Below are some of the tools we use when working with clients, organized in three major categories:

• Great Leadership
• Workplace Collaboration
• Innovation and Creativity

Check back often-- we add a new tool every few weeks.

Feel free to pass them on to others-- print and use them in meetings-- or suggest one you'd like to see!

Improving Productivity

8 Steps to Better Decisions
Decision making can learn from fairy tales -- Goldilocks in particular. Most organizations exert too much control (too hot) in which people feel disempowered or lack responsibility, or a "sink or swim" style (too cold) in which people are not developed to succeed at making progressively better decisions. The "just right" decision making can benefit from these 8 steps.

Great Leadership

Are You Collaborating Enough?
Collaboration is a crucial skill in today’s flatter, faster-moving workplaces. But the skills are not commonly taught or emphasized. Assess your current skill level and pinpoint what you need to improve.

Mindsets for Change
The best change management programs are not programs -- they come from a few simple “mindsets” leaders hold. Helping people remember what change is for is a leader’s #1 job in today’s constant-change environments, but the research shows it’s not happening. A few simple practices can make a huge difference.

The Executive Storyteller
Lighten up leaders! The use of story and metaphor is a powerful catalyst to ignite action in people. This tool will guide you through ten tips for building more of it into your communication.

Football and Prioritization
Leaders and teams are drowning in demands to "do more with less". The life jacket? Clear, ongoing prioritization. Drawing from lessons in football, this tool describes 5 secrets for how to be strategic and dynamic simultaneously. This isn't about time management. It's about how to win.

Accountability- A New Approach
Why is the 14-letter word “Accountability” often like a 4-letter word in business? Largely because it’s code for finger-pointing and blaming, rather than a process to build a winning team. When done right, everyone is engaged and nobody is the scapegoat. Check out this tool, and our web-based system to support it.

Tough Conversations
One of the toughest tests of authentic leadership is telling someone else -- especially someone with more authority -- a hard truth, with candor. Candor means being frank, open, sincere, without bias. Learn the top 10 principles for developing your ability to do this with compassion and empathy.

Leadership Trust Rating
One of the critical success factors for finding and keeping great talent is the "unseen" level of trust in the organization. Take this self assessment to determine your trust level with your people.

Workplace Collaboration

Communicating During Change
Are you leaving it to chance or managing it to perform? The degree to which a change effort takes hold and sustains is about how well communication was managed. This tool provides a template of the major questions great leaders answer during change-related communication, and a sample of how they were put forth in one organization.

Urgency: Establishing Commitment
The biggest predictor of success during change is the degree of urgency the organization, department, or team feels for the change. This tool helps a leader assess his or her personal commitment - without which the broader sense of commitment and urgency needed to sustain change never takes hold.

Imbalanced v. Balanced Workplaces
Balance predicts growth which is expressed through day-to-day ease or resistance of work flow, in areas like teamwork, decision making, and customer service. Take this assessment to see where your organization's practical daily activities are out of balance and need adjustment.

Ten Signs of a Healthy Workplace
Workplace health determines how fully people take ownership for the success of your business. In an unhealthy workplace you find decision-paralysis, poor accountability, “Dilbert-behavior” of blame-shifting and hiding mistakes, use of fear to motivate, and an insular attitude of “we know better than our customer.” A healthy culture has a very different feeling: The business regularly meets its targets, work is purposeful and focused, there is pride and energy, and people have a sincere positive connection to the customer.

Assess Your Culture: Denison Self-Assessment
Is your culture accelerating or hindering your workplace performance? Take this self-administered version of the powerful research-based, benchmarking Denison Culture Survey, which compares your culture to 770 companies across industry and geography and links it to critical business performance measures.

Assessing Change Readiness
How likely is it that your change effort will succeed? This tool is based on critical success factors that predict readiness for change or help pinpoint where trouble spots are coming from in a change effort.

Innovation and Creativity

Five Tips for Increasing Innovation in the Workplace
Great companies --small or large-- go way beyond "innovation" of their product or service. They create an environment where employees constantly improve the right stuff (including how you work and how you execute strategy) all the time. Learn the top 5 tips for building innovation-friendly workplaces.

How to Build an Innovation Mindset from the Top
Workplaces with successful innovation have a differrent set of rules. To successfully manage "innovation" requires a partticular type of clarity and support from the top leadership. Learn these keys to creating a successful innovation environment.

How to Jump-Start Innovation with Teamwork
Innovation lives and dies in the teamwork environment in an organization. Here are specific tools and tips you can use to foster a more "innovation-friendly" team environment, even if your organization is not yet embracing a broader move to a culture of innovation.