Every company and organization we work with has a unique story. Our
greatest successes have come from partnering with clients to find
creative, innovative, out-of-the-box solutions that impact both
the human and business sides of their story.
WORKPLACE LEARNING AND PERFORMANCE INSTITUTE The Situation  For many years one of the primary programs offered
by the Chicagoland Chapter of the American Society for Training
and Development (CCASTD), was the Human Resources Development Institute
(HRDI). This program consisted of a series of seven one-day workshops
and was designed to enhance the skills of individuals new to
the field of learning and development. Over time, HRDI feedback
from participants and instructors was that the content and some
of the methodologies were outdated and not current with developments
in the industry. Additionally, the national ASTD organization had
just released a new model of workplace learning and performance
competencies and had begun a national certification program. It
became clear that HRDI needed a major redesign of the curriculum.
Actions Lee Johnsen of Partners in Development, serving as a co-director of HRDI, and another volunteer co-director, took on the task of leading a major redesign and development of the curriculum. Working with a series of volunteer committees and task forces over nine months, they engaged over 60 volunteer professionals and college interns in a total redesign and development of a new series of one-day courses built around the new national competency model. The total number of hours invested in this project was estimated to be 2500-3000. Their deliverables included participant guides, facilitator guides, and facilitator’s audio visual media that both enhance participants’ learning and the delivery capabilities of the facilitators. Results The new Workplace Learning and Performance Institute (WLPI) was launched in 2006. Feedback from participants and facilitators has been stellar. The Chicagoland ASTD Chapter received national recognition for this initiative. Marketability of the program in the Chicagoland area increased and enrollments in the Institute have remained strong. We are very proud of this program for our association chapter, and Lee Johnsen’s contributions made this happen. Micki Lewis, Past President |
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The Situation As with many churches today, we found ours to be a dwindling congregation of faithful, but older members. We realized the need to actively reach outside of our church walls to share our gifts with the community. In addition, we wanted to extend an extravagant welcome to the community and invite them into our church community. Many of our members shared the feelings of author Paul Nixon in his book, I Refuse to Lead a Dying Church.  Actions A “Futuring” task force was formed to assess the current state of our church. We could then focus on ways our church could expand into the community. Lee Johnsen from Partners in Development was key in this process. Lee first helped us by assessing local and church demographics. With that background information, we decided to form several focus groups comprised of church members and visitors to explore ways to reach our community and to grow our church. Centered around the themes in Paul Nixon’s book, a series of three sessions were offered to the congregation. (Each session was held on four separate days of the week.) Lee Johnsen, from Partners in Development, creatively designed these sessions in an interactive, engaging way so that all members could participate in them. Lee also trained the 8-10 facilitators, some of whom had never previously led a group prior to this experience. After the sessions, Partners in Development helped collect the data so that it could be used for implementation immediately. Results Over 50% of our members participated in these focus groups. By design, these sessions created lively discussions and created avenues for people to freely share ideas for revitalizing our church. Many members commented these were some of the most productive church conversations they’d had in years. Because of the excitement generated in these sessions, people took action immediately: to date, a new small group ministry has been developed, there have been numerous outreach and community events sponsored by our church, and church membership is growing. Visitors never fail to comment about the warm welcome they receive the moment they enter our church. Partners in Development helped us to focus on our future and then worked with us to create a viable plan to begin the process. Our church members are engaged and enthusiastic as we actively pursue the path ahead. Patricia Harris, Director of Spiritual Formation |
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The Situation We initially contacted Partners in Development to assist us in improving our customer service. As a community performing arts center, we knew the importance of developing and maintaining excellent relationships with new and returning customers. Rather than simply offering a “canned program,” Partners in Development first got to know us and how we work with our customers. They interviewed staff and gathered information through a survey to identify the key areas for improvement and how we could best leverage our resources. This needs analysis proved invaluable to not only improving service, but also to increasing sales. We also learned of opportunities to become more efficient and effective across departments. Actions With information from the needs assessment, Partners in Development created customized training programs for our employees that focused on the specific ways in which they could improve service. By bringing together staff from various departments, we identified new ways we could gain efficiencies and we developed more of a sense of teamwork. Partners in Development worked with us to identify and improve our sales work processes and to create procedures of best practices, including an updated ticket office manual.  Results Following the service and sales training sessions, our employees started implementing many of the ideas that emerged. They worked together to find ways of solving long-standing problems and inconveniences for our customers. We saw a reduction in the number of customer complaints and a boost in sales and efficiency. Partners in Development helped us to expand our potential to our customers and the community. Judy Winkelpleck, Chief Operating Officer/Vice President
Civic Center of Greater Des Moines |
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BLENDED E-LEARNING REDUCES EXPENSES AND IMPROVES PERFORMANCE
The Situation Our company is a leading provider of commercial insurance services and expertise to a wide range of businesses throughout the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. With employees in multiple locations across the U.S., we needed to find an effective way to develop our managers and supervisors without incurring high travel expenses. Partners in Development helped us to do that. Actions Partners in Development listened to our needs and delivered customized, blended e-learning courses that enabled our leaders to participate in high quality, effective training without the time and expense of travel. In these courses, our employees obtained self- and multi-rater assessment feedback, participated in webconferences, threaded discussions and solved case studies as members of virtual teams. All courses provided one-on-one online coaching and one course offered every participant a personalized telephone coaching session. Not only was the course a great experience for our employees, the course content was a top-notch mix of sound leadership and management theory with real-life examples and current issues. And after every course was delivered, Partners in Development used participant and client feedback to continuously enhance the products and service they could provide. Results  After participating in the courses offered by Partners in Development our evaluation results showed that over 90% of our employees felt confident that they could apply the skills they learned to situations with team members. In addition, over 90% said they would recommend these courses to their peers. We are confident that our managers and supervisors are better leaders today because of their participation in our leadership and management development curriculum. Partners in Development played a key role in making this happen, and at a price we could afford. LuRae Crawford, Manager, Workplace Performance
Continental Western Group, LLC |
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The Situation We contacted Partners in Development to assist the marketing department of our company—a leading insurance broker and risk advisor. The department was experiencing significant growth and consolidation of services. The consolidation meant that employees in one location would not be transferring and we could lose valuable information about work processes and best practices. We also had several new employees coming aboard and we needed to get them fully productive ASAP.  Actions While we initially thought we needed to invest our resources in training, Partners in Development helped us recognize the value of documenting our key work processes and best practices. Once that was done, we could proceed with employee training to maximize their learning. Over a period of weeks, the Partners in Development consultants assisted us by interviewing our subject matter experts and clearly documenting their best practices. Let me also say that this was no small task. Our procedures are highly complex, detailed and involve a number of resources, including outside vendors and suppliers. Results The final deliverables included online documentation that served as a “go to” point for our employees to quickly access the most up-to-date information. Partners in Development also designed the training modules and trained our internal subject matter experts to deliver them directly to our employees. This has led to increased productivity of new and experienced staff, improved customer service and reduced expenses due to re-works. In addition, we can update the materials ourselves. What we appreciate about Partners in Development is that they were easy to work with, very thorough, and focused on the results that provided the greatest impact. We were very pleased with the results we achieved. Tonya Graham, Sr. Vice President |
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RECOMMENDATION FROM PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP
I would highly recommend Lee Johnsen and his
firm Partners in Development. I have worked with Lee numerous
times over the past 15+ years and seen him deliver exceptional
services to public, nonpublic and not-for-profit organizations.
He works to tailor his deliverables to the specific needs of
the organization. He is able to facilitate developmental conversations
as well as navigate difficult circumstances with the tact and
confidentiality needed to manage leaders toward solutions and
better leadership/communication skills. Lee has exhibited exceptional
strength in designing programs that fit the needs of the organizations
that I’ve worked
for, consulting to deliver a strong product and facilitating in
a way that employees believe that time was well spent in his courses.
I would highly recommend him for the full gamut of development
and consulting services that he provides.
Beth Raymond, 2nd V.P. of Human Resources
Principal Financial Group
Partners in Development, 889 S. Dwyer Ave., Arlington Heights, IL 60005. 847-255-1031 LeeJohnsen@partnersindevelopment.net