Organization Development Program

The Joel & Sinclair Organization Development Program offers an effective means to improve the performance of any organization.  It assists companies and institutions in carrying out systematic and planned change.  Using the concepts and techniques of the behavioral sciences, our program helps organizations assess their way of doing business. It looks at the structures, attitudes, and values that support an organization’s corporate culture.  The program leads to the solution of problems in productivity, morale, and communications.  It guides institutions in strategic planning, the development of new vision and mission statements, and the formulation of goals and objectives.

Our organization development program takes place in several independent phases.  The first is needs assessment, or gap analysis.  This program engages the organization’s entire leadership and crucial staff in a comprehensive way. At facilitated meetings, participants decide whether to close, narrow, or ignore gaps between aspirations and current reality.
The second, sometimes simultaneous, phase is the environmental scan, which enables the organization to view its products and services vis a vis its community and others in the same field in different geographic areas.

The next stage is full-fledged strategic planning, a program that culminates in new or reaffirmed mission and mission statements and a fully articulated action plan.

Organizations may choose to undertake a development program at several junctures.  A change in leadership, a major initiative that alters a mission, a new physical or hierarchical structure – these are just a few examples of significant events that signal a need for an organization to reassess.

Other signals – equally compelling – are not as positive: trends like decreasing productivity, declining morale, losses in membership, faltering sales, enrollments, or attendance figures.  These symptoms often present themselves without evident cause.

On the other hand, proactive leaders of flourishing organizations will often choose ot undertake a program in the realization that even the firmest footing is no guarantee of future success.  An assessment of where an organization stands and what it would like its future to hold is always an appropriate exercised in today’s ever-changing and increasingly competitive environment.

PRELIMINARY ASSESSMENT
A Joel & Sinclair development program begins with an assessment.  Every assessment is tailored to the client’s situation and needs.  Instruments include:

• environmental scans
• review of management structure
• in-depth interviews
• facilitated workshops and meetings
• administration of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• examination of roles and responsibilities

EVALUATION AND FEEDBACK
We analyze the data collected in the assessment.  Results are reported to the institution’s leadership. Statistical information is presented in written form, often with illustrative charts. Evaluation and recommendations for action are discussed with the leadership.

RECOMMENDATIONS AND COURSES OF ACTION
If, as a result of the evaluation and discussion, the leadership determines that action should be taken, Joel & Sinclair will recommend and undertake activities appropriate to the circumstances and most likely to gain the desired results. Possible courses of action include:

Issues Discussion for Organizational Development
Issues raised by the staff during interviews for strategic planning, needs assessment or the formulation of the action plans are given a forum by this workshop.  Systems and practices that impede effectiveness and efficiency are discussed to resolution.
Typically a 1-2 day discussion.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator & Workshop
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is an excellent tool for an organization to identify how different personalities can work together for increased productivity and effectiveness.  Filling out the questionnaire can be done in the workplace without interruption to the work day. The workshop to interpret the questionnaire and identify type takes half a day and should be done as soon as possible after indicator is completed.

Bringing Dialogue Back Into Communications
Though recognized as critical to the functioning of an organization, communication skills are often wrongly taken for granted.  This workshop offers hands-on exercises that show how to recognize and overcome obstacles to genuine two-way communication.  It demonstrates how to eliminate invalid inferences and get past mind-beclouding assumptions. Exercises include listening in triads, climbing ladders of inference, and deconstructing mental models. Participants will learn how to give useful feedback, how to communicate in teams, and how to listen effectively.

Making Meetings Work For You
Holding a meeting should be a simple and productive activity.  But everyone knows it isn’t.  Needed participants don’t come. Those who come don’t participate. Discussion wanders.  Time runs out and no one has been given the necessary assignments to follow through on decisions.  This workshop teaches proven methods for overcoming these problems by using process agendas, clarifying the role of the leader, ensuring attendance and participation, guaranteeing the flow of useful information, getting to decision making, working the plan.

Change Management
This workshop explains what organizations can expect when undergoing change and how to cope with the inevitable resistance and depression that come at some point in the process.  Workshop includes psychology-of-change graphs, the successful change formula, and customized assistance with changes the organization faces.