Workplace Consulting & Counseling Services Offered
Soft Skills Mentoring:
These are the people skills, social skills, communication skills, and personality traits that make it easy to get along and work harmoniously with other people. These personal attributes are necessary for job success and Psychotherapists and Industrial Psychologists have the inherent abilities to uncover, explore, analyze and enhance them in people. A strong level of soft skills abilities can help your team improve how they relate and interact with each other to better understand their roles, responsibilities, and the intended goals your company needs to fulfill. Our workplace consulting and counseling services address these skills.
- Effective Teamwork & Team Spirit
- Leadership
- Effective & Efficient Communication
- Conflict Resolution
- Coaching/Mentoring
- Self-Motivation
- Negotiations
- Interpersonal Development
- Adaptability
Performance Coaching or Performance Management:
Relatively newer and increasingly popular terms in the area of business consulting, these terms have a broad definition and encompass every aspect of job performance and overall life success including, but not limited to: increasing motivation, encouraging confidence, assisting in improved focus, and setting appropriate goals. In addition to setting goals, managing performance is comprised of the characteristics of developing plans, reviewing and evaluating progress, rewarding a job well done and reflecting on expectations. These are some of the most important features that often result in highly productive staff members. If offered in an inappropriate manner, the results could be counterproductive. Only a well trained professional should engage in these types of job performance enhancements.
Communication Styles:
The foundation of ourselves, communication defines us as individuals and shapes the way in which we interact with each other. Whether the style is passive, aggressive, passive-aggressive or assertive, there is much we can learn about each other, but often misunderstandings take place based solely on the communication style that is being offered. To properly “communicate” with each other, we must be able to send and receive information properly. When this is overlooked, misunderstandings and inaccurate expectations are often the result. If not resolved, this can lead to indifference in the workplace and promote an apathetic atmosphere. Often, Mental Health Professionals are experts in assisting in correcting inaccurate information or locating messages that have lost important information during the communication process. At times, businesses that appear to be running smoothly can actually be suffering from breakdowns in communication that can fester into a much larger problem. Too many times, Directors or Supervisors inadvertently see their company or their business as an operation that is running smoothly and without distraction or delays, but the communication connection was lost so slowly and progressively that the Leader failed to see it occurring. This is when a Professional that focuses on communication can step in, observe, analyze, and collect data to determine the appropriate path to correct communication pitfalls, resulting in positive outcomes/results.
Interpersonal Communication:
Using verbal and nonverbal cues to convey what one’s mind is thinking to accomplish a particular goal is a skill that takes time and effort. The experience of exchanging thoughts and ideas from one person to another is something that is all too often taken for granted and in that, too often wishes, requirements, and/or expectations have been put aside because the “train has already left the station”. Only specific people possess the ability to “reroute” that same train and get it heading back to the station it was once intended to embark upon. Therapists and Industrial Psychologists have the innate ability to clear interpersonal misunderstandings and get the accurate ideas spread to the appropriate individuals to make the overall goals more attainable.
Relationship Dynamics:
Our relationships with family, friends, and acquaintances are extremely important in our daily lives and in the professional world, it is no different. Our relationships have a profound effect on how our messages are translated between staff and other staff and between Director/Supervisor/Business Owner and staff. We have all been in situations that we wished our relationship was better with someone so we could be more at ease when we communicate with them or we wished we had more appropriate boundaries with certain individuals so our requests would have more clarity. It is true that relationships that we possess with loved ones have far different requirements than those that we consider to be our colleagues or co-workers, but too often the lines get crossed through no fault of our own. We sometimes spend more than a third of our waking hours at work and/or with our co-workers or staff that we supervise and it is natural that we develop a certain closeness or fondness to them. In some occasions, having an understanding of where another person is “coming from” can be beneficial in supervising or directing them, but too often that fine line is crossed and this will cloud the potential expectations and goals that need to be met. Therapists and Psychologists are masters in clarifying, defining, and building appropriate boundaries while at the same time, promoting a positive avenue to meet the goals that have been placed.
Employee Relations:
Resolving problems or disputes as an early intervention and building positive relations between management and staff creates a harmonious workplace where ideas can be offered and not judged. A judgmental workplace stunts the growth of a business and allows for stagnation and a loss of productivity. A Consultant who is outside of the proverbial “circle” is unbiased and as such only wants what is best for the team/company. A Professional who is experienced in improving the dynamics of relations can intervene, open paths that remove such judgmental feelings, and create a more suitable place for creativity; a characteristic that is found in all successful businesses.
Conflict Resolution or Conflict Mediation:
Conflicts begin when disagreements between individuals or groups of individuals become verbalized or acted out. Not all conflicts are negative ones. Often conflicts can be used to motivate and energize an entire new core of ideas. It takes the most skillful of Leaders to determine when a conflict is one that should cease or if it should be cultivated to catalyze new and improved paths of business. When the former is needed, it takes an experienced master of communication to resolve the matter and bring a positive completion of the conflict where all parties feel accepted and understood for their thoughts and ideas. Your business could also be experiencing a silent conflict. These conflicts are not easily discovered or defined; in fact, they may purposely be hidden from Leaders; fearful of retribution, disciplinary action, or being judged. Conflicts such as these are often more easily discovered by an outside source that encourages trust and honesty. For a Therapist or a Consultant, it is more important to determine who the participants are and what the cause is, so it can be rectified and an improved path can be created.
Team Building:
It has been well documented that a solid team will outperform a solid individual on almost all aspects of business success. Having shared involvement in successes and failures results in professional stamina. All staff members are responsible for building a team that works. Commitment to shared goals, collaboration, shared leadership responsibilities, social relations among team members, and stability are just some of the main benefits that occur when a successful team is put in place. Sometimes teams become stagnant and production becomes decreased when roles in the team are crossed, undefined, or absent. When this occurs, refocusing becomes a must. A professional who is well versed in the understanding of team building concepts can improve, add, and cultivate aspects of your team including building an enthusiastic and productive team, defining roles within the team, developing leadership skills, increasing team spirit, solving problems, and assessing team progress to name a few.
Leadership Assessment and Leadership Development:
It takes a special individual with unique qualities to be a successful “Leader”. One who is focused on goals and possesses higher levels of self-confidence in addition to greater abilities in interacting with staff or co-workers. Successful Leaders are not born as such. They are formed by trial and error as well as successes and failures. A leader is not a “boss”. They are individuals who respond well under pressure and work well with staff, team members, and the customer or client. They are open to learning new ideas and accepting their flaws in addition to having the will and the ability to make change with little notice and effort (adaptability). Leadership qualities CAN be taught and practiced with the guidance of another experienced Leader. With the assistance of an effective Coach or Mentor, a successful Leader can balance the many responsibilities and duties that impact the entire business. From visualization to implementation, a Leader oversees the successes and the failures of the team and helps in improving the final results by “steering” the team toward the desired vision. Sometimes, Leaders too, become stagnant and defocused over time and they require outside sources to help them to refocus, re-energize, and in some cases, even reinvent themselves to become more adaptive to the constant change of business. This is where a Mental Health Professional/Consultant that also has experience in Management and Supervision can be advantageous.
Creating/Changing Work Culture:
Admitting that the culture of your business is a negative, “hostile” or “toxic” one can be a very uncomfortable challenge, to the point where the Leader cannot do it. After all, your business is your livelihood and it is where you have invested so much of your time and effort. It might even be something that you created from the very beginning. You take full pride in your business and to admit that a hostile work environment exists in it could bring about a sense of failure. Well, it is not a failure if you are actively doing something about it. As a Leader, you may or may not be an active part in the culture, but by NOT doing anything about it, you are contributing to the downfall and the hostility. The culture of your business is your responsibility and as such, you may need to seek additional assistance from a professional who knows about people. As a Leader, Director, CEO, or Founder, you are in charge of your services or products that you offer, but you cannot be everywhere all the time. Sometimes, a negative work culture cannot be seen until it has manifested itself as a “toxic” environment and even then it is a surprise. We are Human Beings and as so, we have difficulty admitting that we have made mistakes or allowed negativity to spread in our work place. Having an external professional or Consultant as a part of your business to explore the culture and distinguish between negativity and motivational properties can enhance the culture of your business. It is often an easier task for an “outside” Consultant to be accepted as an individual who wants what is best for the company as opposed to having another Team Member or Manager attempting to intervene that may have a specific agenda against specific individuals or groups of individuals.
Additional services related to Soft Skills Guidance can be discussed.
Improving Workplace Efficiency is Our Focus
“Believing that companies could benefit from applications of behavioral science, I set out to forge ways for bringing that experience into companies. I began redesigning my services for business usage. More frequently, I left the comfortable confines of my clinical office to be with people in business settings. I saw how a company’s people actually make its technology and business systems work. Whenever I discovered supervisors or line workers not performing optimally, I found the overall business not performing well either. In targeting corporate sites for my new professional services, I found opportunities to make major contributions to enhance workplace productivity.”
Louis A. Perrott, Ph.D.; Reinventing Your Practice as a Business Psychologist