Matthew Whiat

Organizations and teams that thrive during times of uncertainty and embrace innovation have leaders who understand how people process change and how to lead them through it. These are teams that regardless of the obstacles in front of them, find ways to accomplish what other teams find seemingly impossible. However leading people through change, in any organization, can be difficult. It’s even more challenging if you don’t understand how your people process change. Regardless of industry, culture, generation, or work experience, we discovered that how each person processes change is strongly dependent on the context they have. Leaders must first understand and ask for this context. Chapman & Co. can help lead your team through activities that build trust and compassion between team members.

The next step is leading through the change. While a lot of change management processes focus on the communication to transmit, Chapman & Co. takes a different approach and encourages leaders to first listen. By asking for team members’ opinions and concerns, listening values the individual and helps them lean into necessary changes of the business. And in doing so, you as the leader will receive valuable insights that could either accelerate or derail the change process.

Participants will:

• Understand how people process change
• Deepen team trust and understanding through a change exercise
• Learn the skill of empathetic listening and its role in change management
• Gain the leadership skill of leading through change

Intended Audience: All employees

Duration: 90-minute keynote, half- or full day workshop

In most organizations, teams are where the work happens. Teams are highly interdependent – they plan work, solve problems, make decisions, and review progress for specific projects in the business. Team members need one another to get work done. It is here in these teams that innovative ideas are born (or dismissed), where collaboration happens (or is stifled) and where performance exceeds (or lacks). Effective teams are the groups that have lower turnover, meet deadlines and performance metrics, work efficiently, innovate through collaboration, and continue to inspire other team members. Researchers at Google ran an initiative called Project Aristotle, so named as a tribute to Aristotle’s quote, “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” What these researchers found is what Chapman & Co. has also discovered in our own work. What really matters is less about who is on the team and more about how the team works together. The top criteria? Building trust.

In this keynote or workshop, leaders learn what it takes to build trust among team members and its role in creating effective teams. This is not a discussion on theory or concept. This is a highly experiential event whereby team members learn about the drivers of effective teams and the behaviors to build them.

In this experience, participants will:

• Understand the five key components to highly effective teams
• Perform an effectiveness diagnostic on their own team
• Learn the behaviors that lead to trust

Intended Audience: Formal leaders and their direct reports

Duration: 90 minute keynote, half- or full day workshop

Delivering effective feedback lives at the intersection of caring personally and the courage to challenge directly. When done correctly, it increases receptivity and drives trust. In a word, candor. To varying degrees, people act out of self-interest and self-preservation. While selfish members win within groups, groups of altruists prevail over groups of selfish members.

Receiving and giving feedback fuels human performance. If you want people on your team to do more, do better, and do different – in other words, change – create the environment in which your feedback is more likely to be received.

This experience is designed to provide insights into how you create an environment where candor is practiced and welcomed by all employees. Attendees will leave the session with a completed feedback message that follows an easily replicated formula that will help facilitate candor throughout the entire organization. As an option, we can also combine this talk with our Organizational Culture Survey which measures the degree to which candor is present in your organization.

Participants will:

• Understand the benefits of candor in the workplace
• Learn the science and technique to building an environment of feedback
• Practice crafting a developmental and appreciative feedback message

Intended Audience:  All employees

Duration: Available as a 45 minute keynote or a 4-hour workshop