen smoothly, and reporting back the results. However, this work is really about creating conditions in which people engage with each other, develop new habits of connection and communication, and generate results that can only come from talking together. We particularly love working with groups around things such as:

• Purpose, Vision, and Values: Simon Sinek said it best – "Start With Why". At the heart of our work is a need to know why what we do is important, where we are headed, and what matters along the way. We can help you design and facilitate the conversations that get at the heart of the matter at your next workshop or off-site.

• Collaborative problem solving: These days the problems we face tend to be wicked, requiring us to get in a room and think together. However, if we think (and talk) in the same old ways, we'll get nowhere fast – except frustrated and stuck, likely rushing to familiar actions just to do something, anything (though sometimes this can work!). We can help you think together about your wicked or not-so-wicked problems in new ways so you can pretty quickly get to a set of new, next wise actions.

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