Data Loading...
Your Crescendo Proposal to Troup County Center for Strtateg…
45 Downloads
28.05 MB
Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Copy link
RECOMMEND FLIP-BOOKS
Your Crescendo Proposal to redefinED Atlanta Strategic Plan
Leadership Coaching Building High Performing Teams • Team Retreats • Forums • Strategic Planning Fac
Your Crescendo Proposal - Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative
funders (mostly Latino) that provide the blueprint for the school. By starting with connecting their
Your Crescendo Styleguide - 2021
screen applications, use RGB or Hex values. Hex : #3A804E RGB : 90 80 70 CMYK : 57 57 64 37 YC - Bro
Your Crescendo Leadership on Purpose for Habitat for Human…
Your Crescendo Leadership on Purpose for Habitat for Human… A guide to help your thinking through in
proposal for mayland
7, 365 days a year, rain or shine. Not jeopardizing the natural environment and surrounding area. Co
Sponsorship Proposal for BSSW 2017
87G0NlYjhQY Branding • The Event described as ‘Sponsored by...’ • Larger Space (min 4 x normal Stand
Strategic Delivery Solution - Your Crescendo
Approved Project Plan Updates ENSURE OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED • Manage Progress • Scope Verification • Ri
Why Purpose Matters - Your Crescendo
19392HBRReportEY.pdf 2016 ON PURPOSE C O N F E R E N C E
Your Crescendo Finding Your Forte Program Agreement
healthcare professional, to seek out whatever medical treatment is necessary or required. The client
Your Crescendo - Discover Your Purpose Worksheet
or career based on their gifts and help them execute it (our signature offering, Finding Your Forte)
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION PLAN FACILITATION PROJECT
SUBMITTED OCTOBER 2021
CENTER FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING, INC.
Maryanne Lovejoy Executive Director TROUPE COUNTY CENTER FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING, INC. 100 Ridley Ave, Suite 2200 LaGrange, GA 30240
crescendo n. (kre-shen-do) 1 a gradual increase; specifically: a gradual increase in volume of a musical passage 2 the peak of a gradual increase. Your Crescendo is your growth. Your increase in volume. Your peak. We find it highly appropriate to carry the name of what we are commited to. Your Crescendo. About Your Crescendo We are on a mission is to empower purpose and impact for leaders and talent in their business performance, leadership and careers.
Maryanne - Thank you for the opportunity to propose development of the strategic plan for TROUPE COUNTY CENTER FOR STRATEGIC PLANNING, INC. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about your work, history and approach and am elated at the prospect of facilitating development of your future trajectory and path forward. We see this as a compelling opportunity to empower your mission and purpose by engaging your board, leadership and county wide stakeholder in its affirmation of purpose while developing a strong plan to deliver on its promise. We’re excited to share how we might best be able to bring our services to bear for your forward progress. It is our understanding that you are at a critical juncture in the trajectory of your organization requiring clarity of purpose, vision and a road map as you prepare to recast your strategic plan forward and mobilize your leadership, board and stakeholders on a common game plan. As a business coach and consultant focused on purpose for organizations, I am most excited when I’m able to share the corporate and professional experiences we’ve amassed for organizations of noble andnoteworthymissions like yours. Your Crescendo is committed toenablingorganizations to deliver on their purpose. Your vision and mission to “work jointly and in a coordinated way in fostering balanced and healthy economic environmental and social development for all citizens, business and institutions” is compelling and inspiring both in its clarity and its opportunity for impact. We are excited to start a process that takes the momentum of your current work to clarify and restate that purpose and articulate a plan to deliver on it. Our approach to strategic articulation flows from clarity of purpose leading to waterfall development of elements of the plan. From purpose to vision to differentiators to strategic priorities to critical initiatives; we work through highly engaged and carefully facilitated discussions with the inner circle of stakeholders to collaboratively build a strategic articulation map. This deliverable serves as a guide for all stakeholders to support decisions, assess priorities, confirmgoals and action items by connecting them to vision snapshots and provide ‘one version of the truth’ in terms of where we are headed.
We propose to facilitate an approach that flows through three phases of work.
Phase I: Finding Your Forte - Stakeholder Assessment We will conduct interviews, surveys and facilitate focus groups as most appropriate across your stakeholder populations to understand current state, stakeholder impact and develop a baseline for the plan to work from. Phase II: Composing your Masterpiece - Strategic Articulation Facilitation Through a series of cumulative modules that build strategic planning elements on each other, we will take our internal stakeholders through a carefully facilitated series of modules that will ultimately articulate Troupe County’s path forward. We will bring our Strategic Articulation Map approach as a starting point and adapt it through planning conversations with your board and leadership. Phase III: Play Your Crescendo - Strategic Articulation Map Development Develop the strategic articulation deliverable that will guide our journey forward. This experience includes the professional fees for the facilitation, stakeholder assessments and the final deliverable. Thank you for the opportunity to engage you and your team. We look forward to your response, our progress and your impact.
Reggie Hammond, Your Crescendo Founder and Managing Partner Launched 2011 Career Highlights Accenture (Ohio and Atlanta) 1991 – 2005 Exervio Management Consulting Atlanta Office Lead (Vice- President) 2005 – 2011 Purpose To get the world on purpose with impact. Passion Empowering others performance through their gifts and purpose
Reggie Hammond Your Crescendo
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
2
TABLE CONTENTS
About Your Crescendo
4
Our Strategic Planning Point of View
5
Finding Your Forte
5
Strategic Planning Approach
6
Subject Matter Experts
7
Our Workplan
8
Project Budget and Fees
11
Noteworthy Project Briefs
12
Sample Deliverables
16
Professional Biography
21
One Client’s Experience
23
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
3
ABOUT YOUR CRESCENDO
Our Mission To ignite purpose and its pursuit in organizations, teams and individuals through intentional vision and strategy with their gifts, passions and motivations front of mind.
A Moving Performance To bring its most inspired performance, a symphony must have talented musicians that are at their best, well rehearsed and all engaged on the experience it is looking to inspire for its audience. Our mission is to orchestrate an inspired performance for maestros, instrument sections and musicians to bring their best performance.
LEADERS
TEAMS
INDIVIDUALS
Leadership on Purpose • Leadership Development • Executive / Leadership Coaching
Building High Performing Teams • Team Retreats • Forums • Strategic Planning Facilitation Finding Your Forte • Strategic Articulation • Grow-To-Market Strategy
Finding Your Forte • Executive Coaching
Placement on Purpose • Talent Acquisition
- Full-Time Roles - Consultants and Contractors
• Group Coaching • Speaker Series
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
4
OUR STRATEGIC PLANNING POINT OF VIEW Organizations and initiatives fulfill their purpose when their mission is well articulated, vision-casted and action-planned in an intentional way. I’ve been fortunate to facilitate and lead development of strategic plans throughout the duration of my 30 year career from consulting to coaching and facilitation. I’ve learned a few critical success drivers along the way. • Many organizations make significant investments in strategic plans that are eventually wasted when that perfectly designed document is placed in a binder and placed on the shelf and / or website - never to be activated or realized. How the plan is built is a major driver in its likelihood and enthusiasm to be implemented. Failure to immediately continue the momentum into implementation is the kiss of death for the best laid strategic plans. • The brightest, most inventive thinking to drive strategic plans usually rests within the purpose and passions of its leaders and staff. If you’re bringing someone in to recommend a strategy heavily influenced from the outside, you’re overlooking the best bank of knowledge and its right under your nose. It’s more important that a strategy is facilitated to come from multiple, often disparate and ranging views – supplemented by best practices from outside perspectives. • Take the pulse of your stakeholders before you huddle leaders to frame a new strategy. People can’t build what they can’t see. Vision snapshots are imperative. Give room for all of them. From Think Big to Start Small. These guiding principles can help you articulate one common vision to take forward and build that has been bought into in the making of it. - Reggie Hammond, Founder and Managing Partner, Your Crescendo FINDING YOUR FORTE
WHAT IS YOUR FORTE?
for·tay (fôr′tā′, fôrt) n. 1 Something in which a person excels. 2 A passage that is loud and played with force or is marked to be so.
Your Forte is where your leader or organization’s strengths and gifts meet your passions in a way that rewards you and serves your purpose to bring about your greatest impact. In other words, your purpose if fulfilled by doing 1-what you love, 2-what you’re good at in a way that 3-rewards you
YOUR FORTE NEEDS A PLAN
WHY YOU NEED YOUR FORTE
Stronger business and career performance
Leadership from Your Strength
Engagement and Fulfillment
Your Most Organic Success
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
5
STRATEGIC PLANNING APPROACH We approach strategic articulation beginning with a common sense of purpose. A mutual understanding of why. From there, we collaboratively build clarity of vision through snapshots on time horizons of Think Big (5+ years), Start Small (one year from now) and Scale Fast (about 3 years). With those visions snapshots as a guide and tapping into the power of visualization, we identify: • how we will measure progress
• what we have to do differently and • what strategic priorities are required.
From there, our critical initiatives give us the action items to execute and a well-informed foundation to deliver the business outcomes successfully. OUR METHODOLOGY: HOW WE ARTICULATE STRATEGIES
COMPOSE YOUR MASTERPIECE
FIND YOUR FORTE
PLAY YOUR CRESCENDO
VISION
IMPACT
PLAN
EXECUTE
• Project Timeline • Inspired Team • Impact Made, Vision Realized, Purpose Fulfilled
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
6
SUBJECT MATTER EXPERTS For Opportunity Discovery and Visioning Sessions
Jim Wehrner President, Focused Community Strategies Expertise: Affordable Housing Development, Flourishing Neighborhoods Akilah Watkins-Butler CEO, President, Center for Community Progress Expertise: Affordable Housing, Eliminating Vacant, Abandoned and Dilapidated Housing and Blight Odetta MacLeish-White Former Executive Director, Transformation Alliance Director of Georgia Initiatives Expertise: Equitable Transit Oriented Development, Coalition Building Chris Norman Executive Director, Metro Atlanta Land Bank Expertise: Affordable Housing, Land Banks
MaKara Rumley Founder and CEO, Hummingbird Firm Expertise: Environment and Community Engagement
Brittany Collins Founding Director of PAACT: Promise All Atlanta Children Thrive Expertise: Early Childhood Education, Collective Impact Adam Williamson Principal, TSW Expertise: City Planner, Landscape Architect, Planning and Design of Livable Communities Special Note: Native of LaGrange, Graduated from LaGrange High School
Rashidah Lopez Principal, Education First Expertise: Teachers and Education Philanthropy
Angela King Smith Partner, Education Resource
Strategies Expertise:
K-12 Education, Culture, Engagement and Strategy
Jomal Vailes, CFRE Executive Director at STRIVE Atlanta Expertise: Workforce Development
Tolton Pace Strategic Partnerships & Grant Programs, The Home Depot Foundation Former Program Manager, WorkSource Atlanta Expertise: Workforce Development, Community Engagement
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
7
OUR WORKPLAN
Month 1 • Getting Started • Mobilize Task Force
Phase 1 Finding Your Forte
• We recommend each board member appoint a vision keeper to help architect the strategic plan and lead building the vision once its in implementation. • Determine Stakeholder Groups and Populations and Plan Assessment Tool Channels (Interviews, Focus Groups or Surveys) • Conduct Kickoff Month 2 - 3 • Area Studies - Research and Best Practice Discovery - Emerging Trends and Solution Approaches • For each of the 10 strategic priorities from prior strategic plan, we will conduct a research study to assess current state to provide analytics, research, key findings and strategic recommendations. Month 2 - 4 • Conduct Stakeholder Assessments • Interviews (20) - Each Board Member • Focus Groups (10) - Each Strategic Goal • SOAR and Opportunity Discovery Audits • Net Promoter Score (Outreach for High Levels of Response) • “Would you recommend a friend that doesn’t currently live here to move to Troupe County? Why?”
April - June
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
8
OUR WORKPLAN
Phase 2 Composing Your Masterpiece
Month 5 - 6 • Strategic Articulation Working Sessions with Core team through each module • Strategic Articulation Facilitated Sessions (2 hours per topic) • Purpose and Mission • Vision Casting • Headline Indicators • Core Values and Culture
July - October
• Strategic Priorities • Critical Initiatives • Implementation and Work planning
DELIVERABLE: Strategic Articulation Map
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
9
OUR WORKPLAN
Phase 3 Play Your Crescendo
Month 7 - 8 • Presentation to Stakeholders • Strategic Articulation Enhancements • Strategic Plan Deliverable Development and Delivery • Implementation Plan Development
DELIVERABLE Strategic Articulation Deck
September - October
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
10
PROJECT BUDGET AND FEES
Phase
Month (estimated)
Fees
Phase 1 - Finding Your Forte
Months 1 - 4
$36k
Phase 2 - Composing Your Masterpiece
Months 5 - 6
$20k
Phase 3 - Play Your Crescendo
Months 7 - 8
$12k
Total
$68k
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
11
NOTEWORTHY PROJECT BRIEFS
Purpose is a powerful accelerator for articulating visions, outcomes and priorities in way that mobilizes stakeholders to the ‘why’ of their work. It also substantially enables building high performing boards and leadership excellence through clarity of work, vision and the change mandate. With focused intent, we work to harness that power to create engaging, personally vested and mission impactful facilitated engagements. We approach facilitation as an opportunity to create immersive experiences that embolden the purpose of the organization. We design experiences with intent and a focus on engagement. Below are highlights from recent engagements we’ve facilitated that illustrate these objectives in the facilitated experience we designed.
The experiences highlighted below are of Your Crescendo engagements:
Focused Community Strategies - Strategic Plan
Metro Atlanta Land Bank Authority - Strategic Plan, Brand Refresh on Purpose
As an approach to level set new board members with old on how landbanks work, we had board members play an equity version of Monopoly with members having the opportunity to be the ‘land banker’.
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
12
Transformation Alliance - Strategic Plan, Equitable Transit Oriented Development
In an effort to create an immersive experience connected to their purpose related to equitable transit-oriented development, we had members take MARTA to our strategic planning session. We also featured only vendors in the community neighborhoods they served including We were part of a team engaged to define the strategic articulation for Transformation Alliance focused on equitable transit-oriented development through mobilizing a group on non-profits and creating cohesive synergies to combat racial inequity in Atlanta with regards to transit and development.
Atlanta Wealth Building Initiative - Board Retreat
We led Atlanta Wealth Building Institute’s board and leadership through a two-day retreat experience. As an organization, AWBI is focused on closing the black wealth gap in Atlanta through empowering entrepreneurship and systemically strengthening access to capital for black entrepreneurs. We designed and delivered this strategic planning experience to mobilize a strong, working board to empower their new executive director and set her up for success.
SLAM! Academy Atlanta - Charter School Launch
In a high stakes team building and strategic plan development retreat, a soon-to-launch charter school had a contentious relationship between its board (mostly African-American) and the foundation/funders (mostly Latino) that provide the blueprint for the school. By starting with connecting their purpose to the school mission allowing them to more meaningfully get to know each other and then work together to plan the strategic articulation’s implementation.
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
13
Leadership Atlanta - Leadership Johns Creek
Atlanta Public Schools While leading delivering of key district strategic initiatives in the midst of a cheating scandal, the leader and the strategic program and project delivery team found themselves working through abysmal morale. We facilitated a series of Finding Your Forte starting with the key leader and then her team. This energy carried over into the entire district when the new superintendent embraced StrengthsFinder as a strategic thrust to ‘Focus on What’s Strong instead of What’s Wrong’. This helped them navigate beyond the scandal, and now every teacher and staff knows their strength from StrengthsFinder and the use them in everyday education processes and support.
Healthy Belvedere Summerhill Neighborhood Development Corporation (in process) Resources for Residents and Communities (Reynoldstown) East Lake Foundation (in process) Neighborhoods
Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS) Promising All Atlanta Children Thrive (PAACT)
National Black Child Development Institute (In Process)
Dogwood Alliance
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
14
ATLANTA FOOD & FARM – STRATEGIC ARTICULATION AND IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING
We facilitated the development of Atlanta Food and Farm Strategic Articulation. We also led the development of their implementation plan and delivered project management training to their team.
Contact: Kwabena Nkromo, Executive Director
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
15
SAMPLE DELIVERABLES Metro Atlanta Land Bank - Placemat Style Strategic Plan
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
16
SAMPLE DELIVERABLES Focused Community Strategies - Strategy, People and Implementation
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
17
SAMPLE DELIVERABLES Transformation Alliance - Robust plan with supporting rationale for key decisions
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
18
SAMPLE DELIVERABLES The Forum on Education Abroad - Net Promoter Score
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
19
SAMPLE DELIVERABLES Dogwood Alliance - SOAR Analysis
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
20
PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY
COACHING AND LEADERSHIP PROFILE Reggie Hammond is committed to his mission to help leaders, teams and organizations live their purpose in their projects, business, careers and lives. He focuses on helping professionals find their forte through optimizing their passions, gifts/strengths and marketrewarding motivations in a way that impacts their purpose and the world around them. He uses this approach to help leaders drive purpose and engagement in their teams and organizations.
• Coaching for Performance (GROW Model) • Purpose-Focused Careers and Business • Program and Project Management • Value Realization / Delivery • Strategic Planning
• Employee Engagement • Keynote Speaker • Go-To-Market Strategy • Business Development Planning • Business Case
Reggie Hammond
“Mission based organizations have a clear advantage of igniting realization of their purpose through the purpose of their people and stakeholders. To make the most of this imperative, it is mission critical that they have: • A well articulated singular vision of their future • A stakeholder community that understands and adopts the mission, vision and strategic priorities • A culture for clear communication of the task at hand and high performing camaraderie for all involved. The organizations that get this and mobilize their strategy with this in mind are well positioned to witness the impact and success their purpose so richly deserves.” – Reggie Hammond
EXPERIENCE Reggie has a long, successful track record of empowering the performance of leaders, teams and organizations. His experience encompasses driving both individual and business performance for his clients. He has committed his professional career to delivering business critical initiatives for the individuals and organizations he has engaged through consulting, leading and coaching.
YOUR CRESCENDO Founder and Managing Partner • Executive Coach, Consultant and Facilitator
• Offerings: Finding Your Forte (Coaching); Strategic Articulation and Planning; High Performing Teams on Purpose (Teams and Leadership Retreats); Placement on Purpose (Full-time and contractor placement); Talent and Leadership Development • Coaching and Placement Clients have included: Coca-Cola Enterprises, Atlanta Public Schools, Fulton County School System, Impact Church, Navigator Management Consulting • Speaking and Workshop Clients have included: Accenture, Deloitte, Turner Broadcasting, UNUM Group, WELCOA (Wellness Coalition Association), AT&T
EXERVIO MANAGEMENT CONSULTING Vice President, Atlanta Office (Launched) • Clients included The Coca-Cola Company, AT&T, Fiserv • Key Accomplishment: Developed and Deployed Net Client Value (NCV) Strategy and Approach, Program Delivery Diagnostic
ACCENTURE Senior Manager, Business Process Excellence and Business Case Delivery • Clients included Unilever, Hallmark, Borden Foodservice, Victoria Secret Stores, • Key Accomplishments: Developed Find the Money program for ERP Benefits Realizations and Value Delivery • Co-founder of Diversity initiatives / affinity groups in two offices: Ohio (CARE 2000) and Atlanta (African American In Motion) AAIM
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
21
STRATEGIC PLANNING CLIENTS Impact Church
Centric Consulting • Placement on Purpose
• Strategic Articulation and Marketing and Branding Strategy • Vision Construction (Strategy Implementation)
Historic Westside Gardens • Strategic Articulation / Leadership Retreat
Navigator Management Partners • Atlanta Go-To-Market Strategy • Placement on Purpose
Atlanta Public Schools • Executive Coaching • Finding Your Forte (Leadership Retreat) • Cluster Strategy Plan Development Fulton County School System • Communications Leadership Team Retreat
Exceleration Partners / Potential Matters • Strategic Articulation
Whizzimo • Launch Strategy
EXECUTIVE COACHING - GO-TO-MARKET STRATEGY
The Ascend Consultancy Group • Go-To-Market Strategy
Albireo Group • Executive Coaching • Strategic Delivery Partner Black Teacher Collaborative • Strategic Articulation
The Lean Coach, Inc • Go-to-Market Strategy
712 Exchange • Go-to-Market Strategy
The Honeycomb Life • Launch Go-to- Market Strategy
BeckWay Group • Launch and Go-To-Market Strategy
The Global Launchpad • Go-to-Market Strategy
BlueFletch Mobile • Go-to-Market Strategy
Conserte Consulting • Go-to-Market Strategy
CONSULTING CLIENTS
Unilever • Bestfoods - Post Merger Integration Strategy • Foodservice Strategy AT&T • Tower Operations Strategy • Supply Chain Consulting Resources
The Coca-Cola Company • Innovation Process and Systems Strategy • Global Project Manager Training Delivery
Hallmark • Business Transformation Strategy (ERP enabled)
SELECT ACCOMPLISHMENTS • Keynote Speaker – WELCOA Summit (Wellness Coalition of America), SAP User Conference, Accenture, Deloitte, UNUM Group • Performance Consultants International, Coaching for Performance Certification • Accenture Atlanta – Coach of the Year – 2000 • Accenture Atlanta and Ohio – Founder of Diversity Initiative – AAIM and CARE 2000 • Create Your Dreams, Board Chair; TechBridge, Board Member UN Women, Global Women For Well Being (GW4W) Founding Member EDUCATION • The Ohio State University, MBA – Operations and Finance • Albany State University, BS - Marketing
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
22
ONE CLIENT’S EXPERIENCE An interview with Samantha (Evans) Maxey, Executive Director of Communications Fulton County School System
What was your objective? I wanted to bring in an outside person to be able to facilitate a process where my team was engaged and where we could be refocused on our work; see our deficiencies, strengths and building blocks to move forward and create our plan for the next year. Usually, we would do it on our own. This time I thought it might be helpful to have that outside perspective.
In addition, I was new in my role. I was there a little under a year. So there were also some internal dynamics at play as there will be with new leaders, new plans, new ways of doing things, etc. I was also very interested in getting help to gel better with my team.
Describe the experience. Were there any memorable moments? The experience started before the actual event with the entire team. This was incredibly valuable to me. Reggie and I met a couple times and had in depth conversations about my needs, hopes and goals. He was very candid from the start, which I appreciated. He told me, “We need to deal with you first, see what’s going on with you, before we focus on the team.” He helped me pull out my own deficiencies as a leader. He challenged me to be comfortable with those types of conversations. He then started drafting some things based on what he heard. He shared those plans with me and his creativity was amazing. He presented a menu of options for the different ways to engage, price point, etc. Having those choices allowed me to pick and choose the right solution for our needs. Then, we got to the part of engaging with the team. He came to the office, met the team, introduced himself and prepped them for what they were going to experience. It definitely got them curious, which was good. Then, the actual day was amazing. It was refreshing to be in this contemporary space, to think, reflect and breathe. Breakfast was set up. His attention to the little things made all the difference. It was important for the whole experience. He knew that. We had breakfast, mingled and just enjoyed each other, which was nice. The structure, organization and very deliberate way he went from one item to the next was perfect. He wasn’t afraid to push where he needed to push. Again, he wasn’t afraid to allow us to be uncomfortable.
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
23
Reggie knew more about communications and public education than I knew. I was really surprised. He did his homework. He knew our challenges. There was no, let’s get him up to speed. He was 100 percent present. And that was important. He knew our stakeholders, roles, environment, etc. I was impressed. There was one memorable moment when he pointed out a stakeholder group we hadn’t made a real focus. He was surprised. After the light bulb moment, we were too. We still talk about it to this day. Reggie took the time to do the work to make sure he would truly be a good guide and expert on what we deal with, and what we were trying to accomplish. The icing on the cake was that he went out and found some communications professionals to come in and have a two-way conversation with us to discuss best practices, things we were doing, opportunities for growth, current trends, etc. That was the best part for us. Reggie was smart enough to not bring in other educators, but corporations like Coke and AT&T to provide fresh perspective and new thinking. The entire team said that we need to do that regularly because it was just so valuable. What has changed for you since working with Your Crescendo? For me personally, I am now forced to regularly step back and take a breath. I find myself thinking more about my team, my expectations, how I’m communicating with them, how communication is being received, the impact that it is having. I’m also more cognizant about being more caring, listening, paying attention to the unspoken things, body language, etc. I am holding myself more accountable. Then there are the tactical things: how we work more collaboratively on plans, working more as unit, how we lead staff meetings. As far as my team, what was tremendous was that we walked away feeling more like a team. I had this one colleague who rejected this word “team”; didn’t understand how that reflected our department, work. And now that person is more comfortable with using the word; and sees that we are all concerned about each other and working together to accomplish our shared goals. Why Your Crescendo? As professionals and leaders, we are too close to our own work and our perspective on a daily basis to be objective enough to see opportunities for growth; opportunities period. It is refreshing to get an outside perspective to measure your success, your progress, your worth. You cannot do it yourself. I think it’s critical to have that outside view. And then there’s Reggie who comes to the table with tons of resources, who is so creative and all inclusive of the possibilities of how you can strengthen yourself, your organization and what you what to accomplish. Every consultant cannot do that. But he has very natural knack for it. I enjoyed the entire experience. Really, the actual day was just a piece of it for him. He was thoughtful, organized and had a big-picture view of how to help me and my team. While working with him, you wouldn’t think he had other clients. You would have thought he worked in public schools with the knowledge, skill and expertise he brought.
I would recommend him any day. He is the real deal.
FINDING YOUR FORTE STRATEGIC ARTICULATION
24