Consultancy
In Dialogue offers consultancy to your organisation at different levels (individual, team, unit and whole organisation) and within different areas – both shorter and longer processes.
- We can be a qualified partner in a dialogue about the needs and visions of your team, unit or organisation, and promise to challenge you to think wider and deeper.
- We have experience with developing concrete change processes for organisations and networks, and would be happy to share our concrete ideas with you.
- We can facilitate that the perspectives and ideas of both leaders and diverse staff are used constructively in moving towards the strategic goals, and that initiatives are implemented in the daily routines and procedures.
- We have experience with working on work-satisfaction, conflict-management, motivation, constructive cooperation and teamwork, increased learning in the daily work and much more.
Process consultation
In Dialogue offers process consultation during seminars, meetings, theme-days etc. The topics can be various such as coordination and meaning-making around the common work areas and strategic goals, improved cooperation, development of new working areas, sharing of knowledge or clarification of expectations, doubts and misunderstandings. See also team-coaching.
Our working methods are based on an appreciative and systemic approach. This approach tells us that development happens when a space is created in which each single person is listened to, and his or her perspective fully appreciated and understood, where the dialogues are “separated”, so that people truly listen to each other’s perspectives and build on these, and where the process is guided through certain phases with a clear purpose.
Conflict management
Conflicts are an ingredient of everyday life. Conflicts reflect that individual members and groups are positioned differently within an organisation/ business or within society. These persons understand and describe happenings from different perspectives, which often lead to clashes. Just as well as conflicts can cause great destruction, they can also be a potential for growth and open up new possibilities for change and development. This is due to the fact that different perspectives are necessary to create a more complete story about reality and to develop more options for action.
When teams and groups can incorporate diversity and at the same time manage conflicts constructively, they will be able to achieve creative and sustainable outcomes. The challenge is therefore to gain a positive approach towards conflicts and learn how to deal with them and benefit from them.
In Dialogue offer consultancy to the parties of conflicts. The focus is on giving everybody a voice; listen appreciatively to the good reasons behind everyone’s perspective and to come up with sustainable agreements that fit the organisation.
Organisational development
Decisions about organisational change are decided upon by the management and/or the political leadership of the organisation. Examples of such changes are strategic alliances, mergers, development of visions and strategies, visions of becoming a learning organisation, or of increasing diversity within the organisation.
In order to ensure that motivation, commitment and engagement remains high within the organisation, it is however desirable to involve the perspectives and ideas of both the staff and leaders in deciding upon the concrete implementation, how to ensure constructive cooperation among units, how to deal with unforeseen difficulties and/or conflicts etc.
We tailor make both shorter and longer processes to facilitate the dialogue and involvement of the relevant members of the organisation.
Monitoring & evaluation
It might be desirable to support an organisational development process by documenting achievements and progress. This can be done through a monitoring and evaluation process. In some cases it might be that external stakeholders require such documentation.
In Dialogue sees monitoring and evaluation as a time for reflection and learning. For that reason we involve the organisation in setting indicators, describing strategies, discussing results and what steps to take to improve the work.
We believe that people hold the key to the solution themselves, and we therefore see our role as setting the frame for the evaluation and asking the right questions, both in relation to the past experiences and the desired future. Learning arises from taking part in the whole process rather than from being presented for the end-results of the analysis and the recommendations by the consultants.
The results of the evaluation process will therefore go beyond documents and reports and consist of a deeper understanding of the system at work in the organisation - both by the leaders and the staff - as well as an ability to set goals and reflect on the indicators of success..
Appreciative benchmarking
It might be desirable to support an organisational development process by being inspired by the practices of other organisations, structures and units. How do others structure their work, what do they consider good leadership, how is learning and innovation (e.g. in relation to products and services) ensured?
In Dialogue sees a benchmarking process as a chance for sharing knowledge, building strategic partnerships and learning from each others best practices. It applies appreciative inquiry to benchmarking, by havening organisations enter into dialogues about their most successful achievements and procedures and an analysis of what makes that happen. Following this we facilitate that the new ideas of the leaders and staff are applied to the goals and visions of the organisation.
