Perspective | Anything is Possible

We’re living in turbulent times, permanent whitewater, crux moments – looking for breakthroughs, turning points, and transformation. When the old ways have stopped working and new ways need to be discovered, it’s time to open more space.

When given the chance, ordinary people handle what’s charged and challenging in extraordinary ways. In any kind of organization or working group, we can engage all hands, translate pain points and possibilities into roadmaps that teams can rally around, and lean into practices that can drive better outcomes. We can regain balance and momentum. The way through complexity, conflict and uncertainty is together.

Improvements and breakthroughs can happen faster and easier than you’d expect. That’s been my experience in corporate strategic planning, agile transformation, and peaceful development during an armed civil war; in economic development and employee engagement; with start-ups, community groups and foundations; students from grade school to grad school, every level of government, and many religious organizations and denominations.

For more than thirty years, clients have called me in moments of challenge – and opportunity. I’ve helped them bring people together, focus on what matters, and do new and amazing things. I’ve been willing to step into situations that make others shy away. Together, we’ve worked toward multi-stakeholder, multi-win solutions.

No matter the odds, I think we should try.

Practices | Simple is Powerful

The best meeting and management practices are the ones we can learn quickly, replicate, and maintain – to respond quickly and effectively to all kinds of change or disruption. Keep it simple! Plan, deliver, adjust – in short cycles – over and over again. Whatever you’re up against, an open, agile approach can make a big difference:

  • Invite Everyone
    Engage and Energize the Whole
  • Visualize Everything
    Understand and Align the Work
  • Prioritize and Refine
    Do the Right Things, Right Now
  • Commit and Deliver
    Take Many Small Steps to Win Big
  • Review and Improve
    Learn, Adapt, Evolve (Repeat)
Cycle Practice: Invite Everyone Who Cares, Visualize Everything, Prioritize and Refine, Commit and Deliver, Review and Improve, Rinse and Repeat.

This simple way of working is immediately practical, and powerful, in any kind of organization or situation. It works with the people, tools and resources you already have. Applied at any scale, it can help you deliver the results you need and overcome obstacles to sustaining your success.

Start with one or a few teams, in one big event or a short series of meetings. Connect diverse groups and functions. Share roadmaps and align efforts. Engage customer and stakeholder groups. For best results, leaders go first. Start with the senior team, board and committee chairs, or any other core group. Work out from there. My Resources page will help you get started.

Results | Clarity, Energy, Impact

What bigger, better results are you working toward? Everyone fully engaged? An evolutionary leap in business performance or community impact? Working across silos? Catalyzing innovation, learning and adaptation? Kick off something new and amazing? Solve something specific, local or technical? Reorganize, regroup or recharge?

Here’s how I might help you with an issue or opportunity that really matters in your organization or community:

Strategize: I bring a unique and rigorous view. Let’s talk about what you’re doing, where it’s going well, and what needs to go better. We can review and reimagine everything that matters, from mission to metrics, from colleagues and partners to stakeholders and customers, from the results you’re getting, to the improvements and breakthroughs you need to achieve. I help my clients do clear-eyed review, gain fresh perspectives, design a more engaging process, write a bolder invitation, and craft a clearer strategy to get the results they need.

Mobilize: I can help you engage any size group (from 5-500+ people) in wildly productive customer conferences, stakeholder summits, board or team retreats, and other strategic or tactical meetings. The more complexity, diversity and urgency in the situation, the better. We pioneered large online meetings (in 2015!), but we can start with one or a few teams meeting face-to-face. I help my clients expand involvement, deepen engagement, address their biggest issues and opportunities, and get people moving – energized and aligned – toward the results everyone wants.

Realize: I can help you invite and support sustainable high performance. It’s easy to have a great meeting or collaborative event, but a few hours or even days of spirited work aren’t usually enough. For real impact, we need to keep it going. We need to invite the “off-site spirit” back to the office (and home offices). I help my clients learn from off-site success, leverage existing resources into immediate next steps, and adapt existing tools and practices into better ways of working – to deliver the better outcomes and bigger impact that customers and stakeholders keep asking for.

You can get the results you want and need – I can help you get there more directly.

Experience | Inviting and Supporting

I’ve worked with remarkable friends, colleagues, teachers and clients, on six continents, for more than thirty years. In 1990, I was an Outward Bound wilderness course instructor with an MBA in Finance from a top-ranked business school. From there, I followed a “road less traveled,” learning personally from more than my fair share of world-renown thought leaders in organization development, leadership and transformation, agile methods, and more.


Along the way, I’ve developed my own rigorous perspective on self-organization, team learning and enterprise agility and become known for my writing, teaching, facilitating, coaching and consulting. The “Inviting Organization” and “Inviting Leadership” I first described in this website in 1998 are still relevant and spreading.

I’ve supported change agents of all stripes, working at any level, inside and outside of formal organizations: transformational leaders, visionary reformers, pioneering innovators, daring first followers, organizational instigators, practical experimenters, community connectors and passionate advocates.

I can help you make incremental improvements and evolutionary leaps – starting where you are, adapting leading-edge practices to the people, systems and resources you have, building on what’s already working, and inviting everyone into making more of that. Sound like fun? Contact

Bio Detail | Case Stories | Writing

Resources

Here are my two most important and frequently shared resources: detailed practice guides for Open Space and Business Agility.

The Resources Library offers a small heap of other original material, including papers, checklists, practice tools, plus links to supporting materials written by others.

click to view/download – 60 pages
click to view/download – 31 pages

Let’s Talk

What big thing are you working on? 

Can I help you invite and support a collaborative breakthrough in your organization, network or community? Clients call me a process designer, facilitator, teacher, consultant, project manager or enterprise coach.

My work brings people together, gets things done, and grows more of what works in teams and organizations.

Want to know more?

Email me at michael@michaelherman.com.

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