SPEAKER

SPEAKER

Our speaker for this week was Greg Geesen, a corporate and business consultant and trainer, specializing in conflict resolution and work place intervention. Some highlights of Mr. Geesen's talk were:

Problems faced by business leaders come when a team breaks down, resulting in conflict. This is usually the result of of a failure of leadership. The manager of that area or team is not performing.
Greg first does an assessment of the organization being affected, then does a summary of his findings with recommendations. Only then will he come in to attempt a direct intervention. This saves time by identifying the real problem as opposed to the problem the people involved perceive.
He is often asked to come in and do some "team building". This is often just a cover up for the real problem, usually the ineffectiveness of the leader or leaders. Sometimes, the first decision is whether the leader in question is salvageable, or whether the damage has already been done. Sometimes, the solution is to cut the person loose.
Leadership problems usually consist of a combination of inconsistent leadership (this results in a breach of trust with the people, who no longer know what to expect), conflict avoidance (leader fails to deal with problems as the arise), poor communication, feedback only goes down but never up, micro-management, failure to ask for help, lack of group management skills, and multiple personalities by the leader.
Greg's solutions involve coaching the leader in a way that really changes their perceptions of their jobs-teach them to really change rather than just going through the motions to get past the training period. Leaders must be taught that purpose and passion are the foundation of real leadership. As such, they need to understand themselves, what their core values are, and then to reflect those in what they do.

Thanks, Greg for an informative program.