The Clearing is a boutique consulting firm. By nature, that means we offer more out-of-the-box solutions to our clients than in-the-box. As part of those solutions, we often conduct leadership training across a myriad of topics. Given our out-of-the-box approach to client solutions, you may wonder about our approach to training. Spoiler alert: it’s a little out-of-the-box, too.

Our trainings are fully designed modules that include session materials, learning journals, and more. However, we meet our clients where they are in their journey. To do that, we begin each engagement by meeting with our clients to understand what they are really trying to accomplish with the desired training workshop. This is important because our classes aren’t static – we shift the training to best suit their needs and goals. Our highly skilled trainers live the work they train on. Through storytelling, small and large group discussions, our trainers bring out participants’ lived experiences as well and make this fundamental adult learning principle a cornerstone of their sessions.

This customized approach means our clients and their teams walk away with a set of frameworks, models, information, and practices that they can immediately employ after the training. In fact, we regularly hear from clients they’re still using the ideas and language they learned months, and even years, later.

What’s New for 2022

The Clearing’s bread and butter is advanced facilitation and meeting design training. We offer it for all levels and positions. In 2022, we’ve adapted, in particular, what we’ve learned over these past two years, increasing our focus on leading through change and ambiguity throughout our training offerings. And for those at the tip of the spear, we have developed a deep dive into operating in uncertainty with our Embracing Ambiguity and Change course.

We’ve also had leaders come to us with concerns around employee burnout, especially as we enter yet another pandemic year. To that end, we’ve refined our offerings on resilience and well-being. Finally, we’ve heard the need for increased training for first-time leaders and people managers. Trial by fire isn’t beneficial for leaders or their team members, and our wide range of leadership trainings teaching people how to manage and lead teams at every level is designed to address that.

You can find The Clearing’s entire 2022 training catalog here. If you have questions about specific programs or wonder which modules might be right to take your organization to the next level, reach out any time at liz.glodek@theclearing.com.

At some point in your career, everyone uses – or sees – the Stop-Start-Continue framework. Why? Because it’s a simple way to force (or strongly encourage) prioritization. It gives organizations an opportunity to thoughtfully look at the current landscape and discuss which behaviors are supporting the work of the organization and which behaviors are hindering it.

A Fluid Exercise

The Stop-Start-Continue exercise isn’t “set-it-and-forget-it.” And just because something falls into the Stop bucket today doesn’t mean it was the wrong thing to do at the time. You may have needed a certain behavior before to get you to where you are today. However, it’s no longer serving you and now it’s time to let it go in service of moving forward.
For example, imagine working on a process in its infancy. It was created just to get the ball rolling on some new work, but now you have gotten to a point where different parts of that process have been firmed up. That means there are parts you no longer need, so in order to move forward efficiently, you stop doing them. They were helpful to get you to this point, but you can move forward faster by taking them out of the process.

Finally, it’s not a one-in, one-out exercise either. Just because you stop doing one thing doesn’t mean you must start doing another. Let your organization’s circumstances dictate what goes in and out, not hard and fast rules.

How We Use it

The Clearing approaches Stop-Start-Continue with the recognition that failures or errors that may have been made in a process have value. Before moving forward, we look back and ask, “Why did we do that and what can we apply from it in our next phase?”

We take those learnings and apply a forward-looking lens, assigning actions to each one. By providing examples of what those behaviors look like in action, it allows teams to better understand what it will take to sustain them. The final and most important step, especially when using this framework as part of a team, is determining who is responsible for each action and how you hold each other accountable.

That last part may seem odd given most organizations use the Stop-Start-Continue framework as a planning exercise. However, by adding responsibilities into the mix, teams can use it as a way to check each other as each party moves through the year together.

To simplify things, you can use The Clearing template found here, which is part of our larger culture toolkit (see Phase 1) used to define organizational vision, mission, and values. In this example, you would put the two templates together (S-S-C & Mission, Vision, and Values) for your team to look at. This helps employees think about what they are trying to achieve in a given timeframe, the overarching purpose, and the mission of the team.

Who Should Use It?

The audience is limitless; it can be any person, any team, any industry. In addition, managers can use it as a feedback tool. Similar to organizations, individual behaviors must be adjusted over time to drive personal growth. Using Stop-Start-Continue as part of regular performance check-ins provides a clear tool to review the things you both agreed to do and see if they are actually being done. Just like with a team, it provides managers and employees a way to hold each other accountable.

We Want Your Feedback

We are sharing this framework out with the world in a way that is meant to be iterative. Our team at The Clearing wants to hear back from people on how they’ve used it and its effectiveness so WE can continue to iterate. I invite folks to share their stories with us – and how we can improve it. I am always ready to chat – simply reach out at liz.glodek@theclearing.com.

As August closes and September begins, summer holidays wrap up and, if you’re lucky, you have one last vacation ahead before returning to regularly scheduled programming. For some, the 2018-2019 school year means sending a child off to kindergarten or college. Others are embarking on their own educational path, returning to school to finish a degree or pick up a new credential for career advancement.

Still, others look toward the waning of this calendar year as an opportune time to evaluate their organization’s professional development offerings and plan future learning and growth opportunities. This can evoke questions regarding best practices for implementing or optimizing organizational training practices.

At The Clearing, we celebrate and believe in the idea that learning and development are lifelong pursuits. As the lead for the firm’s Learning and Development (L&D) efforts, this belief is a key component of why I joined the firm and is a major reason for my continued happiness and professional growth.

Throughout the course of my career as both an educator and a consultant, I’ve learned the importance of asking oneself some baseline questions before starting, improving, or reimagining a firm’s L&D practice:

What are your shared training needs?
What does your current training program look like and what are some gaps you’re seeing? Are you able to make your staff client-ready with your existing program? Are you offering attractive options to retain and grow your best employees? What are the outcomes you want for your training program?
How will you develop and design your curriculum?
Will your training sessions satisfy the variety of ways individuals learn? What does your curriculum schedule look like; how will you grow employees and teams intentionally and provide them the knowledge to develop professionally and personally?
How and who will deliver the training?
What are your resources for delivering training? Are there elements of your current training program that can be served through e-learning opportunities?
What will be your evaluation plan?
How do you assess whether your training program outcomes are being met?

If you want to talk through any of these questions and your answers, or want more information about how to create a training program that will benefit your firm’s employees, please reach out to me directly.