The initial step for a company team engaging with one of our facilitators is to reach a consensus on the names and meanings of values. Once values and their meanings are established, the focus shifts towards detailing how they will be implemented in practice. This involves transitioning from philosophical generic words to actionable steps. These actions demonstrate how each value will be implemented and activated by employees.
Our consulting facilitation team are associate facilitators who are experienced professionals known to us for their impeccable expertise and communication abilities. Upon receiving interest from a company, we arrange introductions. After an introduction, arrival at project details is determined between the facilitator and the potential client. Until agreement, there is no obligation on either side. Here are two example facilitators:
The initial step for a company team engaging with one of our facilitators is to reach a consensus on the names and meanings of values. Once values and their meanings are established, the focus shifts towards detailing how they will be implemented in practice. This involves transitioning from philosophical generic words to actionable steps. These actions demonstrate how each value will be implemented and activated by employees.
Our consulting facilitation team are associate facilitators who are experienced professionals known to us for their impeccable expertise and communication abilities. Upon receiving interest from a company, we arrange introductions. After an introduction, arrival at project details is determined between the facilitator and the potential client. Until agreement, there is no obligation on either side. Here are examples of our facilitators:
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My focus is on turning philosophical core value words and terms into actionable events. That is because I believe that today’s most important challenge for achieving a thriving workplace culture is well-defined, measurable, and communicated actions that support core values.
My work with human judgment (opinion) data began with my research on Judgment Modeling while on the faculty at the Univesity of Texas in Austin. As a “skunk works” project at my first company, I developed software for a “war room”. Participants around a custom oval-shaped table were each online with a computer terminal where they brainstormed, evaluated, and prioritized solutions for problems. This led to the starting of two companies in Austin around the same concepts. During this time, I was a co-founder of what became known as Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS). Later, I joined the Faculty at the Univesity of Nebraska where I was also a Gallup Senior Scientist. The Gallup experience led me to develop software related to employee engagement and wellbeing. From there I went to Bellevue University and started the Institute for Wellbeing. That morphed into what is now Cultures in Action. Now my primary interest deals with turning the philosophical words and terms that surround core values into actionable events.
Les Landes provides consulting services in strategic planning, organizational communication, employee engagement, and performance improvement systems.
His work with organizations in developing values is grounded in his principles and practices for creating the shared meaning and related behaviors that are essential for a cohesive, high-performance culture of trust.
He emphasizes that while the words or phrases used to express organizational values should be chosen with care, what is more, important is making them real and relevant to an entire workforce by identifying the tangible decisions, actions, and behaviors that embody those value statements. Otherwise, the values tend to become dusty slogans tucked away out of reach and out of sight.
Making that connection requires giving employees a means of control over the actions and decisions that affect their lives in the workplace. Drawing on his expertise as a Certified Lean Six Sigma Professional, Les helps organizations provide employee control through processes and tools for engaging all team members in systematic continuous improvement as a routine part of their regular business operations.
He is the former head of corporate communication for one of the world’s largest food companies where he was responsible for corporate advertising, public and media relations, consumer affairs, employee communication, and creative services. He also played a major role in developing and implementing the company’s quality management system.
For organizations and individuals alike, I take great joy in facilitating space to help others (re)discover, name, and align their core values with their work – and so fuel a sustained season of fresh vitality, creativity, and growth.
Having served as an Army Chaplain and a Pastor/Head of Staff for two decades in diverse, multigenerational churches, I have experienced first-hand that when an organization collaboratively crafts its core values and then acts on those values in ways that are observable and celebrated – it changes everything. The entire organization breathes with fresh creativity, the kind of teamwork that builds upon differences, and a continual sense of possibility. It is freeing for people to know what they stand for, what supports them, and what success looks like.
Oppositely, I have discovered that nearly every single challenge around communication, motivation, and teamwork centers around a failure to name, claim, and honor organizational values. Indeed, much of the exhaustion, depletion, and burnout that organizations face today has less to do with needing more rest and more to do with needing an authentic alignment between the organizational values and the work being done.
It is no different in my leadership coaching at the individual level. In nearly every instance, the significant tiredness that individual leaders face has to do with a misalignment between their internal values and their external work.