Featured Services
SERVICES
The Circle Center offers a variety of professional consulting services to fit the needs of your organization:
UPCOMING EVENTS
Online Introduction to Peacemaking Circles Training – February 25th – 27th
Succession Planning
If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. – African Proverb
Is your organization prepared for the unexpected loss of a quality leader or valuable professional? What is your organization doing to foster a compelling and positive culture that supports the retention of good employees and supporters? What are you doing to build your next generation of leaders and overall “bench strength” of your organization?
If the answer to these questions is “I don’t know” or “not much”, your organization could benefit from some skilled and thoughtful guidance on Succession Planning. Whether your organization suffers from an inability to develop and keep strong leaders or simply struggles with employee commitment and turnover costs, you stand much to gain from considering the potential benefits of a measurable and sustainable Succession Plan. At The Circle Center, we know that Succession Planning is most effective when it accomplishes these important goals:
- Prepares your team members for new roles by providing both critical development experiences and strategic and general mentoring processes;
- Addresses systemic and prevalent organizational issues that contribute to workforce attrition and turnover;
- Fosters a culture of collaboration, opportunity and inclusion that turns the reputation of your organization’s work environment into one of your biggest recruitment tools;
- Creates sustainable structures within your organization enabling you to facilitate these development experiences on your own, without the help of an outside organization.
Put your leaders and team-members on a path of both personal and organizational success
In our line of work, we are fortunate to interact closely with leaders and professionals in a great number of industries. If these interactions have taught us anything, it’s that most leaders at the top of their game face a common problem: there is no beaten path to follow toward becoming an optimal leader. However, we are here to show you that there are certainly some commonalities among the truly successful. A strategic investment of time and resources into workplace culture (not just a few “high potentials”) is a noteworthy trait among the top performing organizations. Inclusive opportunities for growth and contribution lead to greater diversity in leadership, improved outcomes, higher quality products and services, and reduced turnover.
The Circle Center helps leaders establish and follow a clear path with regard to maintaining workforce and organizational success. We help team leaders transcend constantly changing market paradigms by offering guidance as well as skill development for managers and leaders. In this way, succession planning and development becomes an integral part of how they lead. We also help organizations develop a mentoring culture where knowledge and skills are shared. We help your organization promote the idea that mentoring not only expected, but also viewed as a sign of management and leadership potential. The Circle Center helps organizations and their leaders design successful mentoring programs that become a durable part of your organization’s culture.
Use intention to promote and develop your team members
The development of committed, forward-thinking and agile professional never happens by accident. We’ve seen what can happen when organizations fail to acknowledge the importance of planning for the future of its leadership. The businesses and organizations that thrive are those that intentionally understand the personal and professional goals of their team members. Once these goals are defined, opportunities can be created for their achievement and the overall success of the organization.
To help your organization avoid the all-too-common disaster resulting from lack of foresight, we work to make sure your managers are ready to invest in themselves. We focus on creating a present and collaborative leader, and we simply cannot overstate the importance of this endeavor. The presence-oriented leader utilizes self-reflection, observation and meaningful dialogue to evaluate issues and implement durable solutions that will stand the test of time. These skills will support them and, when modeled throughout the organization, create a culture that is better able to weather any storm. The Circle Center has years of experience developing confident, present leaders and can help you and your organization do the same.
Invest in your organizational culture
Does your organization have difficulty identifying leadership potential among its members? Could you and your team members benefit from a more collaborative and generative workplace culture? If so, you’re not alone. Traditional management training programs rarely provide tools and experiences that create lasting positive impacts or shifts in organizational culture. If you like the idea of transforming your workplace environment and culture, but you think the process will take decades before producing tangible results, think again. The Circle Center provides skillful consulting, coaching and facilitation services designed to have an immediate and durable impact on your leaders and culture. Future leaders leave our trainings feeling prepared, renewed and excited about their contributions to your organization. We share in your excitement over securing and maintaining a brighter future for your organization.
Contact us today to find out more about how The Circle Center can partner with you in your goal of implementing a successful Succession Planning and development program.
Strategic Planning
“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”
-Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
When facilitated with skill and experience, strategic planning is a productive, collaborative process where participants contribute to the sustainable success of an organization. At the Circle Center, our experienced facilitators know that Strategic Planning is most effective when it:
- Creates internal commitment and accountability among team members and participants;
- Maximizes input and contribution from key stakeholders in your organization and community;
- Provides a clear and concise plan for addressing current and foreseeable challenges and opportunities while also maximizing the strengths and resources of your organization;
- Addresses future commitment outages and unforeseen issues so that your plan is durable and will stand the test of time;
- Navigates the common and predictable pitfalls of improper strategic planning; and, Builds trust and collaborative capital among team members and participants fostering more
- Teamwork, better feedback and a greater likelihood that important issues will be raised and adjustments will be made should the plan and your future success require it.
Consider the following truths about Strategic Planning in successful organizations.
Strategic plans must be facilitated professionally and realistically
Only meaningful, honest dialogue and productive wrestling with the difficult, relevant issues can produce effective strategic plans for an organization. The key is to facilitate the process properly and professionally. Otherwise, the developed plan is just an inconsequential document, destined to get filed away without ever providing the support and guidance it promised. The Circle Center will work with you to ensure that you have the right people and information in the room needed to create your next strategic plan. Our skilled facilitators will help your participants lean into a rigorous and productive process while also finding a connectedness to others and a commitment to the plan itself.
Epic fails result from epic failures to plan
As Benjamin Franklin famously noted, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Throughout history, there are many accounts of businesses, ventures, organizations and communities that have met their demise due to failure to properly plan for the future.
These stories provide a laundry list of reasons why proper Strategic Planning is so crucial.
Perhaps it was a lack of trust, skill and commitment among participants that caused the epic failures of so many famous organizations. Or maybe the combination of communication outages and a marked inability to raise the difficult and perplexing issues brought about their downfall.
Whatever the reason, it is apparent that these organizations, like yours, would have benefited from skillful and wholehearted Strategic Planning. Commitment-promoting planning yields goals that are simultaneously realistic and inspirational while also enrolling the key people and resources needed to ensure the staying power of the plan.
Quality and clear plans support quality and confident cultures
Consider the following saying:
“A task without a vision is just a job. A vision without a task is just a dream. A vision with a task can change the world.”
Don’t spend your valuable time and resources on a strategic plan process just to cross it off your proverbial “to-do” list. Going through the motions on this important activity leaves the organization vulnerable to the changing winds of the marketplace. And just as important, it can engender a lack of authenticity and genuineness in your organization’s culture.
Contact us today to find out more about how The Circle Center can partner with you in your goal of implementing a successful Succession Planning and development program.
Team Building
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success. – Henry Ford
Is your organization made up of cooperative teams that understand the importance of working together toward a common goal? Do your team members recognize and act upon proper ways of being together? If not, you’ve probably already begun to notice the negative effects that poorly functioning teams can have on an organization.
At The Circle Center, we use our professional knowledge and experience to provide your organization with the building blocks it needs for creating effective, collaborative teams. Our basic methodology is outlined in the sections below.
We challenge the traditional approach to Team-building
To us, it has always seemed strange to think of a Team-building exercise as part of a meeting’s “agenda.” It seems that one day, someone decided that the only thing an organization needs to do to build effective teams is to plan a day trip to a local park or set aside an hour or so do to a “trust fall” in a stuffy conference room. While these activities may have some value, we hope you’ll agree when we say that they are missing the point. Building trust among a group of professionals is not an ‘event’ in any sense of the word. It is not something to be scheduled, haphazardly completed and ticked off your to-do list. If you’ve interacted with consultants claiming the ability to establish complete trust among your team members in just a couple of meetings, we openly encourage your skepticism.
We spend time working to build real trust between team members
So rather than orchestrating a “trust fall” and calling it a day, we invite you to see things from our perspective. Your organization’s commitment to becoming a truly trusting community should be considered a path, one filled with intentional conversations and planned interactions. Our facilitators will show you that by setting realistic expectations, you give your team members the chance to make measurable progress. Our Circle Process is designed specifically for bringing about tangible, durable results with respect to building trust among the members of your organization.
We focus on demonstrating the importance of authentic communication
From our experience, breakdowns in communication are often at the root of poorly functioning teams. And when your leaders do not understand how to detect and eliminate these breakdowns, your organization is destined to suffer the consequences.
Consider this IDC research finding: Every year, businesses in the United States and the United Kingdom are losing an estimated $37 billion as a direct result of employee misunderstanding. So the next time you’re told that communication is a “soft skill” and therefore not worthy of an investment of time and resources, we hope you’ll have something to say.
Since we absolutely love talking with others about how our Team-building service works across several different industries and in both small and large groups, please contact us today. The future of your organization just may depend on it.
Conflict Management
Every conflict we face in life is rich with positive and negative potential. It can be a source of inspiration, enlightenment, learning, transformation, and growth–or rage, fear, shame, entrapment, and resistance. The choice is not up to our opponents, but to us,
and our willingness to face and work through them. – Kenneth Cloke and Joan Goldsmith
At the core of The Circle Center, our trained and skilled facilitators help leaders and organizations have important conversations in a good way. Much of our work has been with organizations experiencing conflict, whether productive or negative, and we partner with these organizations to develop effective, human-centered approaches to resolve conflict, harness its problem-solving potential and build collaborative workplaces. We work toward creating environments which enable managers and organization leaders to spend their time more peacefully and more productively.
Specifically, our facilitators and experts show you and your organization how to:
- Manage and facilitate group dialogue effectively, countering the potentially negative dynamics of group brainstorming processes;
- Resolve conflict in the workplace among two or more employees productively and efficiently;
- Design and implement Conflict Management systems that will support your Conflict Management efforts at both the micro and macro levels of your organization; Minimize the costly impacts of negative conflict on your workforce, reputation and future organizational success; and,
- Develop Conflict Management competencies that will impact your customer service and train current and future leaders within your organization.
We also show your organization how to…
Use conflict to your advantage
“No pressure, no diamonds.”
Consider the following conclusion drawn in a related Harvard Business Review article:
Conflict within organizations often brings about the sort of positive change
and progress that would have otherwise been impossible.
Accordingly, recent studies show that when people with differing viewpoints come together to resolve an issue, more effective and more durable solutions result. These confirm that without productive conflict, organizations never reach their full potential.
At The Circle Center, we help you to manage and utilize productive conflict while minimizing negative conflict and its costs. By skillfully and intentionally harnessing productive conflict within your organization, we show your leaders how to appreciate the fruits of the Conflict Management process. We make sure that they realize that Conflict Management is a core leadership competency for your organization. Our highly trained and experienced workplace mediators, facilitators and consultants help provide the crucial training you need for managing conflict and using it to your advantage. When we discover unproductive conflict, we provide you and your team with proven techniques to bring about peace and understanding. The result is a more connected, cooperative environment for you and your team members.
Use our effective approach for understanding and managing conflict
In conflict-savvy work cultures, leaders work mindfully to support collaboration, empathy, open communication and other core value commitments crafted by colleagues, leaders, and team members. Our Conflict Management facilitators and consultants provide innovative and culture-transforming opportunities for professionals in your organization. These opportunities allow them to see that similarities among group members almost always outnumber differences. Our approach focuses on teaching participants to celebrate one another by communicating honestly and openly, often using the Circle Process and, in other instances, utilizing trainings and coaching services.
After participating in our unique Conflict Management exercises, activities and facilitations, participants are often doubly surprised… first by the strong bonds created with their team members, and second by their newfound ability to confidently analyze and resolve issues collaboratively, incorporating and addressing others’ perspectives and interests. The outcome is an improved workplace environment and a better, more well-rounded result as a whole.
Fight the often devastating costs of conflict
As a manager, business leader, or valued member of an organization, we know how highly you value your time. For just a moment, imagine subtracting up to 42% of your work day and devoting it to avoidable, unproductive conflict. For many, that’s over 3.5 hours gone from every day. Interestingly, a past studies have shown that managers actually do spend, on average, 25-42% of their time dealing with conflict. And more recent studies show that statistic trending closer to 50%. Can you and your organization afford to allocate over 3.5 hours of your leaders’ work days to avoidable, unproductive conflict? Probably not.
And that’s just the beginning of the long list of conflict costs which can plague organizations. If left unaddressed, these costs can lead to the downfall of an organization, especially since conflict is one of the leading contributors to employee and executive turnover. Research indicates that it takes 1 ½ to 2 times a trained professional’s salary to replace them. Costs associated with turnover, shrinkage, employee theft, rising healthcare costs, lost opportunity, and reduced teamwork all contribute to the high price tag of conflict within organizations. At the Circle Center, we have coaches, trainers and workplace mediation consultants who are skilled at helping organizations reduce these costs of conflict and create systems that will minimize these costs in the future.
Channel cognitive diversity productively
“You don’t get harmony when everyone sings the same note.”
Organizations that manage conflict in a good way are organizations that are nimble and better prepared for changes in the marketplace. Team members must understand your organization’s “brand” when it comes to conflict and that they will not experience reprisal or negativity for raising a challenging viewpoint. If your organization is able to put systems and skills in place to skillfully manage conflict, you will certainly stand out from your competitors. The Circle Center provides organizations and their leaders with skilled, experienced mediators and conflict management consultants who are ready to coach and train your workforce in Conflict Canagement mastery. We can help you build customized Conflict Management systems that address the specific needs of your organization while also developing the skills of your leaders for internal and external conflict they will face throughout their careers.
Contact us today to find out more about how The Circle Center can partner with you in your goal of implementing a successful Succession Planning and development program.
Coaching & Consulting
If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. – Chinese Proverb
Coaching as a form of professional and leadership development has become a highly sought after resource by both individuals and organizations seeking the achievement of professional and interpersonal goals. Whether you are an individual who desires to become a more compelling and effective leader or you are considering a career move in pursuit of more personal fulfillment, working with an experienced professional development coach can be the guiding support you are seeking.
Coaching provides guidance, encouragement, accountability, quality feedback and a fresh perspective as individuals stretch and grow into more effective people, professionals and organization or community leaders. We provide experienced and skilled coaches who will partner with you to help you build on your strengths, identify solutions and achieve your goals.
Consider these important questions:
What are individual and professional benefits of coaching?
People seek out coaching for a myriad of reasons- stress reduction, professional development, vocation identification/transition and more. As Ken Blanchard, author of the famous book The One Minute Manager aptly stated, “Feedback is the breakfast of champions.” We all need these valuable, reflective opportunities to make the necessary course adjustments throughout our lives.
Whether you are pursuing coaching for personal or professional reasons, understand that coaching in one of aspect of your life will definitely impact and transform other parts of your life as well. A recent national study of Fortune 1000 Companies revealed that professional and leader coaching is valuable for the individual coaching client as well as the larger organizations they serve.
The study found that the coached professionals experienced improvement in the following areas:
- Working relationships with direct reports (reported by 77% of executives)
- Working relationships with immediate supervisors (71%)
- Teamwork (67%)
- Working relationships with peers (63%)
- Job satisfaction (61%)
- Conflict reduction (52%)
- Organizational commitment (44%)
- Working relationships with clients (37%)
It is well documented that organizations benefit from providing access to one-to-one or group coaching services to their professionals and leaders. Apart from the sheer monetary savings and quality improvements, these organizations enjoy lowered conflict, increased morale and organizational loyalty remarkable in today’s marketplace.
Currently, 21-40% of Fortune 500 Companies provide executive coaching as part of their professional development curriculum and offerings. The Personnel Management Association has reported that training alone in a professional development curriculum is far less effective than when combined with coaching- 22% improvement with only training compared to 86% improvement of skills and productivity when combined with coaching.
These same companies experience the benefits listed below. They have also shown that the Return on Investment of organizational coaching is six to one!
As a direct result of professional coaching services,
- 53% saw increase in productivity.
- 48% saw increase in quality and overall organization strength.
- 39% saw improved customer service.
- 34% saw a reduction in customer complaints.
- 32% saw an increase in executive retention and substantial savings in executive turnover.
- 23% saw overall cost reductions for the organization and its operations.
- 22% saw increased overall profitability of the company.
How do I get there from here?
Coaching relationships are uniquely co-designed by the coach and the coachee to fit the individual and their goals. Coaching sessions take place in many formats including: in person, via telephone, via the internet and also in group settings. In general, coaching relationships last six months to one year. There are, however, some coaching sessions that have much more specific focuses and can be limited to shorter time periods. And, of course, there are many professionals and executives that use coaches throughout their careers as a powerful sounding board and support structure.
Coaching is particularly effective for professionals going through times of change such as new management, individual promotion, organizational reorganization, realignment of roles or duties, stretch assignments and other challenges. Statistics show that coaching provides an effective focus for professional development that other forms of organizational support simply can’t match, especially during these times of professional growth.
Does coaching create a learning organization?
To answer this question, we’ll consult the words of Ray Kroc:
“As long as you’re green, you’re growing. As soon as you’re ripe, you start to rot.”
If you or an individual within your organization would benefit from greater communication and problem-solving skills, our Coaching and Professional Development service may be right for you.
If you seek more confidence, increased presentation, facilitation and leadership skills, improved emotional intelligence, or simply a greater executive presence, contact us today. We will partner with you to create the coaching program that suits your unique goals and needs.
Executive and Professional Coaching
Professionals often need support as they integrate into new roles and new challenges in an organization. We provide skilled and experienced individual coaching for executives, managers and professionals at all levels of the organization. Whether a team member needs help achieving personal or professional goals; communicating or problem-solving with team-members; or, refraining from conduct that is damaging or costly to the organization; high-impact and affordable, professional coaching sessions are available at The Circle Center. Drawing on years of experience in employment law, workplace mediation and leadership development, your people are in expert hands and will receive the feedback, support and practical skills needed to face and overcome their unique challenges. Contact us today at (615)708-7221 to check availability for a group training or individual coaching session.
Workplace Consulting Services
Does your organization have an intentional, custom-designed conflict management system? What does your organization do on a consistent basis to develop and support collaboration and cognitive diversity? Many organizations and leaders do not allocate time and resources for intentional workplace culture planning and development. These organizations suffer because they are not agile and are unable to respond to the rapidly changing marketplace and business environment. The costs these organizations pay is high in terms of lost revenue, lost employees, inferior products and services and failing customer feedback. The Circle Center provides expert consulting services to create systems in your organization to address these critical culture and development issues. Individual and organization wide assessments are available as well so you can chart your organization’s transformation. Whether you are looking to hire an embedded mediator or “ombudsman” to resolve conflict internally as it occurs, or if you are looking to train professionals capable of creating collaborative work teams, contact us today at (615) 708-7221 to get you on the track to organizational success.
Past team training and consulting recipients include:
- Tractor Supply
- Ingram
- BMI
- UPS
- Belmont, Center for Executive Education
- Scarlett
- Vanderbilt University, Cal Turner Leadership Institute
- Lipscomb University, Institute for Conflict Management
- Bethel College
- Tennessee State University
- Tennessee Tech University
- Baptist Healing Trust
- Baptist Hospital
- Lifeway
- Brentwood Chamber, Women in Business
- 1W1C, Young Professionals
- Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville
- The Center for Nonprofit Management
- Nashville Conflict Resolution Center
- Tennessee Wildlife Resources Foundation
- Tennessee Society of Certified Public Accountants
- Williamson County Association of Realtors
- Women’s Council of Realtors
- Nashville Bar Association
- Tennessee Lawyers Assistance Program
Stress Reduction
“Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.” – Dr. Seuss , Oh The Places You’ll Go
You already know that stress in the workplace contributes to agitation, disorganization, and low energy levels among team members. You may have even experienced one of the many physical symptoms that stressed employees often display- among them headaches, tense muscles, upset stomach, frequent colds, and insomnia. But did you know that approximately one million Americans must call out of work each day due to stress-related issues?
For both the over-stressed employees and their respective organizations, this is an enormous problem. At the Circle Center, we think that our Stress Reduction service is one of the most vital contributions we can make to your organization. We routinely succeed in helping organizations train their leaders in effective stress reduction tactics.
But how do we do it? It’s simple, really. We do it by…
Creating honest support systems
If you’ve read our mission statement, you know that one of The Circle Center’s primary aims is to facilitate and sustain meaningful dialogues among colleagues and their managers. We believe that opening the lines of communication between teammates and team leaders is one of the first important steps toward the creation of collaborative workplaces. Over and over, we’ve watched as participants, feeling empowered by respect shown to them in structured communication exercises, develop and voice their own ideas for reducing stress in their specific work environments.
Teaching empathy in Circle
When harmful stress levels are present, something else is usually at work: an individual’s feeling that others do not or will not understand his position in a given situation. For example, it often happens that important deadlines approach at the same time that an individual experiences a major life change. If that individual feels that her team members either do not or will not understand how the personal life event may affect her performance, she is likely to become quite stressed- both at home and in the workplace. Her performance and mood will suffer, and she will become more likely to call out of work, miss the important deadline, and even become ill.
If, however, the same individual felt that she was understood by those around her and that her team members were likely to empathize with her, something entirely different would transpire. Knowing that her colleagues stood ready to support her in the face of a challenge, her professional and personal responsibilities would seem much more manageable. Her stress levels would remain intact, and she could work and lead with confidence.
Implementing lasting plans of action
It doesn’t take a professional to facilitate a relatively effective stress-reduction activity. But what good is a one-day retreat or an isolated meditation session if the results last only as long as the next incoming phone call? Our experienced facilitators know how to implement Stress Reduction techniques durable enough to withstand the seemingly endless influx of emails, customer phone calls and approaching deadlines that make up a part of your team members’ work days. We show your leaders how to develop healthy, stress-reducing habits that are transferrable across every management level. Heightened stress related to both personal and professional pressures are alleviated, and your workplace is transformed into a healthier, happier place to be.
If you feel that your organization and its members suffer from unhealthy stress levels, contact us today. Our Stress Reduction service can be tailored to both individuals and groups of any size.
