Multi-Stakeholder Planning

Benefits:

Building a high performing organization or alliance in today's transparent, multi-stakeholder environment requires new approaches to strategy, collaboration, and performance measurement. We offer a variety of planning and performance services to help you get employees, investors, and other stakeholders focused on common strategies and goals. These include:

• Facilitation of planning sessions, including large group meetings
• Development of metrics, scorecards and other reporting tools
• Creation of business plans

Bruce Baude, President of Minneapolis-based Long Term Care Group, said:

"Dan did a terrific job facilitating a full day strategic planning session of 20+ senior managers for our company.  His obvious experience and talent helped us get the most out of the session.  I was particularly impressed by how fast he was able to become conversant on our specific business issues and cultural dynamics.  I’d hire him again without hesitation.”

Michael Brownlee, Catalyst for Boulder County Going Local:

Our sincere thanks for your facilitating World Café and Open Space Technology processes at our recent Community Think Tank on “How will Boulder County feed itself beyond the age of cheap oil?” This was our organization’s first foray into public dialogue, and we greatly appreciate the gentle and compassionate way you introduced these processes to people of diverse backgrounds who were not necessarily accustomed to thinking and working together in this manner. Your “holding the space” and patiently guiding the interaction were invaluable in making the day a memorable and productive event for those who participated. We look forward to your working with us in future public dialogue events.

Stephen Crabbe, President of SWP Industries, a leading manufacturer of cedar fencing says,

“SWP's Executive Staff worked with Dan Montgomery on the Balanced Scorecard concept in a seminar and we were so impressed, we had Dan come and assist us with the logical development of our own scorecard.  This tool ties strategy and financial performance together.  We can now measure our progress, while keeping the important things in focus.  Dan's facilitation skills were equally as impressive.”

Hal Richman, of Patient Dialog International, went through a Balanced Scorecard process to develop a new medical services offering, and had this to say:

 

“Dan’s approach to Balanced Scorecard forces people to squeeze the usual BS out of planning in a very short period of time and answer the questions: What do we do? How do we do it? What’s of value to people from their point of view? How would we know if we succeeded? ... "

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Improving Collaboration and Commitment

Benefits:

• Understand strengths and weakness of your organization's culture

• Build a high trust, high innovation culture

• Create and manage effective commitments and accountabilities

• Resolve problems and performance issues constructively

Business organizations and supply chains are a network of conversations and agreements. The level of trust, the openness of those conversations, and the quality of those agreements have a direct bearing on our ability to innovate, solve problems, and get work done together effectively.

Our services include:

• Culture assessment and feedback
• Speaking and workshops on the topic of collaboration, trust and their relationship to business performance
• Coaching services for leaders and management teams

Joe Cassidy, Assistant Vice President of Extended Studies at Naropa University, said this about Dan:

“Dan Montgomery is adept at assessing what would be most useful for an individual or team to work on. Dan worked with our management team both as a group and on an individual basis, assisting with identifying and articulating goals, improving communication among the team, between departments and across the organization. Dan immediately gained the confidence of our team, connecting us to learning resources while reflecting and uncovering key insights vital to our group that was at a historic cross road. I highly recommend Dan Montgomery as a support to institutional change, team building and process refinement. He is wise, gentle yet persistent and an honest and objective ally to leaders and lead teams.”

Roland Straub, CEO of Optimus Corporation, a high tech firm in Colorado going through a major strategic and organizational realignment, had this to say about Dan and frequent collaborator Susan Skjei:

“For the past 6 months you have been diligent in helping our Company to transform the set program into lived reality with the result of making change a major and positive constant of our organization. We commend you for your insightful and differentiated approach to organizational engineering based on your extensive experience in organizational stewardship and your commitment to the human factor!"

Donna Baranowski, Vice President of Vision and Finance for Credit Union Central of New Brunswick in Canada, says:

“From my perspective Dan is very knowledgeable in his field and totally in tune with how to communicate to/with various groups of stakeholders.  He finds the right balance of 'pushing the envelope', and letting people’s own views emerge, to get people engaged in the activity at hand.”

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Authentic Leadership Training

Benefits:

• Increase effectiveness with organizational issues

• Find well-being and meaning in your work

• Gain skills and confidence in leading change

• Energize and empower your organization

• Balance work and life commitments

• Integrate core values and performance

Authentic leaders respond creatively to change and uncertainty, engage others in collaboration and breakthrough thinking, while leading their organizations to achieve bottom line results in the midst of complexity. Authentic Leadership training will help you explore unique solutions to your organization’s challenges and opportunities, learn to apply multiple perspectives and skills, and create flexible organizations that thrive in a changing world.

In partnership with Susan Skjei, developer of the Authentic Leadership program at Naropa University, we are now offering customizable versions of this course to corporations and corporate training centers.   Authentic Leadership is a transformative leadership course that integrates ancient wisdom with effective, modern approaches to management.  Systems-thinking approaches to leadership and management are integrated with mind-body practices based on meditation, improvisation and martial arts. The format encourages deep personal learning in an environment that makes it possible to assimilate ideas and concepts at an accelerated pace. Topics include:

• Self-reflection and personal mastery
• Skillful conversation and conflict resolution
• Effective team action
• Power, influence and empowerment
• Leading organizational change

Typically, the course includes two on-site sessions, with telephone coaching provided in between sessions.

For more information on the program at Naropa, scheduled for Winter and Spring of 2009, see

http://www.naropa.edu/extend/marpa/leadership.cfm

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Executive Coaching

• Do you want to address issues that get in the way of being the leader you want to be?

• Do you want to bring something new into the world?

• Do you want to connect your values and your vision to your work?

• Do you want to create a collaborative and innovative organization based on a shared vision and focus?

We serve business owners, executives, management teams, and entrepreneurs (both social and business) in a variety of industries. What our clients have in common is that they want to bring their fullest selves to their work in the world.  Making something happen, creating a sustainable enterprise, requires an alignment of the inner life of the people involved – visions, aspirations, values – with the practicalities of plans, processes, and systems. Clients hire us because we understand both, and how they fit together.

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Dan and his associates have deep business experience over many decades, combined with an equal focus on the inside, the “interior condition” that makes all the difference.  That interior condition, authenticity, is based on a natural process of synchronizing mind, heart, and hand – language, emotions and body – so that we act wholeheartedly in the world.

As one of Dan's recent coaching clients said:

"Dan manages to be both a diplomat and a “tough love” guy, asking challenging questions but with a soft heart and great humor.  He asks questions I realize I need an answer to! ”

Jordanna Petkun, Founder and Director of the Emerge Art Center in San Diego, worked with Dan in the Authentic Leadership program and had this to say:

"Coaching with Dan Montgomery has created the space I needed for some important shifts to happen in my life. This has impacted my spiritual, emotional, and mental development in ways that have, in turn, impacted my soul."

Nick Head, a Federal Manager and Organizational Change Professional, says:

"Dan was hugely helpful to me in launching the next chapter in my career.  After bouncing possibilities around in my head for some years, the very positive experience I had with him helped make one attractive option very real, and got both the light and the heat turned up higher.  I came away saying 'I can do this.' So... THANK YOU!"

Coaching can be built into a larger planning or performance management process, or provided on a stand-alone basis to individuals or teams.

For a complimentary coaching session, call Dan Montgomery (Mountain Time GMT -7) at +1(303)942-1696 or e-mail at daniel@blue-opal.com

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