Did you know? The Performance Group offers online facilitation services.
As a facilitators, we function as a bridge between the parties involved. Applying team building, strategic planning and coaching principles to real-life situations, helping clients move their problem forward.
The ability to build trust and provide a clear awareness of expectation, we are able to ‘hold up a mirror’ – asking the critical questions that help participants identify barriers to success and move beyond them to develop workable, achievable action plans.
Strategic planning
The Performance Group has extensive experience as strategic planning facilitators. When strategic planning is done right, it is an indispensable management tool. The Performance Group’s strategic planning by design takes into account that each client is unique and therefore has their own unique situation and unique needs. Our role is to help our clients obtain the results they want in a manner that will work for them. Our strategic planning by design methodology includes the following:
- doing an Environmental Scan
- completing a SWOT Analysis
- creating a Vision Mission and Values Statement
- identifying strategic priorities
- setting Goals and Objectives
- action Planning
- planning for follow-up and follow-through
Focus groups
The Performance Group has been facilitating focus groups for over 20 years. Our approach to facilitating focus groups provides for a high level of participant engagement. Our skilled and experienced facilitators have assisted clients to reach out to employees and/or potential users for feedback and comment. Focus groups can be used for a wide range of purposes including:
- gathering opinions, beliefs, and attitudes about issues of interest to your organization.
- examining factors impacting the workplace culture.
- improving work processes.
- exploring ways to improve the working environment.
- providing an opportunity to learn more about a topic or issue.
Team-building
“Teamwork” is not a core competency or value; rather it is a strategic decision by an organization or group that sends a clear signal that individuals working interdependently will be better able to achieve defined goals.
The decision to build a team and promote teamwork needs to be a conscious choice that recognizes that combining individual members’ skills, abilities, knowledge and collective wisdom will enable the group to be more successful.
If we promote teamwork without clearly identifying it is a strategy to accomplish an organizational goal(s), we can inadvertently create expectations among group members about how we will operate. Failure to follow up by putting a structure into place that promotes interdependent work can result in disillusionment and cynicism.
Once a “team” has been created and “teamwork” has been identified as the best or desired approach, it is critical that the work of building and maintaining the team commence and continue on an on-going basis.
Conflict resolution
Based on our experience in supporting organizations resolve business conflict, the intervention must focus on the future in context of the history of the relationship of the individuals. The individuals need a neutral, safe forum to:
- share their expectations of one another
- identify a common vision of how they will work together
- develop operating principles or ground rules
- build new skills, behaviours and patterns for effective interaction
These outcomes will require individual and joint sessions over time to help create the psychological safety, mutual trust and new habits. The following lays out the steps and estimate of effort to achieve these.
- Step 1: Focusing
- Step 2: Surfacing
- Step 3: Co-Creating
- Step 4: Building