Why the What and How

Why am I launching my consulting practice? What am I offering? And how might that help you and your organization be more successful?

Education is a business.

Education is the difference between a relatively happy, healthy life, and a life of constant struggle.

And delivering high quality education is a business. Teaching and learning is a service, provided by groups of people, working together (i.e., in organizations), and paid for with money. And delivering a service (the what) is done most effectively when that group of people operates based on proven practices of strategy, operations, and behavior (the how).

I’ve spent the last 15 years helping organizations remove legal and operational barriers to make a difference in the lives of families and communities. But, if you ask me what professional accomplishments I’m most proud of, I would share the ways that I've enabled individual team members to grow professionally and work in ways that helped them find balance in their lives while contributing to the organization's mission.

All organizations, including education organizations, get the best results if they attract, develop, and retain teams with diverse experiences and skills. And if they humbly leverage the wisdom, passion, and commitment of each of those individuals. Organizations do that by

• Building a cohesive leadership team,

• Establishing organization-wide strategic clarity,

• Teaching and practicing sound management principles that provide opportunities for all team members to develop, and

• Using systems and tools that enable all team members to spend most of their time doing their highest value, best work.  

So, that's what I would like to help you and your team do, and why.

Exactly how we might we work together? Some examples are outlined here and below:

• Assess the current state of your leadership team, determine areas for improvement, and lead the team through the steps necessary to excel in a series of retreats;

• Lead a series of meetings with your team to answer key questions to establish strategic clarity;

• Design communication strategies to ensure that clarity is understood by all team members and reinforced through repetition and embedding the strategy in systems;

• Training team members in management practices such as assigning work, delegating responsibility, providing feedback, and coaching; and

• Reviewing current processes and tools, recommending improvements or additions, and providing training for effective implementation.

Of course, we may decide to do something completely different after we talk. Maybe you'd like help avoiding Death by Meeting, an assessment and redesign of hiring, onboarding, or compensation systems, or guidance on what expertise to purchase instead of hiring.

I look forward to helping you do whatever it takes to make a great playing surface for your stars - your team members - so they can do their best work in support of your mission.

-- Rich Haglund, Chief Zamboni Driver