How we Work • Overcoming the 4 Problems
The One Leadership Project have developed ways of working in response to four kinds of problem we have noticed in our work over the last 30 years in organisations…
1 – The Consulting Problem
You commission clever consultants who ask lots of questions then write a report that regurgitates what you already know in a fat report that few people read let alone act upon.
This makes the wrong assumption – an ‘expert fallacy’ – that lack of knowledge is your problem; crucially, it also fails to generate any ownership among your people around the solutions.
2 – The Training Problem
You send people on training, which may be good at the time but when they come back they have 100 urgent things to do, a mountain of emails, and no one else has done the training.
The training is not tied in to ‘the way things are done around here’ so in a day or two it is forgotten.
3 – The Away-day Problem
You go on an away-day where most of the time is spent discussing the tasks; what needs to get done. Little time is spent on something that nearly always makes a big difference; becoming more cohesive as a team.
Away-days are usually a one-offs, maybe run by cringey outsiders who have ideas which they try to impose on you, which may not relate to your particular challenges. Key perspectives are often not represented in the discussions. And there’s little follow-up.
So outputs from the day can feel imposed on by those not there, there’s little belief that anything will actually change, and the days become seen as a waste of time.
4 – The Coaching Problem
Individual coaching raises personal clarity, awareness, drive and performance. But unless the team, and potentially the wider organisation, are aligned and supportive it often leads to great frustration.
Team coaching can get everyone working well together to a point. But many thoughts, feelings and actions are founded in what is happening deep within an individual or other areas of work and life that they may not wish to raise in front of the whole team.
The answer lies in a systemic approach of both team and individual coaching and support.
To overcome these four problems, we have developed a systemic approach which you commit to for at least a year and which addresses your real challenges whilst supporting and developing your people as individuals and as a team.
Yes we bring frameworks, ideas, theories – the best that we have found in our global search – but always tailored and timed for your specific needs and in a humble spirit that acknowledges that you are doing this, not us.
“My experience of working with them is every time, they have created some magic… Every time we have exceeded the results that we could possibly have hoped for.”
Phil Mulligan – Executive Director, United Nations Association UK
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