Best Practices and Insights for Facilitating Creativity, Alignment & Organizational Results

Editor’s Note: A global biotechnology company began using The Grove’s Team Performance tools three years ago and the Team Performance Online Survey late last year. Their Learning and Development team draws from the Team Performance System to strengthen team cohesion and performance across wide-ranging functions and locations. Here is the company’s Team Performance story as shared by the project lead, a Learning & Development manager.

Accelerating and...

The Grove has worked on strategic planning for many years with DLR Group, a national architectural firm. Recently one of our close collaborators at the firm got in touch to share wonderful news: Architect Magazine named DLR Group the #1 design firm in the United States. “Your process has helped us transform our firm,” he wrote.

We called Jon Pettit and Griff Davenport, DLR Group’s managing principals, to learn more about their firm’s journey to...

Excerpted from Visual Leaders by David Sibbet (John Wiley & Sons, 2013)

Seeing the forest and the trees is vital to effective decision making. Much of this involves thinking through what needs to be compared with what.

You as a leader can ask for functional plans to be presented to you in ways that aid you in comparing and prioritizing activities using whole-system vision. These types of environments are called decision rooms, project rooms, or rapid decision support centers.

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Betsy Stites and Pam Hull had a problem. They had completed a focused strategy process in their organization, the HealthEast Care System in St. Paul, MN. Now the big goal for HealthEast was “to be the benchmark of quality in the Twin Cities.” The problem was how!

“There had been a lot of uncertainty,” Betsy reflects. “Quality is so ethereal. We had to figure out a way to integrate things from an organizational and cultural standpoint.”

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If you have been fortunate enough to be part of a high-performing and well-aligned team, you won’t soon forget the experience. Unfortunately for most of us, this is all too rare an occurrence.

If your team is flailing, divided, or lacking clarity, The Grove’s newly released Team Performance Online Survey (TPOS) can help.

A Platform for Team Learning and Improvement

The TPOS and resulting Report power a data-rich series of conversations to help your team move...

Author: David Sibbet

What do loosely coupled systems, a stand-up meeting, and tequila have to do with each other? They were all elements in our successful Visual Teams workshop a few weeks ago at Fort Mason, in San Francisco, and argue for why visuals are working with teams.

At the opening of the workshop we invited everyone to share his or her best team experience, and then identify the relevant qualities on a Mandala Vision Graphic Guide® (Groups invariable rediscover the...

1. Gain Alignment. Need to get everyone on the same page in your organization? The Grove‘s Storymap™ process is designed to reveal and resolve alignment issues, refine the message and get all stakeholders on the same page and moving toward the same goal.

2. Clarify the Complex. Fresh visuals provide a clarifying way for people to understand a complex situation. Different information may be flying all over an organization with few people knowing how pieces fit together....

Author: Susan Berry

Military members are coming home to the U.S. in growing numbers. Drawdowns in overseas operations, and new budget realities at the Department of Defense (DOD), have accelerated the move back to civilian life for many military members and families. For some, this situation has interrupted long-term career plans. For most, the transition comes at a time of economic uncertainty and job search challenges.

As they head home, military members and families can draw...

The Challenge

The Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire is an entity that focuses on support for people with disabilities and their families. Through person-centered planning, the Institute enables individuals to create a plan for their future through a process-oriented approach, and it became evident that a manual for creating these customized plans was an imperative. “Because the purposes for planning are so diverse there’s been a tendency to oversimplify....