Consulting Services
 
• Senior Team Alignment
• Exceptional Leadership
• High-Performing Teams
 
Senior Team Alignment
 
It is the Senior Executive Team that provides direction and leadership for the entire organization.
 
It is the Senior Team that creates the overall culture in the organization—the climate that determines how people feel about working there. How people feel about working for your organization has a major impact on their level of engagement, the degree to which they trust management, and ultimately on your customer satisfaction, ability to retain talent, productivity, and profitability.
 
It is therefore vital that the Senior Team is absolutely clear and in full agreement with your organization's purpose, values and vision, and what kind of culture you need to achieve that vision.
 
In a nutshell, the primary responsibility of the Senior Team is to create the conditions for success—to develop a work environment where all employees can perform at their best, and willingly be accountable for their results.
 
Unfortunately, many Senior Teams do not understand that culture is their responsibility. We know this because so many organizations have a culture that results in disengaged employees who lack trust in their management and employees who avoid being personally responsible.
 
According to research by The Gallup Organization, over 70% of the American workforce is not engaged or actively disengaged. They come to work switched off, or work actively against their organization.
 
Integro's Senior Team Alignment Process addresses this critical need by providing Senior Teams with a process for agreeing on, and implementing, a plan for creating an organizational culture that will deliver the optimum business results.
 
We use a measurement tool to identify the degree to which the team is in alignment prior to commencing the process: the Team Alignment Questionnaire (TAQ). This tool measures the degree to which team members are clear on, and in agreement with, the organization's purpose, values and vision.
 
The Team Alignment Questionnaire gives a benchmark of where the team is at, so we know what needs to be worked on, what needs to be clearer, and where we need to get agreement so the team can commit to creating a high-performance culture.
 
For more information on the Senior Team Alignment Process click on the links below or contact us.
 
Senior Team Alignment Process Outline
Senior Team Alignment Process Flowchart
 
 
Exceptional Leadership
 
Millions of dollars are spent on leadership training every year—to no avail. We still have a significant lack of leadership in all areas of society, and at all levels of business and government.
 
The missing ingredient is trust. Leaders are failing to build trust with those who need their direction and guidance, and as a result they don't follow. A high level of trust is critical to leadership success, and yet so many leaders fail to build trust, despite all the training they have been given.
 
The missing piece in the leadership education puzzle is the understanding that being trustworthy does not mean that you will be successful in building trust. Most leaders are trustworthy in an honest, ethical, and moral sense. Yet they continue to diminish the trust that their employees and customers have for them and the company.
 
Leaders need to know how to build trust—the specific behaviors that build trust, because intentions do not build trust!
 
The Integro Leadership Institute has been teaching managers to build trust for over 30 years. For more information about our Leadership Development Process click on the following links, or contact us for more information.
 
Leadership Development Process Outline
Leadership Development Process Flowchart
 
 
High-Performing Teams
 
Most business leaders understand that there are significant performance gains to be achieved through teamwork, and yet few organizations have succeeded in getting the results they hoped for.
 
Is one of the reasons for the failure to achieve the potential that teams offer to be found in the training they receive?
 
Jon Katzenbach and Douglas Smith state in their best-selling book The Wisdom of Teams:
 
"Team performance is a fact, not a fad. Unfortunately, so is team frustration and failure. Team training efforts continue to miss the target by focusing on togetherness, open communication and interpersonal dynamics rather than simply getting the basics right."
 
So if togetherness, open communication and interpersonal dynamics (which form the basis of much of the team development training offered) are not the basics, what are?
 
Being a Team Member is a Part-Time Role
 
The first thing to understand is that most teams are not full time. In fact, it is very much a part-time role. Team members are selected for their knowledge and expertise, and their primary role is to fulfill their individual responsibilities. And yet one could get the impression from much of the team training delivered, that you have to be team members all the time!
 
Some team members resist participating in teams because they don't see the team member role as distinct from their functional role, often leading to conflict as they argue from their own position rather than looking at issues from the perspective of the team as a whole.
 
Behavioral Adaptability is an Essential Skill
 
Effective teamwork cannot be achieved unless team members understand the need to switch from one role to the other. To be effective at switching roles, the team member first needs to have the flexibility of mind to mentally switch roles. Secondly, they must have the behavioral adaptability to effectively perform both roles.
 
Behavioral adaptability requires a high degree of emotional intelligence, which we know can be learned. But it will take time. The emotional competencies of self-awareness and self-management are essential as we increase the awareness of the need to excel in two roles requiring different behavior and then go through the process of learning to adapt to new habits.
 
The Motivation to be a Team
 
The second basic fundamental is that teams must have a significant reason for being a team. If it is not really important to the team members, why would they go through the discomfort and effort to adapt their behavior?
 
So one of the first things an effective team-training program will do is help the team establish what their team performance challenge is. Once they have agreed on an objective that is meaningful and important to all members, working as a team when they need to will make a lot of sense.
 
Team Development is a Process
 
Turning a potential team into a high-performing team takes time. It cannot be achieved as a result of a single event. For that reason Integro has developed a three-stage Team Development Process that is designed for implementation over a 12 to 15-month timeframe. This includes reinforcement sessions and application back in the workplace. For more information, follow the links below.
 
Team Development Process Outline
Team Development Process Flowchart
 

Our Core Values
 
People:
We provide an environment where people continually learn and grow.
 
Integrity:
In all our dealings with others we are honest, straightforward, and fair.
 
Customer Focus:
We exceed our customers' expectations by providing outstanding quality service.
 
Innovation:
We partner with our clients to develop innovative solutions to their specific needs.