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Organizations often understand what challenges they are facing when they reach out to a consulting firm like Clarus. But often they don’t have clear expectations about the results they will see.
At Clarus, we believe defining the ultimate objectives — the tangible results — is absolutely critical for the success of our work. Because, quite simply, if you don’t know what you’re working to achieve, how can you achieve it?
Comprehensive and integrated support to strengthen and align the leadership team of a statewide social services agency, followed by successful development and implementation of a strategic plan.
The client was a state agency serving more than 200,000 individuals with mental illnesses, developmental disabilities, and substance use disorders. The agency’s leader is highly regarded in the field and holds a bold vision for the agency’s service and impact.
Having successfully navigated the agency through a global pandemic, leadership sought to implement a comprehensive initiative to both ensure the team was healthy and aligned and to develop a strategic plan to clearly articulate the agency’s goals and priorities for the next three years.
The integrated approach to organizational culture and strategic planning was particularly important, given the impact of the pandemic. The leadership team had experienced unprecedented stress and demand over a two-year period, and the agency overall was responding to tremendous growth and change in mental health services and delivery overall.
Clarus began the engagement with an in-depth work session with agency leadership to gain knowledge about vision, concerns, and opportunities, and to develop a customized project plan designed to meet the needs of the agency. The first component of the customized project plan was providing Clear Leadership Training, an innovative team and leadership program developed by Clarus, for twenty-five leaders within the agency.
The second component, which built on the momentum created by Clear Leadership Training, was a comprehensive strategic planning process. The planning process helped leadership gain a panoramic view of the agency and its landscape through a stakeholder engagement process that collected insights from sixty-three stakeholders representing thirty-five organizations. The planning team used these insights to inform and identify five strategic priorities, with supporting goals and objectives, to guide the work of the agency over the next three years.
Leadership emerged from Clear Leadership Training as a healthier and more closely aligned team. They gained understanding of personality, work style, and communication differences among team members and developed strategies to mitigate challenges and leverage one another’s strengths for the good of the whole.
The strategic planning process provided an opportunity to put new knowledge, skills, and alignment into practice. Through collaborative planning sessions, agency leadership increased collective understanding of their stakeholders’ perspectives and worked together as a team to craft a strategic plan to respond to these perspectives while clearly articulating priorities, goals, and objectives to guide the organization into the future.
Clarus worked closely with the commissioner throughout the nine-month engagement via regular touchpoints and advisement sessions. This provided the platform for Clarus to adapt and adjust our approach to meet the evolving needs of the organization, as well as serve as a thought partner to help guide and leverage communication internally and with stakeholders, sequencing and timing of change initiatives, and emerging funding and legislative priorities.
Design and implementation of a leadership development and training program to strengthen and align a nursing school leadership team to support the school’s continued growth.
The client was an established nursing school within pioneering health sciences center. The school is part of a large, well-respected statewide university system with a long history of educating healthcare professionals for local, national, and international leadership roles.
Following the installation of a new dean, the school developed a new strategic plan to renew its commitment to its vision and mission. To implement this plan and improve performance, leadership recognized it needed a strong, well-aligned executive team.
Specifically, the client was interested in investing in its 18-member executive team to strengthen leadership and management skills, increase team cohesion, and create better alignment and adaptability among team members.
We tailored our proven Clear Leadership Training program for the client. Incorporating multiple teaching methods including assessment, teamwork, didactic presentations, and experiential learning, the program modules focused on personality and leadership style, effective communication, conflict, and characteristics of high-performing teams.
Throughout the training, Clarus used the Enneagram personality tool as a framework for the leadership development program. The Enneagram is a system of nine personality types that combines traditional wisdom and modern psychology into a powerful tool for understanding the nine ways people think, feel, and act in relation to the world.
The participatory, team-based learning environment central to Clear Leadership Training provided the conditions and content for accelerated team building and leadership development.
Upon completion of all modules, participants reported having a greater awareness of personal leadership style, strengthened communication and leadership skills, and improved personal and professional motivation. Overall, participants reported benefitting most from gaining insight into their own strengths and challenges and a better understanding of their colleagues’ personalities.
With new leadership skills and tools in place, as well as stronger team awareness and alignment, the school achieved the readiness it needed to fulfill its commitment to stronger overall performance and implement its new strategic plan. In fact, Clear Leadership Training provided the platform for participants to use new tools and skills and increased trust to engage in real-time collaboration and decision-making during the rollout of a revised organizational structure, even as the training was ongoing.
Creating a statewide needs assessment and strategic planning process to align a multi-agency collaborative team tasked with strengthening and expanding quality early childhood services to children and families. Since the implementation of our plan, the multi-agency team has received national recognition as a leader in this effort.
The client was a state agency providing high-quality early childhood services to children and families. Today, they are recognized as a leader, innovator, model, and mentor for similar agencies across the nation.
The agency received a multi-million dollar federal grant to invest in collaborative, meaningful, and equitable improvements to the delivery of services to children and families.
Immediately after the grant was awarded, the client organized a multi-agency steering team to design and implement a collaborative planning process to define how services could be sustainably strengthened and improved.
Working closely with the agency and collaborative steering team, Clarus designed a carefully sequenced process for the multi-year engagement that included:
Clarus supported the multi-agency team in developing a statewide needs assessment and strategic plan by thoughtfully moving from information to insight to action and grounding the work in a robust stakeholder engagement process.
During the process, we collected responses from partner agencies on 59 needs assessments, conducted 35 in-depth interviews with key partners, and engaged 433 participants through 28 focus groups with constituents.
Following the analysis of existing needs assessments and stakeholder feedback, Clarus worked closely with the client team to create a comprehensive, prioritized needs assessment and actionable three-year strategic plan. Both the needs assessment and strategic plan were aligned with federal guidelines, received federal approval, and were incorporated as a model for other states to follow.
Throughout the multi-year planning process, Clarus played a key role as a neutral, third-party facilitator for a large-scale project requiring careful attention to both the big picture and project details. In addition, Clarus served as a strategic thought partner for team leaders and supported continued commitment to the process, continuity when leadership changes occurred, and ongoing alignment of a wide range of partners as the project evolved over time.
Following the completion of the strategic plan, the multi-agency team re-engaged Clarus to support the implementation of the strategic plan. Through skilled facilitation, ongoing partnership development, and the use of proven implementation tools and strategies, Clarus helped the agency maintain alignment, implement the plan across agencies, and achieve results aligned with the plan.
Design and deploy a listening and learning initiative to information and insights needed to create an organization-wide vision and a people-centered approach to its work and identify actions to help make the vision a reality.
Our client was a national land conservation organization with more than 1,000 members working on policy and advocacy, standards for practice, and education and training.
In response to changing environmental, cultural, and demographic trends, the organization’s leadership recognized a need to accelerate the pace of its work, deploy more dynamic and intersectional models and partnerships, and spearhead a transformational shift that places people at the center of conservation.
In order to provide a foundation for this shift, a listening and learning initiative was deployed to create a dynamic exchange of information with diverse stakeholders about how land can help communities thrive. They also wanted to gather insight into how the organization and its members could develop, strengthen, elevate, and expand efforts to engage the community in conservation work.
Clarus, in partnership with two additional consulting firms, designed and facilitated a highly collaborative listening and learning initiative guided by the principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, respect, and reciprocity.
The initiative included:
Methods for engagement included:
The initiative engaged more than 650 stakeholders through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and an online survey.
Synthesis and analysis of a large volume of qualitative and quantitative data resulted in the identification of eight key findings. The findings were used to develop actionable recommendations about how the client could move their work forward within their own organization and across their broad and diverse membership.
In addition to actionable recommendations, the process improved internal understanding and consensus on a vision for the future. It also strengthened relationships with external stakeholders and partners and established clear next steps for supporting members through communication, resources, education and training, and capacity-building.
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