Organisational support for businesses, local government, social enterprises and third sector organisations.

Organisational Support

We can provide tailor made support for your organisation to help you with:

• planning the future
• building effective leadership
• managing change
• building an effective team or board
• engaging with users and communities
• collaborating with other organisations
• developing skills for enterprise
• managing projects
• designing your conference or big event
• evaluating your work and assessing your impact

This can be through:

• an assessment of your organisation's needs
• team based reviews and planning sessions
• advice and information
• training workshops
• away days and team building
• mentoring sessions

We can work directly with you and your managers, staff and/or management board; our work is carefully planned, based on an assessment of what you need and never merely ‘off the shelf’.  Fees vary depending on the amount of preparation time needed.

Planning the future

Through carefully planned facilitation, we can help your team or board to plan the next phase of work.  What’s your long term aim? How will you survive? What are your priorities for new initiatives? What key values will guide you? What changes in the environment do you need to address? What are the strategic options available to you? How in practice will you achieve your objectives? These and other basic questions can be examined to ensure you are well equipped for future challenges.  If appropriate, the outcome can be a business plan for your organisation.

'Your approach, knowledge and insight helped us on the way.  Our Deputy Leader and Corporate Director both enjoyed the event and I feel assured that we made some significant headway in establishing  a collective understanding on how we need to go forward.  I hope that we can further call on your expertise in the future.'
Team Manager, Policy, Planning and Corporate Services, Nottinghamshire County Council 2014

Building Effective Leadership

We can help you to build more effective leadership in your organisation through identifying styles, qualities and skills. We can help you to map where leadership lies in your organisation in order to strengthen it for the challenges you face.  We can support you in using different leadership roles and styles to ensure you have effective and empowering leadership. Steve designed and facilitated a Leadership Development Programme funded by Barclays Bank and has contributed to the design of a leadership programme run by the Community Leadership Academy.

'Steve has run a series of very successful in-house training programmes as well as regional and London based seminars, on the most effective ways of delivering the new leadership agenda.'
Learning and Development Manager, Local Government Information Unit, 2015

Managing change

Change is often not planned very well in organisations and communities.  We can show you methods for managing change and planning transitions, drawing on current literature and practice.  This covers a range of practical methods and different ways to involve people in change - rather than leave them alienated!  We use the concept of stakeholders to develop an action plan and address barriers and blocks.  The approach was developed through work with Sue Ryder Care and the Institute for Voluntary Action Research.

Building an effective team or board

Are you clear on roles within the team? Do you have effective decision-making arrangements in place? Do your meetings go on for hours? Do you communicate well with each other and reflect your team's values in your work?  We can help you to build a more effective team, using a variety of approaches and methods, based on what you need.  Your management body may need to be much stronger in its leadership roles and more active in its responsibilities. We can help you to be more effective in the governance and planning aspects of the board's work.

Engaging with users and communities

How do you consult and involve users and people who benefit from your products and services?  What methods do you use?  Our approach explores a range of methods, based around a ‘ladder of participation’.  We look at the practical aspects of effective consultation, including surveys, events and focus groups, what can go wrong and how to ensure you integrate the findings into your planning activities.

Collaborating with other organisations

Many orgnisations are interested in joining forces with others in partnerships, joint projects, consortia or full mergers in order to survive and take new opportunities.  We can help you at an early stage to identify the potential benefits of closer working as well as the pitfalls. We examine a range of options for collaboration and help you to address barriers and agree on ways forward. This often takes the form of a practical planning day, involving people from different teams from potential partner organisations.

‘I thought you facilitated the day very well’
Feedback from a Community Enterprise on a collaboration away day, Bradford 2010

Developing skills for enterprise

We specialise in professional development at all levels in organisations, including businesses, local government and the charitable sector. Many organisations need to strengthen their ability to act in enterprising ways and promote innovation. Out support helps you to identify current strengths and weaknesses in your staff teams and use an accessible framework to develop effective skills for enterprise.

 
Managing projects

You may be setting up a new service or initiative and need someone to take on the organisational work to get the whole thing going.  We have extensive experience in setting up and running projects, dealing with a range of stages and have a number of useful planning tools available.  This work can be based in your own building or carried out from our office in Bradford.  The level and nature of the help will vary depending on the project’s aims and complexity – contact us for a discussion of what will be most effective.

Steve set up a project in Bradford with a budget of over £600,000

Designing your conference or big event

We can help you design and facilitate your conference, consultation, launch or large scale event, so that it achieves its aims and has real impact.  We have experience of designing participative activities and facilitating innovative methods such as ‘open space’. Our support will be tailor made, drawing on a wide range of ideas and techniques, depending on your needs.

Evaluating your work and assessing your impact

Many organisations want to understand the impact they are having, as well as evaluate their work.  We can help you to set up an effective and useable evaluation system and collect information on the wider impact you are having.  We evaluated a wide range of projects and recently worked on evaluation systems for a government funded national programme.

‘Our evaluation process was both effective and supportive, resulting in an excellent basis to improve and move on into our second year’
Partnership Manager, Calderdale

We can help you and your organisation in a variety of ways

Contact us to discuss what you need on 07852 899 869 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.