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Martin on Team - Team Building for the Future
To impact your company to operate at the level of
team may in fact be the primary solution to real
breakthrough. Where are you limited in trusting your
team? Just before jumping the trust comes from
within you. For sure you would need to trust
yourself to trust the team, and that translates to:
it’s about your money and their money, your time and
their time, your possessions and their possessions,
what you are responsible for, and what they are
responsible for.
In beginning to distinguish what is team, I recall
standing high on a tree, and just before being
blindfolded, the last thing I saw were six members
of my team at the bottom, with a large net, smiling
and prompting me to jump. The experience of being
blindfolded, and not knowing, was frightening. And
yet I knew that there were many people who jumped
before me, safely. Yet the fear was overwhelmingly
present. Could I trust? My intellectual self told me
I have nothing to lose. I will be all right. No one
has gotten killed or hurt before me. Jump!
What is this fundamental flaw or magnificent
resistance to trusting another person or people? I
jumped, and it was exhilarating. When I landed, I
looked in their faces and saw nothing but love.
Could it be like this throughout my life, in my
business, at home, and with my friends and family.
The possibility of team lives in all of us. To
confront that fear is essential. I remember the
Three Musketeers. Their credo was “All for One, and
One for all”. It was so inspiring. Especially seeing
them in action, defending each other, passionately
expressing themselves, and for sure, leading
exciting and adventurous lives.
Trusting yourself to tell the truth may be the most
difficult obstacle, for you can’t trust the team
unless you can trust yourself to tell the truth.
Soon as you stop telling the truth (to yourself) you
begin not trusting the people around you. You might
say – “If I’m not telling the truth, then perhaps
they’re not telling the truth, therefore, how can I
really trust? How can I let go? How can I truly
empower the staff?” For it may be said, that it is
impossible to empower anyone unless you can trust.
Trust is clearly at the heart of the matter. It is
why you and I operate alone, and do our best, and
yet continue some kind of inner struggle, and wonder
why we are not being supported, people keep letting
us down, we get deeply disappointed and become
angry. So you see why you seem to be better off
doing it on your own! The cost is awesome; to who
you are, to who they are, and to some possibility
that is never realized.
I say this is our time! Right now! The ultimate cost
is more visible and more consequential than at any
time in our history. I am committed to inventing a
team possibility for us to begin an idealistic
program actualized in reality called “All for One,
and One for All”.
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A brief critique about Martin Cohen Consultants, Inc
The following is intended to give you a clearer
picture of how this particular coaching/consulting
and methodology will pertain to you and your
organization.
Martin Cohen Consultants, Inc. has, over the past 25
years, provided a unique coaching/consulting service
to institutions, organizations and to their
management and staff. The thrust of our consulting
has been to bring about what is known as
“Organizational Transformation”.
Organizational Transformation could be said to be a
shift in paradigm, context or relationship such that
-- with no change in circumstances or content –-
what becomes available are openings calling forth
actions never before possible. New freedoms for
communication and engagement manifest, as well as
unprecedented outcomes in such areas as leadership,
alignment, creativity and accomplishment.
Traditional consulting
Traditional consulting generally deals with change
as distinct from transformation, that is, an expert
in the field surveys an organization and makes
recommendations for implementing changes in
personnel, process or systems. While such
recommendations may be valid and are even perceived
as “correct”, they usually make relatively little
difference, especially over time, “business as
usual” return quickly.
Organizational Transformation
In contrast to change, Organizational Transformation
deals with context rather than content. As an
analogy, no matter how one changes the liquid poured
into a particular vessel, whatever kind of liquid
used, it invariably takes the identical shape of
that vessel. Yet, when the context or paradigm is
changed – in this analogy, the shape of the vessel –
even the same content (the liquid) produces a whole
new possibility.
In working with organizations, we begin with the
premise that a group of people in the organization
forms a culture or paradigm. This culture is the
product of the collective history, thinking,
practices, viewpoints, knowledge and information
amassed by those who are participating and have
participated in that organization.
For the most part, this culture is not seen or
acknowledged, yet its impact on individual and
collective action is extraordinarily powerful. What
has been historically produced or allowed for in the
culture will inevitably continue. What has never
been produced or is not allowed for in the culture
will usually never be seriously considered, let
alone accomplished.
Contribution
In your organization there may be staff members who
have experienced being thwarted in their intention
to make a difference to the system as a whole. The
thwarting of this intention – which occurs through
no particular fault – often gives rise to withdrawal
from participation, a “business as usual” attitude,
and the sabotaging of desired objectives. Restoring
channels for full participation and contribution is
key if there is to be any meaningful system change.
Breakthrough
To paraphrase Albert Einstein, the level of
thinking, which has given rise to the problems we
face, is insufficient to allow for their solution.
Said another way, if individual or organizational
action is a function of its existent point of view,
any attempt to take new or altered action comes from
and is then received within that same original
viewpoint. This circular pattern inhibits any real
chance for strong change outside of the status quo.
Martin Cohen Consultants coaching and consulting
provides a solution to this dilemma whereby new
thinking and effective action are brought to bear in
areas that have heretofore presented particular
problems. The MCC methodology enables organizations
to invent and realize possibilities that were not
available inside the historical or prevailing
paradigm. A new environment is generated that allows
for desired change at a fundamental level, so that
traditional limitations (often self-imposed and
unexamined) are removed.
Unlike traditional consultants who may bring special
knowledge and experience, and who may give input
based on that knowledge and experience, we will not
instruct or prescribe solutions, nor do we “fix” (in
a psychological or any other sense) organizations or
the individuals which comprise them.
Rather, in partnership with our clients, we examine
the set of assumptions and viewpoints that give rise
to the prevailing culture or paradigm, and then
acknowledge the predictable outcomes this culture
would produce. This inquiry allows for a cultural
paradigm shift as evidenced by the ability to see
new solutions to concerns, and by an ability to take
effective action reliably and with a natural ease.
Initiative and creativity, real thinking and
innovation, and an unparalleled sense of personal
responsibility for one’s work and environment –
clearly distinct from “business as usual” – are
common outcomes of our consulting work. People are
powerfully returned to their vision, as opposed to
doing the best that can be done in its absence.
Organizations are proactive, as opposed to reactive
to the future. This said, this work is primarily for
committed professionals who have already experienced
what it is to be successful and produce results.
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