Services

Coaching/Debriefing    Design, Development and Delivery    Project Management    Planning    Thought partnering   Teaching, Presenting and Learning Facilitation

Coaching/Debriefing

Coaching is a hot concept these days.  There's a good reason for it. No two situations are the same.  No two individuals are the same. Having someone dedicated to your growth and development, your acquisition and mastery of new skills and your best interest, builds confidence, courage and new habits.  De-briefing is a kind of coaching:  a post mortem if you will, on an event.  It enables an assessment of facts, feelings and outcomes to determine how to hold onto skills well-used and how to acquire new skills.

Design, Development and Delivery

These are the three elements in the creative process for a new program, event or offering.  It is possible to contract for  Design only, which entails determining the objectives, the target audience, the time and resource constraints and the structural elements in the event.  Development means that the individual elements then have applied to them appropriate research for the content, appropriate learning methodologies, appropriate time management and leader/facilitation notes.  It is possible to contract for both design and development.  Delivery is the actual travel to your location to be the primary deliverer of the event or to be part of a delivery team. Within delivery it is possible to contract for forming someone or a team of people to deliver the event, or it is possible to contract with us to deliver the work. You should note that ConSpirita retains the copyright for all events they design and develop, and all events they design, develop and deliver.  It is common, however, for us to negotiate leave-behinds:  presentation materials/files, handouts, bulletin inserts, and follow-up materials.

Project Management

This service includes assistance with the day-to-day management of the project plan.  Communicating with key personnel, monitoring the tasks and their deadlines, communicating with parish leadership when the plan's timeline is compromised as well as a look at the implications of this are all part of project management.  Project management also deals with the parish leadership's skills in leading change with coaching in this area.  This service requires frequent onsite visits, often for more than one or two days.  It is best suited to projects where there is no one on staff with the time to oversee the details of the project, follow-up with responsible parties and communicate with the pastor/administration.  It can also be well-suited if the project is going to be unpopular and thus there will be a lot of negativity and inertia.  It can be draining and compromising to the pastoral care of the parish if the pastor and/or a staff member has to "ride herd" on resistors and non-performers. Delegating these tasks in those situations may well be worth the trade off in ministry and expense.

Planning

Everyone has heard the axiom "Failing to plan is planning to fail."  However, it is not unusual for parish policies, programs and processes to suffer from a lack of real planning.  "Real" planning considers needs, resources, time limitations, leadership, vision, and mission.  It also considers implementation methods, change theory and evaluation of outcomes and outputs.

Project Planning

This is a sub-set of planning but it differs from the planning service in that with this service, you have already determined the need, the resource limitations, the leadership, vision and mission.  What you are seeking is an actual project plan:  what tasks are to be done by whom, in what time period with what outcomes?  This can also take into consideration budget elements, although in a parish the budgetary implications of a project are usually not managed by a consultant.  Project planning also takes into consideration time elements that are affected by such things as the change-friendliness of the parish, turnover in leadership, and the rhythms of the liturgical year.

 

Thought partnering

This is a thinking companion, someone who has differing experiences, knowledge, and perspectives than you and your parishioners might. ConSpirita can provide thought partnering that draws from the Scriptures, the Tradition, the worlds of business and organizational development and the academic discipline of human communication in addition to 20 years of ministerial experience in a variety of parish and diocesan settings, and probing/questioning.  Thought partnering can enable a fuller exploration of an idea, reveal some things you perhaps did not think about before, and give you perspectives that are formed by experiences other than those in your parish/diocese.

 

Teaching, Presenting and Learning Facilitation

These are related but slightly different services.  We define teaching as the transmission of segments of knowledge, with concern for the learning methods and the complexity of the concepts/skills.  It relies on good organization, good public speaking and an in-depth grasp of the subject matter. Teachers generally create their own material.

Teaching differs from presentation, by our definition, in that the goal of a presentation is to both learn and to inspire/transform.  Presentations, in addition to having knowledge elements in them, will also have prayer and ritual elements, art, music, movement, and dramatic content.  Therefore, it will have a greater time requirement, more support from the local community and a higher level of engagement than teaching.

Learning facilitation, differs from these two in that the purpose of learning facilitation is to enable a group of people to do the following

1. Hear new content which may come from a teaching element provided by the learning facilitator, or from a video, audio, guest lecturer, or a written piece of material.
2. Work with the content using a variety of processes and methods: implication analysis, reaction and response, strengths and weaknesses, etc.
3. Draw from their own knowledge base and experiences to provide additional content, insight and implications.
4. Reach some closure with the event, be it a decision, a time to meet again, follow-up learning needed, etc.

The learning facilitator concentrates on group dynamics, provides processes, assists with those who are dominating a group or those who are silent and works to make the time together "easy."  Unlike a teacher, the learning facilitator is not a subject matter expert.  Unlike a presenter, a learning facilitator will set up the learning climate, but will not be responsible for its content.

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