Undertake our Facilitation Program  
Your meetings will never be the same again

20 Meeting Accountabilities to Increase Efficiency 
and Effectiveness 


Thou shalt ensure meetings…

1. Have very skilled facilitators or chairpersons.
   
2. Have care, respect, honesty, professionalism and core values maintained.
   
3. Have a very clear stated and documented purpose upfront.
   
4. Have designed processes proven to deliver the intended goals.
   
5. Have defined measurable outputs and outcomes.
   
6. Have alignment to corporate or business objectives and show the line of sight when required.
   
7. Have a balanced agenda that is known to all people and available before the meeting.
   
8. Have preparations and actions completed before the meeting. 
   
9. Have the right people there to make the decisions.
   
10. Have the right information available for all relevant participants.
    
11. Have clear ground rules and ensure they are followed.
    
12. Have a review throughout and at the end.
    
13. Have a culture of no payback.
    
14. Have stated and documented accountabilities.
    
15. Have agreements and actions summarised at the end.
    
16. Have measures of real need and real benefit.
    
17. Demonstrate fair and equal opportunities for participnto share views.
    
18. Don't waste time or resources of the organisation or stakeholders.
    
19. Start on time, every time.
    
20. Finish on time, every time.
    

Undertake our Facilitation Program. Your meetings will never be the same again. 

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

Once upon a time there was workplace with a Cinderella and Prince Charming and another kingdom with Snow White, the Seven Dwarfs and an Evil Witch.  The story goes on. 

All sound familiar? 

How many workplaces tell Fairy Tale Stories each day?

We help organisations, teams, boards and business uncover the truth, deal with uncertainty and focus people on the real story.

The best way to deal with change, is tell the real story, not the made up one. Tell it with real characters, facilitate character dialogue, people love to see themselves in the story. If you don’t they make up another version of it with more drama, more villains, more plots and more twists.

Facilitating tough talks and challenging conversations is what we do best. Where not the knight in shining armor…however we do get the real story out so everyone can get back to business.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

We are helping give some life to those who are losing theirs. We are supporting Karuna Hospice,Brisbane, Qld . 
Come or donate money generously if you can. Palliative care is not cheap and neither is life. 

Help those carers and volunteers and care for those people dying young and old, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, wives and husbands. 

Death comes to all of us, the one thing for certain is we don't know when. 

This NFP organisation depends on gov't funding, community kindness to provide a world class hospice service.   

Be kind to your community! We need it.


Art and Craft Market Day August 2, 2014.
Visit Karuna and help them if you can.

Best wishes, 
Matt Cartwright 

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

Be prepared to be the change in your world.

The following information is sourced from the PROSCI Best Practices in Change Management – 2014 Edition

As facilitators we are called in to resolve and help transform group dynamics when they’re at the pointy end of change or project management.  It’s a crisis, going to be a crisis, it’s a program rescue, or low morale, another restructure, realignment or a service autopsy.


As facilitators being up-to-date with best practice is critical to our profession, and helping our clients to access these resources is just as important. Here is what I discovered last week from the PROSCI Best Practices in Change Management – 2014 Edition

Direct Quote:
“Greatest contributors to Change Management success PROSCI in their eighth consecutive study found that, active and visible executive sponsorship was identified as the greatest contributor to success.  The top finding overall included

1. Active and visible executive sponsorship
2. Structured change management approach
3. Dedicated change management resources and funding
4. Frequent and open communication about the change and the need for change
5. Employee engagement and participation
6. Engagement and integration with project management
7. Engagement with and support from middle management

Greatest obstacles to success
The top five obstacles to success identified in the 2013 benchmarking study are:

1. Ineffective change management sponsorship
2. Resistance to change from employees
3. Insufficient change management resourcing
4. Division between project management and change management
5. Middle management resistance”

Source: PROSCI Best Practices in Change Management – 2014 Edition

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

Tips for confronting brutal facts in business or stakeholder groups

• Intention: do no harm and deal with it, life and business has no guarantees and no permanence;
  
• Lead with questions, not answers to gain understanding (not manipulation);
  
• Engage in dialogue and debate, not coercion, collusion, or control;
  
• Conduct pre and post autopsies, without blame, no finger-pointing, instead lend a hand;
  

• Build in red-flag mechanisms into meetings, conferences, workshops to monitor escalate the issues;
  
• Choose the right attitude: What you bring and focus on is where you go, mind your attitude, never  give up in resolving the truthful facts in the interest of business or group goals;
  
• It’s an iterative process, there is "no silver bullet;" 
• Test and evaluate facilitation methods and models that work; 
• Confronting brutal facts is always context driven and individualised; if you think you already know the answer to process the outcome you have just broken facilitation boundaries; always question and re-question;
• Beware of using the same old text book frameworks and models, they don’t always hold up. Keep aware. Innovate.

Our Professional Facilitators know the power is in the context, people and the process.

Got a brutal facts discussion that has to happen? Need a hand? What’s the cost of not getting a professional in?

Let us help you do it.  A professional facilitator shows you the skills in action, giving you the confidence to do it yourself.

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

Positive Customer Experience, Create Value Reduce Variation

Think about all the processes in your workplace or business that don't add value. 

How did they get there and why? 
Who designed them? 
Who did they design them for? 

Sound familiar? Sure it does. 


The critical starting point for any organisation is value. This can only be defined by the ultimate customer or end user. In any process there are value-adding and non-value-adding activities. 

The customer is only interested in value-adding activities which meet their expectations.  

Successfully facilitating business process improvement, process mapping and implementing Lean Six Sigma initiatives are a fine art and an advanced practitioner skill.  

Imagine having more confidence and skills to run meetings, design and facilitate new projects, bring about successful improvement programs, organisational change and manage cross boundary initiatives with limited resistance and rework.  

It's possible with Professional Facilitators Australia.

We are sharing our knowledge, insights, skills from June to September. Register your interest now for the Executive Business Improvement Facilitation Program.

4 Facilitation Questions to help you Improve the Value Curve in your organisation.

1. Create: Which factors should be created that the industry has never offered?
2. Raise: Which factors should be raised well above the the industry’s standard? 
3. Reduce: Which factors should be reduced well below the industry’s standard?
4. Eliminate: Which of the factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated?

Our facilitation difference is we help groups "be dynamic, be relevant, be focused"

Journey well,
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

Strategic Growth Needs The Right People, Process and Performance

Strategic Planning and Implementation Facilitator, Matt Cartwright helps small, medium and large businesses make the most from their limited resources, their business opportunities & make the best of their customer and staff experiences.

Many strategic initiatives and business improvements fail or fall below expectations due to inadequate design and delivery. On analysis, alignment, implementation and re-evaluation are poorly managed.

One of the major failures is process execution, energy and evaluation.


Redesigning or re-engineering strategy requires process change and implementation. That's the hard part in business, people give up, or they never get started. Not the case with us...

It’s vital for a successful business change or improvement to adapt its processes. Without it there are no returns on investment, no customer value add and limited sustainability.

Like any strategic initiative be it a career, merger, acquisition, relocation or investment there are connected processes that relate. It's the old cause and effect model.

Mind, attitude, behaviour are of course the underlying keys to your success, but they are useless unless you design, sort and shine the strategy and operational processes along the way.

How strategic is your initiative? 10 process questions to keep you in and ahead of the game.

1.      How much waste is there in the system?
2.      How much duplication is there in the process?
3.      How much rework is there?
4.      How much overprocessing is there?
5.      How much over engineering is there?
6.      How much wait-time, warehousing, batching and storage is going on?
7.      How much are you avoiding???
8.      How disconnected are the strategic, operational, tactical and performance plans?
9.      How will you maintain business relevance if your competition does it better, faster, simpler and cheaper?
10.   How much difference would it make if you got help from an expert?

Professional Facilitators Australia are experts in facilitation of Strategic Growth Solutions, New Business Development, Business Plans, Business Turnarounds, Service Evaluation & Improvement, Process Reviews, New Market Development, and much more.  What's holding you back?

Journey well, 
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2014

The Below conversation has always stuck with me.

      CFO asks his CEO, “What happens if we invest in developing our people and then they leave the company?”
      CEO answers, “What happens if we don’t, and they stay?”

Staff development is more than a good idea.  When facilitated successfully it gives your team the ability to change their approach, improve business outcomes and client relationships.

It's like a holiday away.  It easier to stay at home and save the money. Or, spend a little on doing something different. Sometimes you don’t think you need to get away. My experience is when you do get back you experience clarity of focus and decision making and fresh perspective.
 
Who is holding your people development back in your organisation? Who has locked up the investment funds?

Start Your Business Case
When pitching for coaching, facilitation, stakeholder engagement development programs to your decision makers, make sure you outline the expected benefits realisation, the measurable benefits to the organisation, the benefits to the customer, and the benefits to you. Always look for levering and multiplying benefits.
 
It also useful to outline the dis-benefits of not getting in the experts to pass on their skills, experience and knowledge.
All the best.

Journey well, 
Matt Cartwright 
Inspiring People, Inspiring Business, Inspiring Results 
© Copyright 2008 -2013