FAQs
Julie, founder of Innovative Growth, has over 20 years of experience in facilitating groups to engage minds and get everyone involved. Her experience in navigating tough groups and navigating tough issues allows her to use a variety of ways to create healthy discussion and dialogue.
“This is not about presenting to people. This is about facilitating an environment to get results. Where people can engage in learning, experience different perspectives and be guided through a problem solving process if necessary.” – Julie Sampson, Founder, Innovative Growth LLC
Looking outside your internal resources to address mistrust, conflict, and internal tension within groups and between departments is valuable for long-term sustainability. Employees often feel there is more to risk in addressing tough issues in front of HR or other key internal leaders that are assigned to help.
When you hire Julie, she won’t have all the answers to your problems. She will not recommend hiring her to lecture to your employees for six easy steps to make changes.
She will engage your people to think outside the box and allow them to discover a new perspective. If mistrust, conflict, or tension is present, she will know how to navigate those frustrations in a group setting. A facilitator doesn’t need to know the answers. They do need to know how to remove the barriers to empower your employees to do the hard work.
Your employees desire to become advocates of positive change and they can create new norms and behaviors that they desire for their group to function with higher productivity.
“The answers do not lie within me…they are already within the people you hired, the ones you trusted, and the ones you believe in.” – Julie Sampson, Founder, Innovative Growth LLC
Absolutely. I have experience working with employees of smaller organizations, or departments and teams within a larger business unit. Whether you have a small 8 – 10 employee company or a larger team that you manage, the process of helping people rebuild stronger working relationships is similar.
This is a great position to be in and an excellent time to ask, “Why are things working so well for us?” “How can we get stronger in what is working?” “Do we need to make adjustments now to help our people stay strong in light of rapid growth and change?” We can discuss these questions together.
My approach is to start with the end in mind. We will start by working together to determine key objectives:
- What is working well?
- What do you want to see change?
- How do you desire your group to work together?
- What is missing? Why is this important?
- What do you want to maintain?
We will develop some key objectives together, and then all parts of the recommendations will be linked to the objectives.
Often, I recommend doing some interviews with key individuals so I can better understand different perspectives.
We will evaluate each step as we move along together. Open communication is important, and modifications are an important part of adapting to the group to get the best results.
Blame and shame are your biggest enemies. Departments not working together, back office talk, and passive aggressive behaviors all stem from blame and shame taking root. Healthy, positive, thriving cultures aren't created on their own. They are built from a framework that empowers your people to speak into what this looks like, create the group norms and behaviors that maintain it, and create uncompromising boundaries to sustain it.