Brochure
Full Circle Consulting motivates teams to align and succeed rapidly (operational development); enables teams to communicate well among themselves and with other teams and silos, both orally and in writing; and dissolves conflicts. We have many years’ experience successfully consulting in and doing all of these.
Full Circle Consulting also coaches senior managers and executives to improve so as to perform their jobs better, to be prepared for promotion, and to influence and inspire others effectively. Weaknesses become strengths. We also been successful in this for many years with people of many backgrounds and cultures.
We use whatever methods and tools are appropriate for the task. When it is best, we start with one approach and move to other approaches as progress dictates. We are not tied to a single formula, a rigid method, or a fixed approach. We are eclectic.
How do we proceed? We meet with a person or a small group in your organization, sign a mutual non-disclosure agreement, and ask you to choose a particular senior person to whom we will report: our contact person.
We explore the problem with you or the contact person. We feel out underlying issues that need to be addressed. We meet with the person or people involved in the problem to be sure there is mutual interest, a good chemistry. Sometimes we are able to make a proposal for the first phase of work at this stage. Sometimes more conversations and exploration are needed.
We usually discuss, with our contact and the people involved, whom else we should talk with or interview, what meetings we should attend, how we will proceed, other parameters of the project; and with mutual agreement, write a proposal and then undertake the consultation.
The written proposal is the plan for the work to be done in the first phase, the time-line for the first phase, and the cost for that phase. It also gives you estimates of the other phases, rough estimates of their time-lines and of what seem likely to be their costs. We explore each of these with you before the we write the proposal. The proposal is a key piece of our contractual agreement with you. The proposal includes what confidences we will keep with the people in the problematic area, what we will discuss with the contact person, how often we will provide interim reports and to whom, and when we anticipate a final report.
We negotiate details and costs of each subsequent phase with you as we proceed.
Each problem is unique. If it can be measured, we will make measurements before intervening and at intervals while intervening to test whether we are going in the right direction.
Motivating teams.
Generally, we meet with the team, get to know the members, and talk with them both as a team and individually. If the chemistry is good, we sit in on meetings to discern the interactions and particularly the difficulties.
What we do to motivate alignment and success depends on the difficulties. We may largely work with the team as a whole, perhaps exploring goals and tasks, or opening discussions of the team members’ interactions. This may be done at regular meetings or it may require specific, additional meetings, even off site. We may discuss specific personality issues with individuals on the team and the person to whom we report. It may be best to do all of these.
These steps provide us with information on how to proceed and provides all involved a basis for further steps to motivate the team. Our intent is to encourage, nudge, suggest; to put the responsibility on the team to make decisions, accept or modify suggestions, to align and succeed.
When the team has succeeded, we return at intervals as negotiated with the team and with you to encourage the team to remain aligned and targeted to goals and success. This follow-up may take weeks or months.
Communication within and between teams and silos.
What we do depends on the kinds of communication, the quality of communication before we get involved, and the number of people. We will listen to oral communications and read written ones. We discuss communications with the team and its members. With that information, we provide a written proposal as above.
Our work depends on encouraging, correcting gently with praise, and inspiring. Improvement is an evolving process. Once communication has improved, we discuss with the contact person whether further observations would be valuable, at what intervals, and for how long. The goal is to be sure improvements last.
Dissolving conflicts.
Each conflict is unique. What needs to be done depends on the conflict and its underlying causes.
In general, we meet with each party separately to get to know them and to ensure they feel we are the right ones to work with them and their counterparts. If everyone agrees, we write a proposal as above.
Usually the first task is to explore the conflict and seek its causes. This involves observing and talking with people both alone and together. It may involve conversations with others who are affected by the conflict, or who are outside the conflict but know the people involved.
How we proceed to the active phase depends on the personalities and the problems. We may mediate, discuss matters to look for compromises or an effective resolution; or use tools to explore the conflict in detail, to help each party grasp the perspective of their opponent, or to examine whether parties are working in good faith. We may work with the parties separately, together, or both.
Executive coaching.
Once you and our contact person are comfortable with our undertaking the coaching, we begin by meeting the individual, discussing coaching, and seeing if there is good chemistry between us and if we are likely to be of help. If this seems the case, we write a proposal as above.
We generally work with the individual and our contact person, separately, to explore whom else we should talk with, or formally interview, and the topics. Often the additional talks are both with others in the organization and in the individual’s outside life. The topics concern the matters you, the contact person, and the individual want to improve. The conversations are all confidential. We discuss their gist with the individual we are coaching, but at most give only a general summary to the contact person.
The individual needs to decide a couple of matters or behaviors he or she would like to change, a time line, and ways to communicate with others who can help and who can give feedback.
At first, we meet with the individual fairly often to discuss problems, methods, and progress, feedback, wins and losses, solutions and strategies. At intervals, we find out from those we have already talked with how they perceive changes. As things improve, intervals for all of this get longer, eventually perhaps four weeks apart. The overall time varies with individuals and their pace of improvement. As a general rule, observation at intervals is needed for a year.
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