Services
Designing and Facilitating the Convenings You Need Most
Multistakeholder Deliberations
Multistakeholder dialogues typically are either looking to solve a complex problem or generate solutions for a perceived and essential opportunity.
They also share key characteristics. They:
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Are valuable when issues require many stakeholders to collaborate on a solution.
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Bring together various stakeholders with diverse agendas but who share some common interests.
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Generate a comprehensive analysis of a specific issue and develop new insights and strategies that help improve ownership and agreement on recommended actions.
They are usually convened over a period of weeks or months to develop a set of recommendations that representative stakeholders bring back to their orgagnizations for approval and commitment to action.
A CLIENT'S PERSEPCTIVE:
Steve was the project leader and facilitator for our 2.5 day GlobalVoices multi-stakeholder summit. He has a great ability to quickly synthesize and identify key issues or bottlenecks, and to provide effective options for addressing them. Steve’s ability to adapt to a topic he was not familiar with (biodiversity) and to a very different cultural environment (cross-European) was excellent. As a facilitator, he responded quickly to changes in the meeting design and worked very long hours, remaining effective and calm under pressure. Working with Steve was a great experience, and I’d recommend him for any project!
Estelle Balian, Science Officer, Belgian Biodiversity Platform
National and Regional Policy Summits
Summits, whether regional, national, or global are typically convened by a known and respected convener in the field. That might be a regional foundation, a national association, or an international policy think tank.
These summits can bring together dozens and sometimes more than 100 stakeholders representing diverse policy viewpoints (as well as geographies) to deliberate intensively for two or more days to develop collaborative solutions to a complex set of policy issues.
A CLIENT'S PERSPECTIVE: Steve has been an active partner in planning, conducting and debriefing more than 15 of our national summits that resulted in productive planning meetings with diverse groups, gracious but firm troubleshooting, structured processes for building consensus, on-the-spot synthesis of key ‘big picture’ \recommendations, and clarity about next steps.
Lynn Barnett, Retired VP, American Association of Community Colleges
Organizational Change
Organization development and change efforts take many forms. I co-design and lead full-day and multi-day organizational and team retreats, coach leaders, mentor staff in group facilitation, advise leaders on public speaking and presentations, support the development and roll-out of strategic and operational plans, and help design the launch of strategic initiatives.
A CLIENT'S PERSPECTIVE: Steve and his team worked with us to create an innovative curriculum for PlanHoward Academy to educate residents on how the planning and land development process works in Howard County. He helped turn complex land development processes into an engaging four session adult learning course, outlined with precise meeting designs. His facilitation of the inaugural Academy (which has served as a model for effective county government programming) in 2017 was excellent, and thanks to this partnership, the program received the 2019 National Association of Counties (NACo) Award for Civic Education.
- Kristin O’Connor, Division Chief | Comprehensive & Community Planning, Howard County.