Our Services

Sustainable Strength-based Solutions is a firm committed to helping organizations not only survive but also thrive during times of tumultuous socioeconomic and demographic change.

There are no canned, one solution fits all approaches that deliver the desired results in our rapidly changing world. The solutions that worked yesterday will not provide organizations with sustainable financial results and a competitive advantage.

Sustainable Strength-based Solutions approaches each client as unique, recognizing that the DNA of each organization is completely different and requires a customized approach. Each organization has a unique culture and core competencies realized through the strengths and skills of their employees.

Consulting Services: Our consulting services include, organizational development, change management, Appreciative Inquiry Summits, leadership development, coaching, team-building, needs assessments, gap analysis, long term strategic development, talent management, business plan development, project management & implementation, direction, re-engineering of mission & focus, improving human performance, designing learning that supports the organization’s business strategy,  performance measurement & evaluation and research & organizational assessment.

Presentations, Speeches, and Training:

 All presentations, speeches, and training sessions can be customized to meet your specific business needs. Formats available include:

Training/workshop sessions – 1 to 2 hours
Keynote speeches – 1 hour
Breakout sessions – 1 to 3 hours
Seminars – half-day to two days

 

    Presentation and Training Topics Include:
Strength Based Development | Communication | Mentoring | Large-group change | Creativity | Productivity | Knowledge Sharing

 The Strengths Journey - Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask  

The Strengths Journey is an eight session course based on the idea that people have more potential for growth when developing strengths rather than correcting weaknesses. Each human being is blessed with unique talents that can be developed into strengths. Each individual is responsible for knowing their strengths and taking a stand for them. The strengths journey will provide employees with practical tools to help sharpen their strengths, manage their weaknesses, and be at their personal best.

Identifying each individual’s unique strengths will enable them to maximize their performance and productivity.

Session 1 - Introduction to the Strengths Journey
Session 2 – Better understand your own Signature Talents
Session 3 – How your Signature Talents work together
Session 4 – How to understand and respect talent differences
Session 5 – How to manage around your weaknesses
Session 6 – How to deal with a weakening environment
Session 7 – How to build your job around your greatest talents
Session 8 – How to transform yourself from an “employee” into a brand using your unique Signature Talents

 Aligning a Multigenerational Workforce – Strength Based Communication

For the first time in modern society, four distinct generations of people are interacting in the workforce. Each sees the world with a different perspective influenced by the demographic, economic, and social trends of their formative years. Competencies required of leaders operating in an appreciative strength-based organizational culture encompassing four diverse generational cohorts include sensitivity to diversity, an emphasis on open communication, and an understanding of the strengths and benefits of a multigenerational workforce.
Debby will show how organizations can breakdown resistance and communication barriers and promote an organizational culture that is inclusive and appreciative of individual and generational strengths.

   Establish a Mentoring Culture

Debby will show how to launch an effective mentoring program within your organization.

Mentoring is widely recognized today as an extremely beneficial career development tool. Studies have shown that mentored employees, perform better on the job, advance more rapidly within the organization, express lower turnover intentions than their nonmentored counterparts, and report more job and career satisfaction.

The Business Case for Mentoring:

• Thirty-five percent of employees who do not receive regular mentoring plan to seek other employment within a year.
  
  
• Only 16% of employees with good mentors planned to leave their companies. 
  
  
• More than 60% of college and graduate students listed mentoring as a criterion for selecting an employer after graduation.
  
  
• Training alone increased managerial productivity by 24%, but jumped to 88% when mentoring and coaching were combined.
  

Mentoring is also widely acknowledged as an effective means to transfer knowledge between employees. Mentoring can increase communication and strengthen employee bonds while ensuring that accumulated knowledge and experience is shared and passed on, reducing the impact when employees leave.

Appreciative inquiry (AI) is a proven method for managing and accelerating change by involving a broad range of internal and external stakeholders in the change process. AI may be a single event or a series of events that bring people together. In The Appreciative Inquiry Summit, James Ludema, Diana Whitney, Bernard Mohr, & Thomas Griffin describe AI as an event that brings participants together to:

• Discover the organization’s or community’s core
  competencies and strengths
  
  
• Envision opportunities for positive change
  
  
• Design the desired changes into the organization’s or community’s systems, structures, strategies, and culture
  
  
• Implement and sustain the change and make it work.

Debby will show how AI can be a powerful tool to get everyone involved, strengthen relationships, negate generational conflict, and quickly produce remarkable results.

Creativity and Change

As Robert C. Gallagher so succinctly put it, "Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine." In this discussion on creativity and change, Debby will show how to overcome resistance to change, increase receptivity to change, and identify and understand the targets of change. As stated by Tolstoy “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” John Kotter’s eight-step change model will be presented as one method to create and manage the change process.

How to conduct productive meetings

 “Wise men speak because they have something to say;
Fools because they have to say something.” -Plato

Leaders can either inspire people in meetings or drain their energy. In this presentation, Debby describes the difference between an effective meeting and a dysfunctional meeting. The four different types of meetings are defined, and eight strategies for a productive meeting are explained.

 Establish a Knowledge Sharing Culture

Knowledge is the organization’s most strategic asset and effective knowledge management is of central importance to organizations in the information age. Drucker predicted the 21st century would bring unprecedented societal change caused by the rapidly aging population, concurrent with the shrinking of the younger population. Many organizations will not realize the value of the loss of employees’ knowledge until workers leave their jobs. The unique, context-specific knowledge residing in the heads and hands of baby boomers is an undervalued and poorly managed organizational asset in most organizations. Debby will show leaders and managers how to purposefully manage the transfer of knowledge from retiring employees to younger employees, so that organizations may not only survive but also potentially thrive during the impending workforce transitions.