Our Process and Deliverables

Interventional Activities

Collectively, these activities have a coaching feel but differ greatly in application, orientation and support. Application is more tactical, actionable and detailed than traditional coaching. Orientation is more focused on critical sub-objectives, details and relationships that determine strategic success. We call these “friction points” – the gaps between plans (what’s on paper) and reality. Our support is more hands-on, drilling down to whatever organizational level is required to ensure success. Essentially, we function as masons helping you to tightly and strongly bond your building blocks of success. Our efforts appear as three general types:

• Small executive and management teams

  Usually associated with initiatives crossing multiple reporting lines, we identify, raise and massage relational aspects (friction points) that could retard execution. Our efforts are aimed at keeping communication flow open and regular among the team. We do this by raising awareness and sensitivity to alternative personalities and views and by demonstrating the powerful role intuition plays in influence and problem-solving.

• Individual executives and managers

  Within any team, leadership is the primary determinant of success and is totally dependent upon its team members. Our efforts center on advising leaders on the influential and problem-solving techniques to attack friction points. While on the surface these techniques will have the flavor of more traditional communication skills, on a deeper level they will incorporate intuitive principles more widely used in such fields as marketing, merchandising, advertising, selling and politics.

• Individual employees

  Finding qualified employees is increasingly challenging and costly. Many employees are technically sound but have relational qualities impeding their own productivity, promotability and development. As a result, employing advanced approaches to tackle some of their rough edges to keep them or to enhance their contribution is an increasingly wise investment. The basis of these approaches involves raising awareness for intuitive influences. Upon this base, we build techniques for the employees aimed at improving their influence and problem solving and for the managers responsible for managing them.

Assessment Capabilities

Ensure you have all the information you need to make wise decisions. We use projective methods to assess individual and group personalities. While they are less quantitative than the more common self-identifying methods such as surveys which require self-awareness by the subject, they are far more accurate because they don’t assume people are self-aware. The methodology involves targeted interviews, creative questions and purposeful listening. You’ll gain completely new dimensions in your decision-making capabilities.

• Organizational and team cultures

  As with individuals, any group has its own distinct culture that goes beyond mere summation of the personalities or leadership in it. Consequently, surveying or interviewing individuals alone don’t tell nearly the whole story. Our assumption is that individuals operate differently in groups. That’s why doing such things as observing the group in action, analyzing its communications and assessing its conflict management produce a more complete cultural assessment.

• Specific inter-personal relationships between any two employees

  In dancing two people perform steps with speed and intricacy. This is accomplished around a center of gravity; knowing where that is helps. The same thing occurs between any two people in relationships, good and bad. They move around a center of gravity that keeps that state. To address disharmonious relationships, it’s a matter of finding that center and working to alter it. Unknowingly, two people will promote a negative relationship simply because it releases negative emotions they do not want.

• Individual personalities

  There are many personality assessment tools on the market. The overwhelming majority use a self-identification methodology, meaning they ask people directly how they would behave, think or feel in a hypothetical situation. Afterwards, the answers are run through a computer program to quantify the findings. The erroneous assumption upon which these methods base themselves is that people are totally self-aware. We intuitively know this to be false; people are far from being completely aware of everything they do, think and feel. Projective methods such as the Rorschach (ink blots) are avenues for exploring this. We use various diagrams and questioning techniques to tap into projective methods to give a more complete picture of a person.

• Learning styles and corresponding coaching approaches

  Using a shovel to catch a fish is more difficult than using a fishing pole. Similarly, some teaching and coaching approaches are more difficult to use with some than others. Using the right approach often impacts the outcome of performance challenges. Executives and managers who can tap into this will have a greater likelihood of success.

• Communication tendencies among individuals and organizations

  You can tell a lot about individuals and organizations by the manner in which they communicate and by choice of words to deliver the message. Word choice is often a personal choice; therefore, understanding why certain words are selected over others can tell you a lot about personalities and cultures. The same holds true for selecting the means of communication; it’s a personal choice and so is also a personality and culture indicator. Knowing what these choices (word and means) indicate gives one a decided advantage; we can help you collect and evaluate what each means.

Training [Workshops]

We are a comprehensive, original, holistic training source, meaning we address all four aspects of training: design, development, delivery and direction.

We are not a training vendor; we just don’t sell and deliver the training produced by others. We create and design our own training concepts, develop the materials to support them, deliver training to audiences and direct the overall training projects of others. As a client you can tap into whatever capabilities you wish. You don’t have to use our training; we can help you develop your own. We don’t have to present our training; we’ll show you how to do it yourself. Our training forte falls broadly in the areas of influence and problem-solving. Virtually all aspects of leadership fall into one of these two areas. We use and teach intuitive methods which adds several dimensions to a person’s influential and problem-solving capabilities. Our training approach is geared towards maximizing participant interaction. Here are some of the main target areas our training addresses:

• Leadership

• Management

• Innovation

• Teamwork

• Communication

• Sales and Service

• Personality Styles

• Human Resources

• Talent Development

• Training Techniques

• Profitable Creativity

• Change Management

• Opportunistic Management

• Influential Techniques

• Problem-solving Techniques

• Organizational Development

Speaking Engagements

We can adjust many of our training topics to suit speaking engagements and Mike Lehr would be the speaker. He is extremely effective at presenting old topics with fresh perspectives. He is often asked to speak on intuition and subliminal influences; what they are and how they can be capitalized on in business. He is often acknowledged as the “Analogy King.” His differentiators are:

• Making extensive use of analogies, pictures, stories and humor

• Asking thought-provoking questions of his audiences

• Opening new lines of thinking previous not considered or envisioned

• Explaining extremely complex concepts in easy, understandable ways

• Saying what others are thinking but can’t verbalize

• Identifying the trade offs in approaches

Specialized Tools

Possessing effective ways to gather information and express ideas often determines successful implementation. Our specialized tools accomplish this by incorporating marketing, advertising and merchandizing techniques to get at the heart of the forces influencing your workforce or audience. They usually take the form of documents and schematics.

• Documents

  Tapping into a unique, intuitive writing style we can help you draft plans, questionnaires, scripts, analyses, worksheets and communication strategies that will be more influential and comprehensive. Through a unique, intense questioning process, we are also able to extract your ideas and present to you an initial expression of them. Many have found this useful as a launching point for them to refine and develop their ideas on their own.

• Schematics

  We all understand the influence the right picture can have in the promotion of an idea. However, coming up with the schematic to represent the idea in an influential way can be very difficult and time consuming. Currently, we have a database of over a thousand different schematics expressing complex, involved intangible concepts. The development of new ones is happening on a daily basis. The schematics have such forms as charts, tables, graphs, diagrams, flowcharts and various training and communication aids.