Services: 30 Core Services
The Talent Advisor offers 6 service lines and 30 total services as shown below. Scroll down the page for a brief description of each.
Services Offered
Building The People Who Build Your Business
Building Effective Organizations
CEO & Executive Team
People and Teams
Leadership
Talent Infrastructure
Other Services
Org Strategy & Metrics
Developing or refreshing your strategic plan by identifying future trends, scenario planning 4 different futures, mission, vision, values, identifying the top 4-7 strategic priorities, and a dashboard of key metrics using a balanced scorecard framework. Often accomplished via focus groups followed by a 2 day facilitated planning session.
Org Design: Structure
Structure flows from strategy. The science of structure gives consideration to: the 5 main types of structures, effective portfolio sizes, manager to direct report ratios, levels of management, centralized vs decentralized, and implications of scope lines. Often accomplished via upfront interviews and a series of facilitated sessions.
Performance Management
An integrated approach to implementing strategy that combines workplans (results) + values (behaviour) + development (growth) to drive annual salary increases. Components include design criteria, branding/naming, designing system, and manager training. Often accomplished through a series of 4-5 design meetings plus manager training.
Culture Transformation
Culture is best defined as: the way we do things around here. Does your culture help or hinder your ability to achieve strategy? Often accomplished through a stocktaking of current culture vs future desired culture, an updating of values, developing leaders, and a series of other actions.
Org Review / Health Check
Is the organization performing optimally? What’s working well? What could be improved? Even if you do an employee engagement survey, this probes deeper than generic survey questions. Often accomplished via of interviews, focus groups, a comparison to best-practices, analysis, and the presentation of recommendations to the executive team.
Building Effective Organizations
CEO 360 Feedback
Feedback is a gift. 360 feedback provides powerful insights into how your style is seen by others. This can be part of an annual CEO performance review, or purely for development. Often accomplished via the completion of a tool(s) and a 1-1 coaching session with an optional Board summary available.
CEO Succession
Who succeeds the CEO? The COO?...CFO?...External?...Whoever is liked, popular, and had the most recent face time with the Board? Objective data adds value. Often accomplished by having all executive members complete 3 assessment tools, providing each a 1-1 coaching session, and a talent dashboard being presented to the Board.
Executive Team Development
An executive development program builds both the team and individuals via a common approach and common language. Components include: assessment tools, a series of core content modules on leadership, 1-1 coaching sessions, and a re-assessment 12 months later to measure individual and overall ROI.
Executive Coaching
Executive coaching engagements span 3, 6, or 12 months. The process is generally: awareness, analysis, action, achievement. Often accomplished via 1-3 upfront assessment tools, and 1-2 formal coaching sessions per month.
Talent Dashboard
A talent dashboard summarizes high level leadership assessment data for each leader. This strategic information can be used for any/all of the following: to inform a succession plan, identification of collective group strengths and gaps, to inform a discussion on current vs desired culture.
CEO & Executive Team
Team Building Tools
This is aimed at an intact team or a project team and consists of a combination of assessment tool(s), a facilitated session(s), best-practices in teamwork (models, behaviours, etc.), analysis of group summary assessment results, discussion of team strengths and gaps, a team simulation, and action planning.
Team Building Simulations
Brent has 10 no-fluff simulations ranging from 2-8 hours for groups from 8-200 people. Each is high energy, impactful, fun, and contain many practical and powerful lessons. They are regularly delivered at team retreats, summits, offsites, conferences big or small.
Assessment Tool Group Data
When your team completes an assessment tool, several benefits occur: (1) growth for the individual and (2) growth for the team through the discussion of collective group data and the patterns within that identify team strengths and development areas. It is also a good benchmark from which to measure growth a year later.
Team Coaching
This refers to 1-1 coaching for each team member. The coaching is aimed at helping them perform at their best both individually and as part of a collective team. Often an assessment tool(s) and/or interview(s) are used in conjunction with coaching to coach from a base of data. Can be 1-5 sessions per person.
Values / Competencies
Companies need either values or competencies, but not both. The intent of each is to provide expectations for behaviour and in doing so, define the culture you aspire toward. Once identified, they can then be used in interview questions, orienting new hires, development plans, performance management, coaching people, etc.
People & Teams
Leadership Development Strategy
Most companies either have no leadership development strategy (sink or swim), or an ad-hoc patchwork approach (anyone can take anything). Let’s build a structured framework that shows a path for how you grow frontline leaders, mid-level leaders, and senior leaders.
Leadership Development Programs
Brent has designed and delivered over 200 custom LD programs in 8 different countries on mine sites, shop floors, executive boardrooms, and mountainside retreats. They often contain a mix of the following components: upfront assessments, a series of core content modules on various leadership topics, a series of coaching sessions, action learning projects, and ROI re-assessments.
Leadership 360 Feedback
360 feedback has been called a leadership superfood. Doing leadership development without 360 feedback is like trying to grow a plant without water. It provides powerful insights into how our style is seen by others. Brent has administered and interpreted 500 of these per year for 20+ years.
Leadership Coaching
Leadership coaching spans 3, 6, or 12 months. The goal is typically acceleration up a learning curve, course correction, or polishing a diamond. Often accomplished via 2-3 upfront assessment tools, interviews, and 1-2 formal coaching sessions per month.
Assessment Tool Insights
Assessment tools provide data to help leaders grow and group summary data provides powerful insights into collective leadership strengths and gaps. Brent is certified in 20+ tools (360, 180, and self-assessments) and would work with you to determine the mix right for you, your team, or your leaders. Examples include: MBTI, Leadership Accelerators & Derailers, Leadership Competency Portfolio, The 6 Leadership Styles, the LPI360, Leader as Coach, Emotional Intelligence, and Business Development / Sales Index.
Leadership
People & Culture: Strategy & Metrics
Having spent 15 years in senior HR mgmt roles, Brent has been part of the team creating many of these over the years. In 16 years of global consulting, he facilitated 8-10 People Strategies per year x 15 years. Strategy, structure, service delivery model, priorities, metrics are all covered.
People & Culture Audit-lite
This involves taking stock of the current approach to people & culture via document reviews, interviews, a comparison to best-practices, and making recommendations in a written report presented to the head of People & Culture.
Org Learning Strategy
Invest in your people and your people invest back in your organization. Brent has worked with many companies to build a learning strategy. Imagine a 5 page document stating your corporate commitment to development, roles & responsibilities, processes, learning methods, metrics, and a framework with recommended programs for each level.
Succession Planning
Through a series of 3 facilitated meetings with the senior team (with homework between each) you will: identify key positions, assess the risk of each, identify up to 3 potential successors for each key positions, complete a brief analysis of each successor, calculate metrics, and identify growth plans.
Change Management
This is a 2 day workshop that will equip your leaders with essential skills for managing the people side of change. Using a combination of ProSci and Kotter approaches, leaders have the knowledge, tools, and confidence to effectively lead change.
Talent Infrastructure
Conference Keynotes
Brent has presented at 8-10 conferences per year for 15 years. The duration ranges from 1 hour keynotes to 1-3 hour breakout sessions to groups ranging from 20-500. Topics vary widely but are most commonly centred on leadership, change, and/or other talent related topics.
Business Development & Sales Workshop
This is a 2 day program with 2 assessment tools that teaches people how to do business development and manage a sales cycle to win business. It has been delivered to global management consulting firms, engineering firms, pharmaceutical sales, law firms, IT consulting firms, and to the executive education department of several universities.
Creativity & Innovation
Would you like to learn a structured approach for generating new ideas, analyzing emerging ideas, or just managing meetings better? The 6 Thinking Hats is a structured thinking tool that enhances creativity and innovation. It is proven, practical, and powerful. Equip your leaders with this tool and see the results.
Consulting Skills Workshop
Becoming a trusted advisor is the goal of most internal consultants (HR, IT, Communications, Legal, Procurement, etc.) This program is aimed at equipping people to be effective internal consultants. A 2 day workshop with 2 assessment tools completed upfront.
Facilitation Services
Brent is a Master facilitator who can lead a group to an outcome. If you want an external facilitator for an upcoming meeting or project, even just to allow you to participate more fully in the content, this may be a good option for you.
Other Services
Get In Contact.
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