In the early 1980s, I started facilitating Action Learning where all set members were working on the same problem or project (single-project Action Learning, or SPAL). My bias in Action Learning has always been to cultivate self-facilitated groups, somewhat in the spirit of Reginald Revans’ preferences for those kinds of sets, too. However, at least …

That was the first part of a question … that continued to ask: “I believe the answer to be a hard drive at research of prospective large gift donors, cultivating these prospects and obtaining a commitment or large gift. Where do general corporate and community direct mail efforts come in? Are there specific procedures for …

Throwing money at the problem isn’t always the best solution As part of its continuing crisis response for the massive hack that exposed the personal data of cheating site Ashley Madison’s customers, page operator Avid Life Media is offering up a $500,000 CDN (~ $380,000 US) reward for information that leads to capture and arrest …

Embattled organization makes another mistake leading up to World Cup in Russia FIFA has already taken a great deal of heat over its controversial decisions to hold World Cups in Russa and Qatar, and now the organization is making headlines once again over an immense oversight that shows the world just how little attention they …

Every once in a while it is necessary to get the details. The following article is reposted with permission from John Kapensky via GovLoop. John is a Senior Fellow, at IBM Center for The Business of Government in Washington, D.C. WHY ISN’T PERFORMANCE INFORMATION BEING USED? Champions of performance management in government are confounded. After …

A call to action through education The longer crises are allowed to go on without definitive action being taken, the more damage is caused. When you have events like the current Ebola outbreak, that involve not one individual or organization, but many, the response becomes far more complex. In a continuation of its tried-and-true tactic …

Don’t follow temptation into disaster Although our threshhold for outrage over unethical behavior is being pushed on a daily basis, the fact remains that doing “the right thing” is still an important aspect of crisis prevention. Why should your business be driven by anything other than making as much money as humanly possible? Vuma Reputation …

Series of potentially deadly failures raises major questions Over the past couple of years we’ve frequently mentioned the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as paving the way for government agencies when it comes to effective crisis communications. The agency has set a fantastic example, making use of information sharing and the latest technologies …

A disagreement arises in a meeting you are facilitating. This is an inevitable scenario in many types of meetings where a group needs to come to critical decisions - such as strategic planning or issue resolution sessions. How do you - the person in the room responsible for building consensus - resolve it without breaking group dynamics or creating a tense environment of division? It's a tough job, but you can (and need to) do it. Here's one way to resolve the disagreement.

(In this Part 1 of 2, we will describe group coaching. In Part 2, we will describe some basic considerations for developing a group coaching application.) Group coaching is used much more often now because it often can achieve more impact, more quickly and at a lower cost. Group coaching leverages the untapped wisdom, support, …