From the Eye of the Storm

This area identifies my service offerings. While these offerings may have been designed to assist groups within business environments, participants on numerous occasions have made me aware of personal growth and healing they experienced during the engagement. When this happens, I experience feelings of gratitude and satisfaction, but I am not surprised. My engagements are designed with this intention. Feel free to contact me at 919-889-2340 or via Email if you have any questions.

Steven Alston, Split Screen Consulting

Mediating Indecision

Is your business project delayed and over budget? Discord amongst key staff or project leaders causes states of indecision that eventually turn into costly crisis. Business projects have much invested and are expected to generate significant returns. Indecision or unresolved conflict between any two key personnel can undermine business plans, ultimately leading to project failure. Projects that don’t completely fail will more than likely suffer from escalated costs generated from poor decision-making, wasted time, loss of skilled resources, reorganization, sabotage/theft, low morale, and poor health.

My mediation service is an alternative to states of indecision and lingering grievances. This service is especially attractive to business and project owners who may be experiencing delays with implementing critical business plans. With this service, those authorized and qualified to do so make hard decisions and confidentiality is maintained. In addition, this service will address situations where parties choose to let conflict fester through avoidance, causing ongoing delays and inefficiencies. I will lead an intervention meeting and guide the parties to an agreed resolution within 24 hours, avoiding any further delays and reducing overall costs.

Collective Problem-Solving and Decision-Making (4 Hour Minimum)

I facilitate Open Space Technology (OST) meetings as the tool to solve complex problems. OST enables groups of any size to address complex, important issues and achieve meaningful results quickly. It functions best where more traditional meeting formats fail: in situations involving conflict, complexity, diversity of thought or people, and short decision-times. OST is a meeting methodology that represents a self-organizing process. It is also a philosophy and a life practice. Based on clear principles and values, OST creates an environment for innovation, problem solving, creativity, teamwork, and rapid change. (See Case Study – A Nutrition-Secure India: How do we get there?)

Project Kick-off and Review Meetings (4 Hour Minimum)

Although 36% of meetings result in a “complete” resolution of the topic at hand, participants consider only 1% of those conclusions to be particularly creative. A full 33% of the participants feel pressured to publicly espouse opinions with which they privately disagree. Another 33% feel they have minimal or no influence on the discussion. A whopping 63% of meeting attendees feel that underlying issues outside the scope of the official agenda are the real subjects under discussion (University of Southern California).

As an organizational guide, I will design and facilitate interactions that lead to clear actions and tangible results. Meeting design and deliverables includes clarifying concepts, probing assumptions, exploring rationale, challenging reasons, searching the evidence, questioning viewpoints and introducing diverse perspectives.

Conflict Resolution Training for Project Managers (7 Hours)

This training was designed for project managers responsible for the resources, time, money and scope of projects. In this participatory workshop, participants will learn how to identify conflicts that impact project success, understand the costs associated with project conflict and practice resolving conflict as a project management tool.  Using lecture, group discussions, and role-play, you will learn how to apply the techniques taught to the execution of real-world projects.

Manager Coaching (8 Hour Minimum)

Are you a new manager? Are you clear on your role and have you committed to the style of leadership do you plan to use? Have you mastered the art of delegating, then supporting? I have been in numerous leadership roles and have seen many styles of management come and go. This service was designed to assist new managers who are transitioning from colleague to leader. Your customized plan will include building trust, listening and responding, embracing creativity, situational and team leadership, adaptability, relationship building, directing work through others, business acumen, developing others, decisiveness and visioning.

Customized Process Consultation

Process consultation is building a relationship by carefully intervening in a group or organization to help it accomplish its goals. The consultant does not try to help the organization as an expert; instead, the consultant helps the team to help itself. Participants increase their effectiveness and learn how to constructively work with shenpa. The skills used are quite different from those used in “expertise-based” consulting, because the consultant must:

• concentrate on the way the group works, rather than what it is working on.
• facilitate the development of group objectives, deliverables and work plans.
• remain neutral even when topics s/he knows or cares about are discussed.
• ask questions instead of offering expert advice.
• help the team solve its own problems.
• not make value judgments or deal with content issues.
• understand group dynamics, conflict resolution, and manager/leader development

Benefits included are:

• Shorter, more productive meetings, improving time efficiency
• Better decisions that improve project and/or work quality
• Increased feelings of participation or energy leading to increased output and productivity
• Greater job satisfaction demonstrated through decreased employee turnover