HOW WE WORK
At Authentic Impact, we have a strength, or asset-based approach that incorporates both Appreciative Inquiry and Positive Psychology. We help clients maximize their effectiveness by identifying individual and team strengths and leverage points, then focus on gaps and targeted areas for development.
MAI Positive Core™ is the starting point. It serves as a personalized roadmap for achieving excellence on and off the job.
Our clients discover and leverage their best selves rather than engaging in a mission to find what’s broken. Research demonstrates that our questions focus our attention in a particular direction, so rather than “what is wrong and needs to be fixed?” we ask “what is functioning well?” and build on that.
- In a complex world, we help organizations, teams, and individuals achieve clarity and focus.
- We simplify… taking the theoretical and complex and making it practical and actionable.
- Facilitate insights to help clients see things in a new, more constructive light.
- Design practical, scalable solutions so our clients experience success upon which they can build.
- Help our clients achieve their most important goals in a way that is authentic and sustainable.
- Drive excellence. Aristotle is quoted as saying “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.” We help our clients make excellence a habit.
- Give people permission to be honest. Research confirms that honesty is the most important trait in a leader. Leaders acting honestly and authentically help those around them to fully leverage their capacities in an integrated way … the opposite of which is disintegration. We facilitate honesty with individuals, teams, and organizations.
We Help Organizations
- Get clear about their business strategy and objectives.
- Align their desired outcomes with their corporate culture and values.
- Identify the key talent implications of the business strategy.
- Implement simple, sustainable solutions for deploying human capital.
- Achieve.
We Help Teams
- Understand the unique talents, skills, and abilities available in the team.
- Change counter-productive attitudes and behavior.
- Build a solid foundation of trust.
- Engage in constructive dialogue.
- Achieve shared accountability for results.
We Help Individuals
- Attain higher levels of performance.
- Become highly effective leaders.
- Make their work engaging, rewarding and fulfilling
- Live a life of purpose and meaning.
- Achieve sustainable work/life balance.
MAI Organization™
Simple – Authentic – Integrated
One of the most challenging aspects of running a successful business is managing complexity: balancing opportunity, competition, human capital requirements and rapidly changing technology. A wealth of information is available, but what to focus on? What needs to be done, when, and by whom?
MAI Organization™ provides a full range of consulting and facilitation services to help organizations achieve unprecedented clarity and focus.
How It Works
MAI Organization™ consulting engagements are facilitated discussions resulting in agreed-upon deliverables. They can be conducted on site, remotely or both. Deliverables may combine with MAI Team™ and MAI Coach™ sessions.
Outcomes
- A focused business strategy
- Integrated talent and human capital efforts for exponential synergy
- Sustainable organizational transformation
Who Uses MAI Organization™?
We work with a variety of industries, and have professional expertise with
- Entrepreneurial/small businesses
- Financial services
- Post-Secondary Institutions
- Community banks and insurance companies
- Legal Firms
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“Gordon Parry is everything a good leader should be. He demonstrated his ability to lead and provide an effective vision at every meeting I had with him. He is one of only a select few executives who hone their HR Skills into a Professional Practice and yet manage to remain focused on the essential element of HR: Human Beings. From Staffing to Compensation, through Organizational Development and Succession Planning, Gordon is truly an expert. “ Keith Jones, Wells Fargo
What We Do
Strategy & Execution
- Create a sound business strategy and set annual objectives.
- Generate a clear link between team/individual performance and the business strategy
- Align strategy with employee feedback, firm capabilities, and leadership priorities
- Identify talents – people and practices – for current and future needs
- Clarify roles and accountabilities to support the business model
- Discuss firm and employee performance expectations and review employee capabilities
- Provide guidance with individual employee impact
Compensation
- Build compensation plans to support ongoing profitability
- Make strategy recommendations, pay plan design, and pay practices
- Articulate the employee value proposition including monetary and non-monetary elements
- Link compensation to performance expectations
- Advise on communication guidelines and management considerations
- Review equity/compensation plan alternatives to discover what best fits the client’s business.
- Define equity-based plan options, eligibility and impact, and administrative guidelines
Succession Planning
- Facilitate discussions on ownership transfer and exit strategies for founding partners
- Create a framework to ensure the corporate values are retained during transfer
- Clarify roles and accountabilities to support the business model
- Recommend strategies for using equity to support succession planning
MAI TEAM
“We know what we need to do; if we could only get people to work together to do it.”
How often have you heard it? It’s not the tasks that are so difficult, it’s getting buy-in, and achieving the cooperation needed to get results.
How It Works
MAI Team™ sessions include:
- MAI Positive Core™ (can include follow-on personal Individual Development Plan sessions)
- MAI Positive Core™ Teamscapes
- Harness the collective power of your Team Positive Core™
- Cascade Your Business Strategy to Objectives and Accountabilities
- MAI Capacities™
- Capacities of Self Mastery: Mindset, Perspective, Willpower, Focus, Grit & Resilience, Emotional Intelligence
- Capacities of Leading and Influencing Others: Social Intelligence, Effective Communication, Conflict Management, Trust, Connection & Collaboration, Coaching Skills for Leaders
- Understanding 360 Feedback
- MAI Plan™
- Custom designed Manager & Director Level Leadership Development
Formats:
- Webinars and remote sessions for groups of 10 or fewer
- In-person facilitated private and/or public sessions for groups of 10 or more
- Customized Leadership Institutes for groups of 50 or more emerging and senior leaders. (These can incorporate a customized mix of the facilitated stand-alone sessions shown above.)
Outcomes
- Experience the collective power of the team, resulting in unprecedented performance
- Enhance team collaboration and cooperation
- Change counter-productive attitudes and behavior
- Build a solid foundation of trust
- Engage in constructive dialogue
- Achieve shared accountability for results
Who Uses MAI Team™?
- Leadership & Executive teams
- Project teams and departments
- Small businesses
- Leadership Academies and Institutes
What We Do
- Support leadership in implementing the business strategy, transition priorities, build effective teams, and improve productivity
- Create clear links between individual and team performance and the business strategy
- Help teams maximize effectiveness by identifying individual and team strengths, leverage points, gaps and targeted areas for development
- Enhance collaboration, develop a shared mindset and mutual commitment
- Develop specific skills to communicate more effectively, and identify clear actions to achieve shared results.
- Maintain focus on performance and development.
- Use our business experience to help clients handle their talent management
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“I have known Helen for 15 years and had the privilege of working with her at two separate institutions. Helen has a keen intellect, outstanding organizational capabilities, and strong interpersonal and communication skills. Helen has an incredible work ethic and an uncanny ability to assess a situation, ask all the right questions, and come up with an actionable result-oriented plan. I would highly recommend her – a remarkable combination of empathy and intellect.”
Patricia Croft, (Former) Chief Economist, RBC Global Asset Management
MAI Coach™
Simple – authentic – integrated
Today’s leaders are under tremendous pressure to do more with less while navigating an increasingly complex and competitive business universe. Their performance is under scrutiny by an informed workforce with access to unprecedented data about ideal leadership traits. Googling ‘successful leadership traits’ returns an astounding two million results (give or take a few thousand)!
How it Works
Coaching Sessions
MAI Coach™ includes MAI Positive Core™, and a number of one-hour coaching sessions that can be conducted by phone or in-person. The length of the engagement is determined in a complimentary discovery session between the prospective client and one of Authentic Impact’s coaches. Where appropriate, and operating within a strict code of confidentiality, we can also consult with the client’s direct supervisor to help establish goals for coaching and provide interim and final status updates.
Typically, the number of coaching sessions is determined by the purpose of the coaching engagement. For instance:
- Onboarding Coaching or Transition Coaching—3 to 6 sessions
- Executive Coaching—6 to 12 sessions
Full Day Individual Planning Session
This one-on-one, full day focused session allows our clients to step back and fully engage in reflecting about what matters most to them, to consider the likely outcomes of their current trajectory and to be very intentional about setting goals for the next year. Some clients use this as an annual opportunity to push the “reset button” on their lives, and report it to be an excellent investment of time and energy.
Outcomes
- Increased productivity, enhanced leadership impact, and improved individual effectiveness
- Unprecedented engagement and performance
- Deep reflection, producing valuable insights to fuel targeted change
- Focus on working “on” versus “in” the business
- Tools and insights on how to develop direct reports
- Greater understanding of their accountabilities and responsibilities as a leader; the impact they can have
- Sustainable work/life balance
- Accelerated integration and performance of newly hired executives, mitigating risks, achieving quick contributions and establishing a base for sustained high performance
Who Uses MAI Coach™?
Our clients cover a broad spectrum and include CEOs of public companies, owners of small & medium sized businesses, and high potential employees. Most of our leadership engagements are sponsored by the employer; however, some individuals choose to invest in their own growth and development.
What We Do
Our tagline—You…at your best—speaks to connecting people to their Positive Core™. To capture the unique nature of each individual’s positive core, we’ve named it the MAI Positive Core™ (MAI = My Authentic Impact). The MAI Positive Core™ is the starting point for MAI Coach™ as it serves as a personalized roadmap for achieving excellence on and off the job. We use an in-depth discovery process that combines empirically-based assessment tools with a certified coach-guided process to help our clients learn to capitalize on their strengths.
MAI Coach™ is an individualized coaching engagement with one of Authentic Impact’s principals or associates. Our approach to coaching is results-focused, evidenced-based, and customized to each client. Growth and results occur through a process of insight and action – and growth continues long after the engagement ends.
“I wouldn’t be where I am now without you! I really appreciate your coaching and support.”
Li Qin Kephart, Valmont Industries