Unlocking workplace performance through organisational design
Have you ever viewed a poorly designed house – you know the type – where you have to go through a bedroom to get to the garage and the dining room is nowhere near the kitchen? This kind of layout often develops because of the changing needs of the residents and extra space is ‘stuck on’ without any thought given to the overall flow of the house.
Organisations and departments within organisations can suffer in the same way, especially during periods of high growth and expansion. Employees are added without reviewing the flow of the existing organisation and as a result, individual job responsibilities lack clarity and the structure no longer adequately supports the goals of the organisation. In addition, you may wonder whether you currently have or can develop the right skills that are needed for organisational growth and long term sustainability.
The impact is frustration, conflict, low motivation as well as those ‘dropped balls’ that impact productivity and ultimately customer service.
It is estimated that up to 80% of an organisation’s assets are tied up in the employees. If any employee disengages by even as much as 10%, you are losing the productivity of 1 person for every 10 that you have working for you! No organisation can afford that loss of potential and productivity so it is essential to have effective managers and sound structures in place to unlock the potential of your employees.
Armed with a Chemistry degree, I started life as a process engineer in the manufacturing sector.
It didn’t take long before I realised that I was far more interested in the development of the people than in the machines and I shifted into a technical training role. My journey of learning about organisations, people and how they work and learn effectively started here. Experiences that added to this journey include organisational development and training management roles both in South Africa, UK and Europe. After more than 10 years in formal employment, Cornerstone Connections was born in 2006 out of a desire to enable growing organisations to achieve their goals by unlocking employee motivation and performance.
Marion holds a first degree in chemistry (UCT) and an M.Sc. in Strategic Training and Development (University of Surrey Roehampton). She is accredited by the South African Board for People Practices as a Chartered HR Practitioner.
“Marion connected well with the participants of the various workshops and achieved high rating scores from all the participants, in terms of course content, presentation quality and facilitation style. She is extremely knowledgeable and this shows in the quality of the presentation and the ability to field and answer questions put to her on the topic.”
Robynne Schneider, Group Talent and Performance Manager, Oceana Group
Manager Training
- Transforming Technical Specialists into Managers ( ½ to 1 day )
The roles and responsibilities of a manager, management vs. leadership, managing with the brain in mind (neuroleadership) creating the right environment, empowerment trust and motivation, defining, reviewing and developing performance
- Motivating Employees to High Performance (4 hours)
Understanding motivation, the impact of motivation, exploring motivators, recognising the impact of generational differences and leadership on motivation, creating an engaging work environment, motivators in practice
- Managing Performance Effectively (2 days)
Understanding performance management, overview of the performance cycle, roles & responsibilities, link to strategy and reward, defining, monitoring and reviewing performance, interaction skills, structuring the performance
management conversation
- Coaching Skills for Managers (1 day)
Understanding coaching, the role of coaching in performance management, coaching skills, structuring the coaching conversation
- Mentoring Skills for Managers (1 day)
Understanding mentoring, goal setting, building the relationship, facilitating learning, handling problems, the mentoring conversation.
- Guiding the Development of Others ( ½ to 1 day)
Understanding career and psychological contract, roles & responsibilities, career development process, development strategies, interaction skills, structuring the career development conversation
- Adaptable Leadership ( ½ day)
Adaptability defined, leadership behaviours/ skills, diagnosing development levels, the needs of different development levels, matching leadership styles to development levels, common pitfalls, the impact of match/ mismatch
- constructive Change management (1 to 2 days)
Understanding change, planning the change by establishing a compelling business need and enlisting stakeholders, creating a vision for change, managing the transition by communicating the change and dealing with loss and motivation, making change stick
- Communicating with care (1 to 1 ½ days)
Attributes of communication, non-verbal communication, flexible communication (including Social Styles), interaction skills: a model for effective communication
- presenting perfectly (1 ½ days)
Audience and objective, structuring a presentation, preparation, delivery tips, handling nerves and killer questions
- delivering difficult feedback (4 hours)
The context for feedback, feedback in your organisation, effective feedback, making feedback work
- resolving conflict ( 4 hours)
Understanding conflict, conflict styles, resolution tactics, managing the conflict conversation
- dealing with difficult discussions (2 days)
What makes a difficult discussion, the role of the manager, non-verbal communication, flexible communication (including Social Styles), interaction skills, framing the message: a model for effective communication, delivering difficult feedback
Cornerstone offers practical management training designed to shape the behaviours and build the skill of managers. The content, case studies and practical work is aimed at first line to mid-level managers. The content can be adapted to accommodate more junior and more senior levels of the organisation. The practical nature of the training makes it particularly suited to managers from a technical background e.g. IT specialists, accountants and engineers who are making the transition to management.
Please contact me for information and more detailed agendas
Team development / building services
Team development services are facilitated workshops focussed on building trust and team effectiveness through improved communication and collaboration.
Applications include:
Developing collaborative partnerships (breaking down inter-departmental silos), setting up new teams for success, managing conflict in existing teams, building motivation, improving communication, managing change Agendas can be modified to meet the client’s objectives.
Time required: Min. 3-4 hours
Cornerstone partners with Dynamic Corporate Activities who facilitate team building activities and games that can be included in the agenda. Activities provide valuable practical learning as well as building relationship, good will and trust that will be taken back into the workplace. Cornerstone will advise you on the most appropriate activities to use and coordinates the activities of Dynamic Corporate Activities.
- Developing Collaborative Partnerships (4 hours to 1 day)
Suitable for:
- Teams wanting to work together effectively
- Cross functional teams wanting to break down functional silos
- Building relationships between customer and supplier groups
- Teams experiencing some conflict and/ or blame
Outcomes:
- Improved communication and collaboration across functional teams
- Break down of functional silos
- Understanding of the quality of existing partnerships
- Action plan for application into the workplace
Content:
- What is a partnership?
- Exploring benefits and barriers
- Partnership interdependency map
- Exploration of the quality and dependency of the various partner relationships
- Partnership Checkpoints
- Collaborating/Thinking tools
- Action Planning
- Coping with change (4 hours to 1 day)
Suitable for:
- Teams wanting to work together effectively
- Teams experiencing some conflict and/ or blame
- Teams requiring an enhanced understanding and appreciation of different personalities within the team
- Teams struggling to cope with change
Outcomes:
- Improved communication within the team
- Increased motivation and engagement
- Enhanced levels of trust
- Understanding of the change process
- Action plan for application into the workplace
Content:
- What is a team?
- Build understanding of how individuals process change
- Introduction to Social (Communication Styles)1
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- Participants learn about their own communication style so that they can develop a more flexible approach to communication
- Exploration of where people find themselves and what is needed to move forward
- Team development: Forming (4 hours to 1 day)
Suitable for:
- Teams wanting to work together effectively
- Cross functional teams wanting to break down functional silos
- Building relationships between customer and supplier groups
- Teams experiencing some conflict and/ or blame
Outcomes:
- Improved communication and collaboration across functional teams
- Break down of functional silos
- Understanding of the quality of existing partnerships
- Action plan for application into the workplace
Content:
- What is a partnership?
- Exploring benefits and barriers
- Partnership interdependency map
- Exploration of the quality and dependency of the various partner relationships
- Partnership Checkpoints
- Collaborating/Thinking tools
- Action Planning
- Team Development: Storming (4 hours to 1 day)
Suitable for:
- Teams wanting to work together effectively
- Teams experiencing some conflict and/ or blame
- Teams requiring an enhanced understanding and appreciation of different personalities within the team
- Teams wanting to analyse their development areas and their strengths
- Teams struggling to cope with change
Outcomes:
- Improved communication and trust within the team
- Detailed analysis of team strengths and development areas
- Increased motivation and engagement
- Understanding of the change process
- Action plan for application into the workplace
Content:
- What is a team?
- Stages of team development
- Team Assessment (by discussion or by using a diagnostic questionnaire such as Team Effectiveness Survey or Team Effectiveness Profile)Exploration of strengths and development areas
- Discussion of current challenges impacting team performance
- Action Planning
Please contact me for further information and to discuss your requirements
"Nolands mandated Marion to facilitate a process between managers and directors whereby we had to design new key performance areas (KPA's) for our business. The KPA's were for all level of staff and had to fit the Nolands culture. Marion managed the process professionally and exceeded our expectations and we at Nolands can certainly recommend her to anyone considering utilising her services in future."
Allan Mundell, CEO, Nolands SA
Collaborative Facilitation
World Café: a process for leading collaborative dialogue to create possibilities for future action
If you need a group of stakeholders to work together and shape an innovative way forward, then you will want to consider using World Café facilitation.
The World Café process engages stakeholders (to encourage innovative thinking and ownership), addresses critical issues and questions (to support strategic intent so that there is a reason to act) and moves the group in a structured way towards action so that the process remains constructive.
Applications:
- Developing responsiveness to change
- Implementing change
- Finding new possibilities for future action
- Exploring business purpose & vision
- Shaping a desired future
- Generating innovative ideas
What is a World Café?
In a World Café dialogue, small and intimate conversations link and build on each other as people move between groups, cross-pollinate ideas and make new connections around critical questions. For example,
- What changes do we need to make for the future so that we are ‘retailer of choice’?
- What dilemmas can you see in the 2010 strategy?
- Why have we been successful as an organisation?
As this living network of conversations evolves though several rounds of exploration, knowledge sharing grows and innovative possibilities evolve. Because of its unique structure, Café collaboration is possible with a large group which means that all stakeholders can be engaged in thinking together as part of a single, connected conversation.
Group size: 40 people for 1 facilitator
Time needed: At least 3 hours
Mentorship Programmes
Mentoring is a supportive long term learning relationship that meets a development need and helps employees grow to full potential
On average across all industries, only 20-30% of value is attributable to tangible assets. By far the greatest part comes from intangibles – such as knowledge of production, service, markets and relationships with customers. This tacit knowledge that sits in the heads of your experienced employees is critical to business success yet not easily transferred through generic training interventions. The way to pass on this knowledge and prepare the next generation is through mentoring. Mentoring is used in many organisations today as an effective development method and retention tool for a variety of applications.
Applications:
- Growing leadership skills (succession planning)
- Developing a scarce skill e.g. dam building, publishing or welding
- Fast track graduate development
- Business sustainability and employee engagement
- Transformation and diversity
What is a Mentoring Programme?
“For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today”
African Proverb
A mentoring programme carefully matches mentees and mentors in a partnership that works on defined goals for a specified period of time (typically 6 to 12 months). The mentoring partnership works independently yet inside a framework that ensures that goals and deliverables are met. Without a framework, mentoring programmes drift and lose purpose.
Group size: At least 5 mentoring pairs
Time needed: 6 to 12 months
Short-term HR Manager or HR Project Management
Every organisation will find that they need the support of an external HR resource once in a while. From bridging the gap for an existing HR Manager, facilitating special projects or providing strategic HR guidance in the absence of a full time HR resource, Cornerstone is able to fill the gap for you!
HR support includes:
HR Planning, Recruitment, Policy Development, Employee Relations, Manager Support and Coaching, EE compliance
"Marion has provided us with exceptional quality of service in the most professional manner that anyone could ask for. She is indeed a pleasure to work with."
Les McDonald, HR Manager, Two Oceans Aquarium
Typical Client
There are some common themes that I experience with most of my clients, they –
- Recognise that they have a challenge with people performance
- Are willing to partner and invest time to address the challenge
- Are looking for fresh ideas or an outside view
- Typically employ at least between 20 and 500 employees
- Would like to manage employees differently, but don’t have the resources or expertise to tackle the project
- The Human Resources function is overloaded or in some cases lacks the necessary experience
- The organisation is grappling with the concepts of ‘equal pay for work of equal value’ as per the Employment Equity legislation.
- Managers are unclear as to what their role is and management of performance is patchy
- Managers may lack the skills to manage employee performance constructively without losing motivation
- Employees are unclear as to what their job responsibilities are and this results in ‘dropped balls’ and tasks to fall ‘between the cracks’
No two clients are alike and Cornerstone Connections ensures that each is treated as unique and a solution tailored to their specific sitution.
Hertex | Two Oceans Aquarium | Nolands |Vital Health Foods | Tank Industries | Apollo Air | WWF | Oceana | Oxford University Press | Elex Khanyisa | Pesto Princess
Recent Clients
Working With Cornerstone
If you recognise that I am able to add value to your business, there a few ways to engage with Cornerstone Connections
- Ask for a no obligation meeting to discus your business needs
EXPLORE OPTIONS
- Subscribe to my newsletter
- Attend one of my events at the Chamber (e-mail me for details)
- Proposal - great for clients who have a clear understanding of what their business requires. Cornerstone provides a detailed proposal with costs and time frames and delivers accordingly.
- Retainer - a good option for clients who need input into a variety of HR related projects. Cornerstone offers a 2 or 4 day a month option (min 3 month duration) to drive projects. Retainer rates are discounted up to 20%
GET TO KNOW ME
SELECT APPROPRIATE AGREEMENT
CONTACT MARION
I am based in the South Peninsula, Cape Town and most of my work is done within the greater CT metropole. I do travel to offices/ branches situated in other locations within South Africa.
Marion Stone, Director
Cornerstone Connections | South Peninsula, Cape Town | C: 082 319 0321