REFLECTIONS ON CHANGE MANAGEMENT IN UNCERTAIN TIMES

Part 1 (of 3): What’s been disrupted?

Recent events have disrupted the way we’re all working. Change Managers in particular are used to adapting to new situations. Now everyone is taking part – in real time – in the biggest workplace change in decades.

The Gunter Group hosted ACMP Pacific Northwest’s April Coffee Chat and discussed topics with the change management community such as: What’s been disrupted in your way of working?

– What’s been disrupted in your way of working?
– What leadership challenges are you facing in this new reality?
– What does relationship building look like now?

View a replay of the discussion or download the slide deck below

Be sure to check out the remaining 2 discussions in our three-part series.

May 8, 2020 @ 9–10 AM PDT  | Watch Now
Part 2: How we are adapting

 June 12, 2020 @ 9–10 AM PDT  | Watch Now
Part 3: What we will carry forward

Hosted by:
Stephen Bacon
Senior Consultant
The Gunter Group

TGG HOSTS ACMP’S APRIL COFFEE CHAT

We are excited to be hosting ACMP Pacific Northwest’s April Coffee Chat for an online discussion around ‘Reflections on Change Management in Uncertain Times.’ 

It’s no surprise that recent events have disrupted the way we’re all working. Change Managers in particular are used to adapting to new situations. Now we’re all taking part – in real time – in the biggest workplace change in decades.

We invite you to take part in this conversation and share with us your experiences of working through this time of change. Your feedback will directly inform our conversation this month around the changing nature of our work lives and what’s been disrupted. 

Join us in May to continue discussing how we are adapting and in June to discuss what we will carry forward into the world that emerges. 

EVENT DETAILS:
Reflections on Change Management in Uncertain Times
April 10, 2020
9:00AM-10:00AM PDT
CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

COVID-19: OUR COMMITMENT IN DIFFICULT TIMES

As a global community, we have entered unprecedented and challenging times with major social, governmental, and economic disruptions stemming from COVID-19. Significant concerns around our health and the health of our loved ones and friends, economic dislocation and uncertainty, and the future are on all of our minds. What is certain, however, is that we are all facing this crisis together, and the immediate impacts are real and rapidly evolving.

Our consultants take pride in living out a culture centered around our non-negotiables. Like many of you, over the past few days we have had challenging conversations about how to process the unfolding events and the resulting impacts that each of us is experiencing. We have reacted quickly to adjust the way we work together, making the space for our team to have open and honest conversations about the challenges we all are facing.

The scope and impacts of COVID-19 are unknown at this point, but the uncomfortable reality is that it is already impacting our communities significantly. Our team has been discussing how we can continue to carry out our lives in the midst of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. We have been asking ourselves how we can balance compassion and commitment to containment efforts with the responsibilities we have to support our families, our coworkers, and our broader communities. These are difficult topics with which we are all wrestling to understand and navigate as the days unfold. 

The Gunter Group exists to help realize the potential of our clients, our consultants, and our communities. We are doing our best to support our team and we are working with our clients and the broader business community to support them as well. We are all experiencing real and immediate business challenges in the face of the COVID-19 outbreak. Our commitment to deep partnership and delivering real business value has never been more important than in this time of crisis and we are getting creative in order to support our clients when and where they need us most. 

We are both Veterans, and have experience leading teams in difficult times and situations. Our unique team also brings years of experience in crisis operations to our clients, whether it is responding to unexpected, external shocks or leading military service members in war zones. Our experience leading in times of crisis drives how we respond to COVID-19, and how we focus our firm’s response. We keep core values, or non-negotiables in our case, at the heart of everything we do. The realities of COVID-19 are unique, but there are core principles for dealing with crisis that we have learned transcend the specifics of this event: remember your core values, focus on the mission, dramatically increase communications, and give your team the support they need to continue moving forward. Most of all, we know that now more than ever, caring for the personal and professional intersections of your workforce and community matters.

We will continue to share practices we have put in place for our own team, but we are also actively living out our commitment to our clients:

Crisis Management–leading, coordinating, or supporting unexpected challenges that have arisen as a result of COVID-19.

Business Continuity–partnering with clients to plan and execute business continuity efforts across a range of business models and industries.

Strategic Momentum–helping clients continue to move their long-term, strategic initiatives forward as they navigate timeline and resource challenges.

Human Resource Constraints–providing interim leadership and staff support for a number of clients in the face of uncertainty.

As this pandemic continues to develop, it will require adaptability to address evolving challenges. However, we know that we will get through this challenge together by focusing on our non-negotiables, remaining committed to our people, clients and communities, and being creative in the face of uncertainty.

We wish everyone in our communities the best as we all continue to navigate through the COVID-19 outbreak.

Tony Schweiss, Principal and Reno Market Leader. Tony builds teams to support strategic change initiatives and helps leaders plan for highly impactful change. Thriving in the face of complex problems, he brings clarity to ambiguous situations and organizational questions. Leaders quickly come to trust Tony as a partner in making their tough decisions. 

Matt Bader, Principal and Portland Market Leader. Matt’s passion and leadership purpose is all about helping teams reach their highest potential. He loves building and leading high-performing teams and seeing what can be accomplished when strong values, sound strategy, and a relentless commitment to execution collide. He is a trusted advisor who thrives on building lasting partnerships and driving high-quality solutions for clients.

TGG STORY PUBLISHED IN OREGON BUSINESS MAGAZINE

After being named the #4 Best Company to Work For in Oregon (medium business category), Oregon Business connected with us to publish an article highlighting The Gunter Group’s story.

We were excited to share our holistic, Non-Negotiables approach to client delivery with Oregon Business and to be highlighted in their magazine alongside the other 2020 winners on the ‘100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon’ list. Congratulations to all these awesome organizations! Read the full story at OregonBusiness.Com to learn more.

TGG RANKS AGAIN AS ONE OF THE FIVE BEST MEDIUM COMPANIES TO WORK FOR IN OREGON

A couple months ago we learned that The Gunter Group ranked on the Oregon Business ‘100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon’ list for the 6th year in a row!

Specific rankings were announced at the annual awards celebration dinner hosted by Oregon Business on March 5, 2020 at the Oregon Convention Center. We are excited to share that we have been recognized as the #4 Best Company to Work For in Oregon – in the medium business category! 

Check out the full list on OregonBusiness.Com.

TGG RELEASES NEW COMPANY VIDEO

As part of our recognition as one of the nation’s Best Small Firms to Work For by Consulting Magazine, we put together this short video summarizing our unique, “listen first” approach and showcasing some of the people and values that make The Gunter Group such a rewarding place to work. We are so grateful for our team of talented consultants, the clients we get to serve, and the communities in which we live and work. Together, they create meaningful opportunities to solve problems and grow a thriving business. Special thanks to Magaurn Video Media for their outstanding production work that so beautifully represents The Gunter Group. We look forward to seeing how our firm continues to evolve and grow in the year ahead and remain deeply committed to the mission, values, and people who helped us get where we are today.

CAREERS IN CONSULTING: A RECAP

Last week, The Gunter Group joined a panel of management consultants to speak to a group of Portland State University business students. We owe much of our success to the encouragement of mentors over the years, so we welcome any chance to pay it forward. The future business leaders and problem solvers we met at PSU represented an impressive and thoughtful group of engaged and motivated students. For those unable to attend, we wanted to capture some of the themes and advice from the panel and invite ongoing discussion with anyone considering a career in consulting.

It Depends

The panel’s response to several questions was a resounding, “It depends!” As consultants, we sometimes chuckle at this answer because we share a common challenge of trying to explain what we do when it can be different things  from day to day. “It depends” points to one of a consultant’s most essential skills – adaptability. From the solutions we propose and the methodologies we employ to the language we use and the tasks on our to-do list, consultants must be able to think on their feet, read the room, and simultaneously hold theoretical best practices and practical realities in mind at all times. 

How can burgeoning consultants develop this seemingly ephemeral skill set? Experience. 

Put yourself in situations that stretch your ability to lead a team, resolve conflict, apply data insights, and generally experiment. The world is your laboratory and you needn’t wait until you land your first formal consulting engagement to practice. Principal consultant, Matt Bader, shared how his military and athletic experiences prepared him for consulting more than anything else in his background. Consider hobbies, sports, volunteer work, and other extracurriculars not as boxes to check on a future resume but as playgrounds to gather lessons learned and examples to illustrate your ability to deliver on the job. Perhaps keep a list of these anecdotes and map them to the core competencies and strengths you most want demonstrate and practice talking about the value of these experiences.

Work & Life

The world of consulting is known for at times brutal hours and intense client demands. While the panel confirmed that client delivery is always top priority, they also shared how they approach work as part of a meaningful and enjoyable life. 

The notion of “work/life balance” is a bit misleading. Work comprises such a large percent of our adult life; the lucky among us are able to spend those hours in ways we enjoy with a sense of camaraderie that is not separate from but a part of life. Work/life integration is a more useful way to think about any career, especially consulting.

At The Gunter Group, we view our work as vehicles to build great lives for ourselves and our families. Yes, we love to work hard and deliver outstanding results – that’s part of who we are. The opportunity to serve others, solve challenging problems, and see the positive impact of our work in our own community drives us; so too does the ability to pick up the kids, step away for a family emergency, and take that vacation sooner than later. 

Over time, the hours will ebb and flow but they always even out. Our ability to sustain our best effort over long periods of time enables us to show up at our best. The cumulative gains of steady, consistent, and sustainable effort are much greater than grinding away without any rest. Like an elite athlete, rest becomes just as, if not more, important than intense training. In our line of work a relaxed and open mindset facilitates creativity, curiosity, and flexibility that fuels our best work.

Most B-schools fail to equip students with the skills or perspective needed to manage their energy and build the mental and physical resilience to sustain decades of work. How you tackle assignments and manage commitments in school builds the habits you’ll bring to the workplace. Practice now how you want to show up for your life and living in alignment with your values. Increasingly, employers like us recognize the value of employees who thrive in this way. They are the colleagues we most enjoy working with, the consultants our clients trust and adore, and the employees who grow into the leaders our business needs tomorrow.

The Dreaded Case Study

Whether part of a class assignment or interview process, several students expressed concern about facing the business cases or whiteboard sessions so notorious in the consulting world. The entire panel unanimously said the most important thing is to remember there is never any one right answer. Case studies reveal how someone thinks and communicates – are they systematic and deliberate or do they struggle to conceptualize a clear process in the midst of ambiguity? Can they adapt to the personalities and balance competing priorities or do they blindly prescribe tools without considering the people who will use them? 

One of our non-negotiables at The Gunter Group is “thrives in ambiguity” which often means stepping into apparent chaos and creating order for a client. One of the worst ways to approach a case study is with a one-size-fits-all approach or trying to be the smartest person in the room. It is possible to go through the motions of Agile or PROSCI and get to the end to find that key stakeholders are caught off guard by the end result, sending you back to the beginning and costing a client precious time and money. You might be a genius who proposes an elaborate plan that no one else can understand, let alone implement. Sometimes common sense is the best way to add value.

Think of any scenario as real people who need guidance to solve a problem. How will you know you’re asking the right questions, involving the right people, providing the right level of information at the right time, and marking progress? Even in highly technical environments, the amount of time spent flexing technical skills is relatively small. Success in any arena hinges on the ability to understand and manage people so think like a human being first before turning to anything from a textbook.

We hope these highlights from the panel serve to inspire and prepare some of our future colleagues. We’re always looking for talented people to join our team and welcome the chance to answer questions about our work.

Reach out today if you’re interested in learning more and would like access to the full panel on video recording.

UPCOMING PORTLAND EVENT: APPLYING AGILE TO THE NON-IT PARTS OF YOUR BUSINESS

You love agile. You love the iterative approach to problem-solving. You love the way it empowers your IT teams to find solutions. You wish that you could see the same benefits in other parts of your business, but the problem is that agile seems stuck in the world of developers and technical teams. 

Matt Jamison, Tech Services Lead at The Gunter Group, has been thinking about this problem for a few years. In conversations with clients and peers in various industries, Matt has started to break down the principles, roles, ceremonies, and functions of agile into a series of “Whys” that add value in a broader business context. By deconstructing the structures of agile into their purposes, Matt is able to apply aspects of agile to lines of business that fall outside of tech. 

Excited to hear more? Join Matt as he explores how these agile concepts offer a fresh approach to building bridges between strategy, processes, and the realization of business goals. Matt provides examples that illustrate how agile can spill over the boundaries of tech into non-IT parts of the business, providing use cases from HR.

Come join the conversation! The event will take place at Puppet on Wednesday, November 20th from 6:30pm to 8:30pm. Click here for more details, and to register for the event! 

Matt Jamison is an experienced solutions architect with a results-oriented understanding of the intersection between reality and architectural theory. He has the ability to plan, develop, and implement large-scale projects while maintaining impeccable attention to detail. With 20 years of functional information technology experience, Matt has end-to-end IT knowledge from layer 1 networking to application API interaction. An expert in mapping technology solutions to business needs, Matt is also able to conform to required regulations while maintaining IT best practices. Matt’s experience spans multiple industries, including healthcare, telecommunications, and security and software. He is an AWS Certified Solutions Architect. Outside of work, Matt enjoys the outdoors and all things bike-related.

CELEBRATING OUR VETERANS

Veteran’s Day at The Gunter Group is pretty special. You see, 16% of our current employees are veterans so odds are good we have a front row seat for the incredible skills and experience they bring to their work as management consultants. When we say, “Thank you for your service,” to our friends and colleagues, we could just as easily be referencing their most recent success with a client or how they stepped up to lend a hand with our last project.

If we include military spouses, our percent of military-connected employees jumps to 22%. Several of us, like myself have direct experience as contractors for the military. In my case, I spent a summer living and working on a navy base in Italy years ago, directing programs for military families. Years later I provided career coaching for veterans and consulted for universities on how to tailor support services to meet the unique needs of military-connected students.

When we include all of the above military experience and affiliation, 27% of our organization has direct, first-hand experience with the United States Armed Forces, and that doesn’t include employees who grew up in military families!

This week, three of our veteran employees will join a panel at Portland State University to share how their military experience prepared them for various roles as consultants across multiple industries. At The Gunter Group, we know that diverse backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives make us better as an organization. Hiring talent from less “traditional” consulting backgrounds has always been a priority for us (e.g., I represent one of two former archaeologists among our ranks!), and we have actively recruited veterans from our beginning in 2011. 

We’ve learned veterans are uniquely suited for the work we do. From operating on imperfect information and having to improvise to solve a wide range of problems in changing conditions to showing up with the utmost integrity, grounded confidence, and the rest of our non-negotiables, in every situation. Veterans have much to offer the business world and they are among some of our most successful employees.

Part of our motivation for continuing to grow our business is that it allows us to provide opportunities for those who have served to apply all that they’ve learned to work in the civilian world. By reaching out to our local community, mentoring other veterans to translate their military experience, we hope to see more veterans join The Gunter Group. We also promote military-friendly practices among our clients. It’s not only serving those who serve but it’s really good for business.