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Organizational Development
Services
Organization Development
is a dynamic values-based approach to systems change in organizations
and communities; it strives to build the capacity to achieve and sustain
a new desired state that benefits the organization or community and
the world around them. We guide organizations and communities through
collaborative processes to help them manage change, growth, and conflict
by offering the following services:
Our organizational services
include:
Mediation,
facilitation and conflict management
Cheshire Mediation manages
complex group conflict with over 1000 hours of professional training
and full-time experience.
Mediation is a process
based on a belief in people's capacity to resolve their own conflicts
if given the right support. Formal mediation is a voluntary, confidential
process in which a trained neutral professional helps two or more
parties arrive at a resolution to a conflict. The mediator does not
judge who is right or who is wrong, but works with parties to help
them arrive at a solution to their own problem. Specifically, the
mediator helps parties to specifically name the problem, come up with
a number of different solutions, and choose the solution that best
meets their needs.
Many conflicts, especially
those in groups, have a number of components to them. In working with
groups we use a wide variety of tools and processes, including mediation.
Among the issues that may contribute to a conflict that a conflict
manager may work with are: structural issues in an organization, meeting
facilitation skills, clarity of mission, leadership and supervision,
and organizational culture. Cheshire Mediation begins working with
all group conflicts by first doing a complete assessment of the situation.
Go to article on cost of
organizational conflicts
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Facilitation
of multi-party public disputes
Cheshire Mediation offers
expertise on effective procedures for conducting successful collaborative
decision making and negotiations. While we believe that stakeholders
themselves have the content expertise needed in productive deliberation
processes, our experience in facilitating a wide variety of multi-party
conflicts along with familiarity with the issues they entail, enables
us to provide process assistance that is specifically relevant and
tailored to help address key issues in question.
Strategic
planning
Cheshire Mediation leads
organizations through processes that clarify where they want to go
and how they hope to get there. Given the rapidly changing environment
that many organizations currently face, we help organizations take
pro-active, ambitious, but realistic actions so that they can strategically
position themselves for success. Our follow through and coaching services
provide ongoing evaluation mechanisms to ensure timely and effective
implementation by staff and leadership.
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Retreat
and meeting facilitation
Unproductive meeting time
costs American businesses over $37 billion a year. Our meeting and
retreat facilitation services help groups by:
- Allowing a neutral outsider
to control the process so that you can pay attention to the content
- Keeping your meetings
focused and efficient
- Insuring that everyone's
voice is heard and decisions are based on everyone's best thinking.
- Identifying and focusing
on common interests
- Clarifying ways in which
the situation could change for the better
Cheshire Mediation uses
a broad range of design tools to help organizations structure meetings
so that they deliver results instead of wasting time. Our presence
allows all members, including leadership, to be content contributors
without having to worry about the group’s process.
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Team
building
Cheshire Mediation knows
that for an organization to succeed it must have strong leadership,
active communication, open collaboration and ultimately, be an effective
team – one with outstanding process skills that can nurture
and integrate each individual’s expertise and strengths. Cheshire
Mediation works in-depth with teams to identify specific needs and
to help integrate new insights back into the workplace. We facilitate
the development of high-performance teams through mutual goal setting,
role negotiations, group problem solving, conflict resolution, trust
building, and creating win/win collaborative agreements.
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Board
development
Rapid changes in the nonprofit
sector require that organizations take a closer look at not only how
the business of the organization is conducted, but also the ways in
which decisions are made and by whom. The most effective boards members
are deeply committed to the organization's mission, bring expertise
in key areas, represent diverse points of view, and evolve over time
and through careful planning. Cheshire Mediation provides ongoing
support through board assessment, coaching of board members, and through
practical and proven techniques for developing board infrastructure.
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Coalition
building
Cheshire Mediation understands
and is committed to building progressive democratic partnerships.
We define collaboration as a mutually beneficial and well-defined
relationship entered into by two or more organizations to get the
desired results they are more likely to achieve together than alone.
We work with coalition members to clarify the differences between
cooperating, coordinating, and collaborating and help the coalition
to identify its goals, establish the relationships they need to succeed,
diagnose work group issues and assist the coalition with developing
an action plan. Strategies include team building, goal setting, conflict
resolution, action planning and mission development.
Training
design and delivery
Cheshire Mediation is able
to customize and deliver a wide range of training topics to improve
individual, group or organizational productivity. Topics include strategic
planning, communication styles and skills, group dynamics, conflict
resolution, facilitation skills, systems thinking, board/staff relations,
and training of trainers. See our Training
Page
Group
assessments
Each intervention begins
with group assessments to determine the specifics of the conflict. Assessments
help organizations by:
- Having an impartial and
objective "outsider" diagnose the sources of conflict
- Helping the organization
frame issues and identify themes that are relevant to those involved
- Thoroughly identifying
the sources of the tension before problem-solving begins
- Giving the organization
a picture of how it sees itself
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