HILL ENTERPRISES CONSULTING

Our clients view us as strategic thought partners who are there to help them understand, analyze and fix problems that are preventing them from achieving the results they desire.

 

A few of the situations where we've helped with innovative approaches include:

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Strategic Visioning and Planning

We find that many of the organizations and individuals that we work with are so busy reacting to their competitive, fast paced work environments that they don't have time to plan for the future. This puts them in a continually frustrating cycle of responding rather than creating. Add in a widely held belief that planning is a boring, mundane task, and it's no wonder that strategic visioning and planning becomes something that is on their "to do" list that never gets done.

We facilitate a unique process developed by the Grove Consultants International that makes planning a powerful and enjoyable event. The approach combines traditional analytical planning with creative intuitive approaches to visioning. Synergy and buy-in are created by blending four proven change management technologies:

  • Strategic Planning
  • Visioning
  • Large Scale Process
  • Graphic Facilitation

Very large (8' X 4') graphic templates stimulate breakthroughs in the levels of involvement, buy in and productivity given to the process.  Not only is this process compelling for unifying organizations and teams to focus on their important challenges and goals, it is also an inspiring method for individuals to use to clarify important life decisions.

When the process is completed you will have a visually compelling recap of:

Your history and what has brought you to the present moment;

  • Your history and what has brought you to the present moment;
  • A review of competitive and other market forces that affect you;
  • Your strengths, problems, opportunities and threats;
  • Your vision of an ideal future (short and long term);
  • The bold steps you must take to accomplish your goals;
  • Short-term action steps and individual responsibilities.

"Effective facilitation is as much art as science.  Jan Hill's mastery of the process of strategic visioning, combined with her extraordinary interpersonal skills, created an environment which enabled the strategic planning group at the Music Academy of the West to address a challenging task with focus, energy and optimism."

- Howard Chase, Music Academy of the West

Leadership

People want to know two things about the person who wants to lead them:

  • Who are you and what do you stand for?
  • Where do you want to take us?

It can be challenging for a leader to effectively articulate their vision in a way that makes others want to follow.  So, we begin our work with leaders by asking questions about how they see themselves, the values they embrace, the challenges they face and the aspirations that fuel them.  We go deep to understand their organizational opportunities and  obstacles so that we can all understand the leadership challenges they will face.

In our experience, leaders possess a "leadership brand,"  an essence or promise that makes them distinguishable from other leaders.  We work with leaders to help them understand and craft this brand in an way that feels integrated to them.

Today's leaders must also possess a healthy level of emotional intelligence, meaning they have the ability to identify, assess, manage and control their own emotions in order to work effectively with a wide range of people.  We believe that the EQ in Action Profile provides insight for coaching and development of this ability in leaders.

Leaders must also have a clear view of how others perceive them and their skills. To help leaders understand how others see them, we work with Management Research Group to assess and develop the leadership qualities that lead to success for a specific leader in a unique organization.

Our consulting and coaching can help leaders grow and contribute in variety of situations:

  • First 90 days to make an impact
  • New organization, merger, acquisition or new team
  • Inheriting a poor performing organization
  • Finding the right fit for your specific leadership skills and approach in an organization
  • Leaving a legacy
  • Moving gracefully through the leadership passages that affect most leaders such as losing faith in the system, taking on a challenging assignment, and even failing and starting over

All of the great leaders have had one characteristic in common: it was the willingness to confront unequivocally the major anxiety of their people in their time.

- John Kenneth Galbraith

Teaming

All successful organizations are fueled by teamwork.  And, yet, getting people to work together with passion toward a common goal is one of the hardest things to do.

Our approach is to first understand if the leader and the group really want and need to be a team.  Are they willing to make the strategic choice to invest heavily in terms of time and energy to do what it takes to solidify a highly functioning team?  If the answer is yes, then Hill Enterprises can help you with the following:

  • Facilitate Strategic Visioning and Planning sessions  to help your group craft a common vision, understand your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, set challenging goals and determine core strategies for achieving those goals.
  • Assess current effectiveness of the team and the team leader
  • Provide learning simulations and activities for building team competencies
  • Provide ongoing coaching and mentoring for team leader and team members
  • Interview cross-functional groups and stakeholders to understand what the team can do to improve their performance with these critical groups

We have established strategic partnerships with some of the best providers of assessments and simulations that help develop teamwork.  Here's a few of our favorite team assessments:

  • Five Dysfunctions of a Team Online Team Assessment provides a tangible, measurement tool for the Five Dysfunctions of a Team model. The Team Assessment report offers customized data outlining a team’s strengths and weaknesses, recommendations for overcoming potential dysfunction and specific instructions for debriefing the results.  With only 38 questions, this tool provides a quick, effective snap-shot for team performance.
  • Global Teams OnlineSM (GTO) The GTO tool provides team members with an easy-to-use online survey, a variety of options for viewing the team's survey results, and an instantly-generated Action Plan based on the results of the team's survey that pulls from a database of over 190 proven techniques for increasing team productivity.  This survey is create by Aperian Global and you can view a demo here.
  • Understanding Behavior Styles is the foundation for building more effective communication, reduced tension and ultimately more productive work relationships. With this understanding, you can determine your impact on other people, learn how they respond to you and how you perceive them. Much of the conflict you experience with other people is due to a collision of Behavior Style. Most "difficult" people you experience are actually just "different" or opposite of you in "Behavior Style." View the Behavior Styles Program

Additionally, we utilize a few learning simulations to aid with developing teamwork:

  • GlobalTech | ExperienceChange GlobalTech has hired you to save the company! With limited time and resources, you must identify the issues, create a change plan, and implement this plan in the face of company-wide resistance. ExperienceChange improves the success rate of initiatives.
  • Interplay™ is a challenging business simulation that helps professionals see a bigger picture, make smarter decisions, execute more effectively and better manage the interplay of forces that drive an organization's success. Participants frequently describe it as an MBA in a day. View one page PDF.

Skills/Competency Development

Competencies are the critical knowledge, skills, behaviors, and results defined for key positions in the organization that ensure a common understanding of what is required for performance excellence in your company.

Competencies provide the foundation for organizational excellence. They are based on the belief that it is the people who generate the results, and the people who provide a company with its competitive advantage. Competencies are based on the behavior principle that:

  • Past performance is the best predictor of future performance;
  • Good current performance builds from past performance;
  • The more recent the effective behavior, the more appropriate the fit to the position.

We help organizations go through the rigor to determine the precise skill sets required for goal achievement and high performance, thereby establishing measurable criteria for:

  • Selection and Recruitment (Staffing);
  • Development Planning including Mentoring;
  • Education and Training;
  • Performance Management; and
  • Succession Planning.

We can then assist with the creation of 360 degree assessments and coaching to help your organization understand, learn and develop these critical skills.

Assessments?

We've learned that most people aren't motivated to change until they examine hard evidence that indicates they need to do so.  That's why we love assessments  Over the years, we've worked with partner companies to  assemble a core group of strategic assessments that we believe bring real value to our clients. This provides a brief overview of the current choices we have to offer.

  • Customized  Assessments and Surveys - our partner for customized surveys is DecisionWise. We trust them to effectively process and tabulate data for our own Trusted Advisor Survey.  We've also crafted a wide range of solutions designed specifically for our clients based on their own corporate competencies.
  • Work/Life Balance Assessments
    • As an entry point for a coaching engagement, or as a resource to assess current life satisfaction, we strongly endorse Management Research Group's Personal Directions™
    • Our partner for assessing and addressing work/life balance is FlexLIfe™ www.FlexLife™solutions.com
  • Leadership Assessments
  • Emotional Intelligence
    • We find Learning in Action's EQ in Action Profile to be a unique, powerful emotional intelligence instrument.
  • Team Assesments - please review our Teaming Tab for an overview of key team assessments that get results.

To me, Hill Enterprises is a strategic consultant and their broad and deep experience enables them to understand my issues quickly and easily. They have always been able to adapt their approach to meet our specific needs. They are a very professional team and I've enjoyed working with them tremendously." 

- Siew Hong Teo, Microsoft