Helping Companies Create Healthy Practices In The Workplace

Today, organizations including corporations, government agencies and non-profit firms are having to re-define their purposes and objectives.  Transitions are the rule, not the exception, and may include sudden and sharp downsizing (or alternatively, rapid and unexpected growth); new executive leadership; mergers and acquisitions; and dramatic shifts in strategic planning and ways of doing business, in order to adapt to changing market conditions.

Such transitions can impact the culture and climate of an organization, by introducing enormous stress into a company’s workplace.  This stress can often lead to low morale, loss of productivity, and the disruption of longstanding relationships and patterns of communication within the company.  As a result, many employees proceed through their daily routines using no more than a fraction of the potential within themselves. 

The way a company conducts its business and treats its employees can either enhance or undermine the productivity of a company’s employees.  A company which creates an environment which facilitates healthy communications, trust and mutual respect can unlock and nurture the untapped capabilities that every person possesses.

A healthy workplace values the importance of team-building and leadership development for all of its workers.  In such an environment, employees have a shared vision about where the company is going and feel empowered to help make that vision a reality.

A psychologically healthy workplace is the key to an organization’s productivity, high employee performance, outstanding customer service and an environment that fosters creativity and passion for the mission of the enterprise.

At the Princeton Leadership Group, we believe that a company’s long-term success depends, in large measure, on its ability to build healthy relationships among employees, no matter what challenges the company may be facing.

From our experience, we know that the basic skills required to build healthy relationships can be named and taught.  We believe that teaching these skills to employees as part of a professional development plan will lead to the establishment of a company-wide shared language and set of ground rules for working together as a team.

WHAT WE DO

Our approach is to guide an organization through the changes in its culture and internal relationships, and to accomplish these changes quickly and effectively.

We begin with a series of consultations with senior executives to understand the challenges the organization is facing.  These initial meetings are critical in developing a shared understanding with management of the organization’s strengths as well as those areas which need to be significantly improved.  Based on these discussions, our PLG team will collaborate with management to design a set of protocols which may employ one or all of the following:

• We may provide one-on-one coaching and constructive feedback sessions with senior executives.  These sessions might focus on the development of effective communication skills and strategies for running effective meetings throughout the company.

• If appropriate, we will organize a series of conversations in small groups that reach all employees to assess the culture, climate and morale of the organization.  A special feature of our approach is that we train members of your organization in the skills needed to run these focus groups.  This approach strengthens and enhances the credibility of the process and builds internal leadership capacity.

• Often, we determine with top executives that conducting an executive retreat with senior managers early in the process of working together can help clarify goals and expectations, and can develop new ways of operating effectively.

• When focus group data has been collected and analyzed, with the help of the PLG team, it is useful for the company to organize one or more large group meetings with all employees in a division or even, where appropriate, a company-wide meeting, to share the results of the focus group analysis.  We will collaborate with senior management to prepare the company’s top executives to lead these meetings themselves, as a way of underscoring the commitment senior management has to hear ideas for change and discuss them openly.

• When appropriate, we can train managers to develop action teams, and recruit members of the organization to lead and implement needed internal changes and practices that will strengthen morale and productivity.

HOW WE WORK

Our PLG team brings many years of training and experience in organizational development to each of our assignments.  We have developed a number of creative exercises, activities and simulations that we can utilize as part of our coaching and training which focus on achieving several critical goals:

• We assist our clients in gaining a much clearer understanding about how the members of an organization work together; what the existing patterns of communication look like; and what key events in recent company history (such as a merger, a downsizing, or a new CEO) are impacting productivity, morale and a common purpose.

• We utilize a number of activities, such as simulations and engaging, structured conversations, as part of the executive and middle-management training which can introduce healthy new skills and practices that are reinforced in a safe setting.

• Where appropriate, we will assist management in identifying and organizing stakeholder groups within the organization whose concerns may not have been adequately addressed in the past, and whose full integration into the fabric of the enterprise is critical to the success of the organization.

Our approach is different from that of many in the organizational development field, in two key respects.  First, we view our role as partners and collaborators with senior management in the task of improving the culture of the organization. Our approach to change is designed to put senior management at the center of the process, and not on the sidelines. Our strategy is to equip senior management to identify the needed changes, and then personally to lead the effort to implement those changes. 

Second, we intend to engage all employees to contribute to a system-wide assessment of a company’s strengths, weaknesses and challenges.  Our assessment approach is not a third-party survey.  Rather, we help to organize structured conversations with everyone in the organization which we then help company management to facilitate and carry out.  We believe strongly that these conversations should be led by a company’s own employees.  We will train these employees in the skills needed to lead these conversations (often known as “focus groups”), to accomplish several goals:  

• To encourage a dialogue of “straight talk;”

• To listen effectively and collect data in a rigorous manner; and

• To translate data from the focus groups into constructive feedback to senior management at a large group gathering, sometimes referred to as a Town Hall Meeting.

By validating the opinions and views of a company’s employees, we help senior management give a voice to its employees.  The approach demonstrates that the company’s management takes the views of its employees so seriously that senior executives personally acknowledge the feedback in the company-wide meetings, and follow up these exchanges with credible implementation steps as needed through the work of the action teams.

POWEFUL RESULTS, SUSTAINABLE BENEFITS

Based on our experience, we have found that our approach can lead to dramatic and permanent improvements in the morale, climate, and patterns of internal communication within an organization during a 6 – 12 month period of time.

And because our approach trains a cadre of employees in the leadership skills to mobilize everyone in the organization to become involved, our approach creates an added benefit.  We leave behind a new structure of executive and middle-management leadership which is empowered and capable of facilitating the renewal of your internal culture going forward, without our outside team having to be there.

Princeton Leadership Group comes to you.  To the maximum extent possible, we utilize your facilities for the focus groups and large group gatherings, to facilitate the full participation of everyone in your organization.  The exception would be a special retreat which you may want to organize off-site, in order to reduce distractions and concentrate on the implementation of new practices and stakeholder recommendations for change.

CONTACT US FOR A CONSULTATION  

We encourage you to explore our website which provides a case study in how we work and describes the experience and training of our team.

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