Past Experience

OKA's past successes have ranged from single high-impact teambuilding events to longer-term organization development consulting projects. Here's an overview of past programs.

Introductory Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) Assessment Workshops. OKA built its reputation by presenting the MBTI assessment as a tool for unlocking the complexities of communication, team dynamics, leadership and decision making. Our client-site events bring the power of type to both new and intact teams and organizations. Half-day workshops include an introduction to the MBTI assessment, exercises illustrating type preferences, receipt of individual reports, and action planning. Full day and multi-day workshops enhance this introduction, exploring group-specific needs and applications.

OKA also provides introductory and advanced application workshops using other instruments and tools, covering a range of topics: communication, conflict management, leadership, team development, influencing skills, strategic planning, and project management. Instrument Summaries tells you more.

Customized Workshops

Leadership Training Design and Delivery. OKA currently delivers quarterly leadership training for both ship and shore personnel at an international shipping company. Designed to align with and complement the company's existing leadership competencies, this program is leveraging the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI), selected because of its fit with the competency system, and its ease of use with the target audience.

Teambuilding and Customer Service Workshop. The Accounts Payable Department of an investment firm wished to learn more about their inter-personal dynamics, and develop strategies for coordinating work among team members more effectively. They were also interested in developing stronger influencing and customer service. In response, OKA designed a two-part action-driven workshop using Reversal Theory, during which the team identified a number of steps they could take to achieve their goals.

Supervisory Skills Workshop. A government agency wanted to provide its front-line field managers with practical training in leadership communication, delivering feedback, influencing skills, and change management. In response, OKA designed and delivered a two-day highly experiential training program using a variety of exercises and tools, including the SDI Portraits of Strengths and Overdone Strengths, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode approach, and a variety of role plays and team development exercises.

Difficult Conversations and Effective Feedback Workshop. Many organizations come to OKA requesting training related to feedback, and having the difficult conversations so often avoided in today's workplaces. In response, OKA has developed a one-day workshop that focuses on teaching and practicing a model for delivering and receiving feedback. Our model is a flexible one, and can be applied to providing positive feedback in the moment to a colleague, providing performance feedback, or having a difficult conversation with a colleague at any level. Goals of the workshop include:

• Provide mechanisms for overcoming the barriers that tend to hold people back in delivering feedback, particularly tough messages;
• Provide a step-by-step, systematic, and structured 5-step feedback model that can serve as a “checklist” for someone delivering – and then receiving - feedback;
• Provide examples and case studies to allow attendees to practice and experience these feedback techniques; and
• Provide resources that can be used to support future feedback sessions.

Leadership Development Workshop. For a large industrial products company, OKA designed and delivered a one-week leadership development workshop for members of its Emerging Leader’s Accelerated Development Program. The fast paced experiential workshop incorporated the MBTI assessment, the SDI, and a variety of teambuilding exercises – putting learning to work immediately in a challenging yet supportive environment. The week included a capstone volunteer event and a concentrated period of individual career development planning, yielding both immediate leadership-in-action successes and actionable plans for the future.

Strategic Planning and Teambuilding. OKA was asked to design and facilitate a joint strategic planning and teambuilding session with a group of government systems development managers. After a scoping interview with the group's leader, OKA designed a full-day workshop that integrated both planning sessions and team development activities. The result was a highly experiential event, with alternating periods of content-rich planning and team exercises. Through this, the group identified behaviors that both supported and hindered their effectiveness, and then immediately applied those insights in their planning work.

Team Development Workshop. A newly formed management team wanted greater insight into their own internal communication patterns and behaviors. To explore these dynamics, OKA designed and facilitated a workshop that utilized a number of team level diagnostic tools - including our own Team Observation Instrument - to provide the team with a reflexive look at its own process. This was accompanied by action planning, and an introduction to several techniques to enhance the effectiveness of team decision making and group meeting time.

Human Resources Process Mapping Workshop. For a fast-growing investment firm’s Human Resources Department, OKA led a two-day workshop to facilitate the mapping of the department’s roles, responsibilities and business processes. To place this activity in a broader organizational context, OKA used the organization life cycle model of the Leadership Spectrum Profile (LSP), to help the team better understand how their existing challenges fit within the current and future growth stages of the firm.

Communications Workshop. The senior leaders of a technology department had received feedback that they needed to improve their communications with other leaders and their executive team. To respond to this need, OKA designed and delivered a two-part workshop that included the following topics: a process for identifying key stakeholders and messages; decision criteria for selecting different communication pathways; different communication styles and information needs; and action planning for applying effective communication techniques after the workshop. Part 2 of the series includes a hands-on session to help the group prepare for a critical briefing for a new incoming CEO.

Annual Managers Meeting Teambuilding. To support interpersonal skills training and teambuilding at an annual manager’s meeting, OKA presented a one day MBTI workshop for 120 managers coming together from across the country. This large group event was supplemented with a smaller workshop using the SDI - with feedback component - with the executive team to provide a “quick look” 360 assessment with the senior leaders. Following this event, OKA was asked to continue working with the organization, to deliver a type-based distance learning program for operating sites across the country; and advanced recurring MBTI and SDI work with the executive team.

Large Corporate Meeting MBTI Workshops. A large consulting firm wished to incorporate an introduction to the MBTI assessment in a high profile annual meeting. With hundreds of people, this event required careful coordination of training and the ability to deliver high-impact training on a large scale. In response, OKA mobilized its team of Associates for concurrent training sessions, leading to a shared understanding of type fundamentals across the full organization.

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Longer-Term Consulting Projects

Leadership Development Program. For the U.S. Air Force, OKA developed and is delivering a leadership development program with a group of 80-100 Military Training Instructors. This ongoing project has included a comprehensive assessment and gap analysis; curriculum design; training development and delivery; and individualized leadership coaching. This work is being completed under OKA’s MOBIS contract, and leverages the power of the MBTI.

Organization Development Assessment. In early 2008, OKA completed an organization development assessment with a non-profit association undergoing a significant change in leadership and governance structure. Assessment activities include administering and interpreting the Work Environment Scales (WES) with all employees; conducting interviews with selected staff members and managers; conducting a focused strategy session with the senior team; and conducting a full staff debriefing to discuss results and plan an actionable path ahead. OKA is currently working with the senior leaders to develop a leadership development program based on assessment feedback.

Leadership Training Program. OKA recently supported a specialty insurance company in developing and delivering a leadership training program. This included facilitating a planning meeting with the Executive Team, conducting kickoff training sessions with the entire company, creating focused applications training sessions for the leadership team, providing targeted executive coaching, and developing self-paced online training modules focusing on specific skills, such as decision-making and deploying different leadership strengths. This program is leveraging the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI) because of its focus on "borrowing" strengths across diverse leadership styles for more effective outcomes.

Organization Development Subject Matter Expertise. Under sub-contract for a Defense University, OKA provided organization development and training subject matter expertise to a five-year research program investigating the personality and team dynamics of Information Technology work teams. OKA’s contributions included training researchers in the use of study instruments, designing a group observation instrument and developing and delivering team and leadership development curricula.

Focus Group and Workshop Facilitation. For a large government agency Chief Information Officer (CIO), OKA supported a long-term policy assessment and improvement project designed to streamline implementation of the Clinger Cohen Act. This work included focus group design and workgroup facilitation services, as well as management briefing and report preparation.

Training Capability Development. For a large federated family-of-systems project, OKA provides targeted expertise related to training materials development. OKA's work helps ensure that systems under the banner of the federated program have effective training and outreach materials that carry a common look and feel. As part of this program, OKA facilitates a virtual team of training developers and creates training guides and tutorials for the federated community.