TYPICAL PHASES OF WORK

   

Phase 1: Discover Common Ground to Build From 

Listen, agree about purpose and decision-making criteria, and co-design the process

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Cultivating curiosity, possibilities, and connections. Structured listening, beyond simplistic surveys or focus groups, gives us context and conviction about what people truly need. When possible, I train interested participants to conduct interviews to invest in their own relationships and understanding, and facilitate them to make sense of (anonymous) results. Participants co-own results and shape next steps. 

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Whether it’s an internal team, diverse community members, or a network of cross-sector organizations, when participants develop their own shared sense of shared interests and priorities and a clear, collective answer about "to what end" they are on this journey together, a solid foundation emerges for actionable, adaptive pursuit of change -- shared values, a common purpose, and a co-generated set of decision-making criteria. Often, these simple tools are never made clear, even for groups who have been working together a long time.

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Phase 2: Co-Designed Strategy 

Use common ground to co-create strategy and action plans while strengthening leadership capabilities, relationships, and partnerships 

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Where the magic happens. Whether for organizations, networks, or communities. From discovery results, teams collaborate for intensive half- or ¾-day design sessions to go beyond planning to actually practicing desired changes. Real-time experiments with clear learning objectives can often be rolled out immediately. With visual thinking tools and structured dialogue processes, teams develop both strategic direction AND adaptive ways of leading and working together in sync. The way I approach public engagement simplifies (and de-stresses) planners’ and decisionmakers’ jobs while growing and strengthening partnerships and increasing faith in governance.

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A diverse cross-section of participants: 

• Co-own the results, creating political resilience; 

• Form diverse partnerships in support of pilot efforts; and/or 

• Can lead emerging related efforts within or outside the client's purview. 

   

Phase 3: Experimental Action, Learning & Evolution 

Go beyond planning for change to living, co-owning, and evolving it together

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Change takes root and sprouts wings. We explore, practice, and build group expectations and feedback loops or learning systems into your regular operations. This includes coaching key team members, designing decision-making frameworks for ongoing use, and creating "learning experiments" that let you try out, test, toss-or-keep, and adapt your approach based on real-world results. This phase is unique to every project. 

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What Makes This Approach Different

• Relationships & Purpose First, Strategy Second: decades of research and practice show that clarifying why and how people work together (with this in place, we reduce conflict and speed up collaborative consensus) before diving into what they're going to do 

• Practitioner Wisdom Over Expert Solutions: collective intelligence drives results — Jen's role is creating conditions for that wisdom to emerge, grow, experiment, get results, learn, and evolve

• Fairness-Centered Process Design: every process design actively addresses power dynamics and voices commonly left out -- like remote rural or ESL communities, new teammates, or folks who don’t often participate (or get overshadowed) -- in standard planning efforts 

• Action & Change In Real Time: with continued effort, immediate and sustained changes emerge in how the group works and can adapt amidst when variables go sideways -- shifts in mindset and behavior are often more impactful than strategy to see and sustain results

• Feed Many Birds with One Hand: every step incorporates applied adaptive leadership and organizational development training en masse

• Invest in Partnerships and Public Confidence that will weather standard operating turbulence and improve relationships and trust between communities, their governments, and service organizations. 

 

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