Human Resources, Management, and Organizational Development Consulting Services

Our services in this area of activity are related to leadership and team development, their alignment with strategic direction and effectiveness; change management; culture alignment; problem solving and conflict resolution; training and train-the-trainer services; and workforce and succession planning. As needed, our consultants conduct organizational research such as surveys, interviews, and focus groups.

Organizational Development

Organizational development includes a wide assortment of activities and initiatives.  Specific projects might include team development, conflict resolution, organizational integration, employee involvement, efficiency improvement, and a variety of additional developmental programs.  Survey-guided OD is the model we will describe to illustrate our methodologies.  We have a slight bias in favor of this approach, in part, because it builds in a set of procedures for measurement and progress evaluation.  Those are two characteristics that we try to introduce to all of our efforts.  However, our first criterion for OD is to use intervention processes that will effectively benefit the client and that are within the client’s resources and capabilities.

Survey-guided OD is one of the most tested forms of improving efficiency and raising productivity.  The process relies on employee surveys of issues that are important to their work.  Results from that survey form the foundation for analyzing the organization’s need for change, clarifying roles and accepting responsibility, and taking action. 

The following diagram (which you can enlarge to see greater detail) shows the basic process of survey-guided organizational development through each of the usual stages. Not every survey looks like this since only a fraction of surveys are used for agency-wide organizational development.  However, most surveys have at least the first steps in the process.

1. Initiation.  This is the point where the organization decides whether to systematically collect information and to conduct a survey, including high level discussions of pros and cons, feasibilities, and so on.

2. Focus.  Clarify what the survey will cover, the organization's goals, and what the process will look like.  If the undertaking appears too big or daunting, the organization might choose to begin on a smaller scale using interviews, focus groups, or other methods.

3. Preliminary Data.  Advent Consulting usually tries to interview key individuals and meet with a few select focus groups before designing a questionnaire for OD surveys.  This step is helpful for learning the jargon and important terms that are part of each organization’s unique culture.

4. Design.  This is the step where the survey questionnaire is written. Depending on the project, this could involve modifying an existing set of standard items to fit the organization, and adding a few items to cover unique ground.  Alternatively, this step could entail composing a questionnaire that is specifically tailored to the client. 

Creating and analyzing effective surveys requires both training and experience. Because a survey “touches” so many people, small mistakes can result in big problems:

• Too often, the results from costly surveys are ambiguous, misleading, and generally useless. For example, an over-reliance on dichotomous items (e.g., Yes-No) can be insensitive to many potential nuances in opinion and thus provide outcomes that are too crude and lacking in detail to be useful.
• In addition, managers want to avoid any unintended consequences.  For example, by simply asking employees for their ideas and opinions a manager might inadvertently create expectations about how the results will be used and how the findings from the survey will be communicated.
• Finally, if you ask questions the wrong way, you may either send the wrong message to respondents or strongly influence what they say.  Even subtle choices of words and expressions can send cues and unintended messages. 

5. Review.  The survey should be reviewed not only by the consultant and the client, and also by a group that is representative of the intended respondents (employees). This latter step is sometimes called “pilot testing.”  Experience has shown us that this is an essential part of the review process.

6. Administer.  Surveys can be conducted and administered using a wide range of methods – telephone, by mail, in person, or over the Internet. The best methods are determined by the conditions and the goals of the survey.  Because of their speed, Internet surveys can help answer specific questions before important decisions must be made and, often, at a lower cost than a paper survey.

7. Analysis. There are two general types of data analysis: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative analysis looks for trends and clusters of statistical information, and identifies meaningful outcomes. Qualitative analysis, which is done by someone intently examining the data, looks for patterns and meaning in written comments to open-ended questions.

8. Feedback of Results (Communication). The survey analyses and data must be shared with people in a way which inspires and focuses action.  Learning and analyzing results is interesting, but how to translate that information into decisive action can be quite a different matter.  Fortunately, when results are shared for employee involvement, much of this burden is taken off from the shoulders of management.

9. Action Planning. If the results are communicated well and there is a strong survey and action planning process, relatively brief meetings can include feedback of the findings, prioritization of potential actions, and taking responsibility to carry out those actions.  In addition to agreement on what must be done, people also must agree upon who will take the action and is responsible, and how results will be communicated.  We have found that it also is very important to have training and on-going support for first-line supervisors and middle managers who might not be used to high-participation meetings of this nature.

10. Measure Results. Monitor progress, measure results, communicate, and reinforce problem solving and productivity improvement efforts.  Many times, an important task of managers is to find opportunities for celebration and to reinforce employee contributions.

One of the most important aspects of an effective survey-guided OD effort is to manage the process like any other business activity.  If teams of employees are to tackle, analyze, and solve important problems, their work must be monitored, facilitated, and coordinated with same attention and effort as the organization applies for other business initiatives. 

Advent Consulting Associates cautions that there is no “magic” to any OD process just because innovative practices like employee involvement have acquired so much favorable notoriety.  In fact, managers and employees will probably realize that organizational improvement is hard work once the initial enthusiasm wears off.  Again, like any other important business initiative, management must stick with it to sustain the organization’s direction for better efficiency.

Leadership Development

The approach of Advent Consulting Associates for leadership development focuses on leadership as a process.  This includes personal characteristics of leaders and the interpersonal relationships, social influence processes, team dynamics between leaders and team members, the contextual factors surrounding teams such as the organizational climate, and the social linkages between the team and other groups in the organization.

Our approach to leadership development is tailored to the needs and goals of the organization.  A number of effective strategies can be employed to improve leadership effectiveness, but it is important to match any strategy to the goals, culture, and resources of the client organization.

• Succession planning.  This approach to leadership development has grown extensively in the past few decades.  It includes development of "high potentials" within the organization to effectively take over from the organization’s current leadership when the current leaders eventually depart.  Thus, succession planning requires a sharp focus on an organization's future and vision in order to align leadership development with the future that current leaders want to create.  For such a plan to be successful, a screening of future leadership should be based not only on "what we know and have" but also on "what we intend to become".   

• Executive coaching.  Personal coaching provides learning and strategic assistance for busy executives. Coaching can be used to address immediate tactical and long-term strategic issues, and it is regarded as one of the most powerful means of developing effective leadership skills. The coach is not a consultant in the traditional sense. Instead, the coach relates to the leader as a partner and not as the “expert”.  The coach and leader together choose the focus, format, and desired outcomes for their work.  

• Assessment-guided development.  One of the most proven forms of leadership development is the use of measurement and feedback to guide professional development.  This approach is especially helpful for people who work in complex, autonomous jobs and who rely heavily on other people for success – common characteristics of managers and senior executives.

We use multiple sources of data (from staff, peers, boss and self) to obtain a 360 degree perspective on critical aspects of work behavior ranging from planning to communicating to rewarding employees and colleagues.  We often interpret results based on comparisons with normative databases of many thousands of managers. 

Results from these instruments often are extremely powerful. The relevance of this information usually is self-evident.  Our 360 degree process often is the very first time that managers, executives and other leaders receive feedback that is so detailed about such a full range of their work.  Feedback reports provide detailed information on the most important aspects of performance obtained from the people who are the most knowledgeable – one’s bosses, peers, staff and oneself. 

This is illustrated below in sample results from an actual assessment (you can enlarge the diagram to see more detail).  The report shows norm-referenced ratings by self, boss, peers, and direct reports across a wide range of vital managerial responsibilities at a large California agency.  In this particular example, the rated manager was evaluated very favorably by his boss (red lines), peers (blue) and direct reports (green) with many of his ratings being in the 80^th percentile and higher.  In most cases, the manager’s self ratings (gray) were lower than the ratings of others, possibly reflecting a high level of aspiration and conscientiousness.

Sample of Norm-Referenced Results from the Survey of Management Practices

Advent Consulting Associates links these assessments to individual counseling for individualized feedback and interpretation.  That lays the foundation for a structured approach by Advent Consulting for career assessment and planning, goal setting, and professional development initiatives. 

Our Services

Advent Consulting Associates employs procedures that are based on relevant and reliable data to help guide both organizational development and leadership development initiatives.  We work closely with the client to define all plans of action, and we apply our knowledge of business and the behavioral sciences to bring the best tools and techniques to bear on clearly targeted issues.  Throughout our engagements we collect and monitor data for on-going evaluation of our client’s developmental progress.

While we rely on all sources of reliable information that are relevant to the client’s needs, we admit to a clear preference for quantitative data.   In this respect, we offer considerable expertise in measurement, data analysis, and psychometrics to select or create measures tailored to the specific requirements of our customers.

Our data collection processes actively engage the client to ensure a thorough coverage of the most important requirements of the business.  We then work closely with the client to review results and interpret their implications for future direction and any need for change.