Thursday, July 22 at 12:50 PM	|	Posted by: Murray Williams
SVI Has Heart

SVI recently began a new ad campaign. We took our logo, the SVI Starburst and adjusted its design into a heart shape. The thought behind this campaign is to challenge the view of the organizational development industry. It is ironic that an industry built on developing people can lose touch with the human side of the business.

We are working in an environment that pushes efficiency, and ROI. It is for good reason; we get that. However, when we put those metrics above the human side of our industry, we have lost something very valuable. The most extraordinary people in our companies are extraordinary because they understand something very important. They know they play a pivotal role in something worthwhile and bigger than themselves.

Helping people develop that understanding about themselves takes more than customer service eLearning modules and snappy service slogans splashed across banners hanging in the break room. It takes an active approach from the company to invest and give its leaders the opportunity to discover their personal strengths and how those intersect with the mission of the company.

That is what the SVI Heart ad campaign is all about. We want to challenge ourselves, and our industry, to get back to those things that drove us toward this industry in the first place. We want to develop and unleash people who are effective and capable of executing the extraordinary. Now that is a job worth doing.

If you are looking to make your company irresistible, investing in your people can’t be just a passing fancy. It is an investment. It is hard to do. It is worth it. And, the funny thing about it is when you focus on developing people, the metrics mentioned earlier, efficiency and ROI, take care of themselves.

Wednesday, July 07 at 12:13 PM	|	Posted by: Brian Newberry
HR Management Magazine Articles

Check out Mike's articles about global leadership and talent development in this month's HR Management magazine.

Rethinking Leadership Development
Training and Education Collide: A Talent Development Tsunami

Tuesday, March 23 at 05:12 PM	|	Posted by: Kasey Loman
Seeding Potential

As I was finally out in the sun working on my garden the other day and I found myself thinking about organizational development (yes, I love my job.) I come from an art background and joined the SVI team in December as a graphic designer. Being new to this industry, it took me awhile to wrap my head around what organizational development really means.

While I was planting the seeds into my newly worked garden and thinking of the potential of each tiny little seed, it hit me. These seeds all on their own with really very little help from me will grow and change. Some of them will reach their full potential and transform into beautiful plants and others may just stay down in there.

The same could be said for a workplace team. You set things up for them as best you can. Some will grow, thrive and change in their position and others may just stay right in there and never look outside of their job descriptions.

Just like the seeds, they all have the potential to grow and be a change agent. This is where organizational development comes in. It can provide learning, inspiration and motivation to individuals that support their growth, just like lovingly adding water to the garden or tending the ph of the soil. Add information, inspiration, encouragement, and a lot of challenge to grow and watch it happen right before your eyes.

Find the little things that you can do to help your team grow. Something as simple as taking a few minutes out of your day to connect with each team member and find out what truly drives and inspires them can make a big difference. I’ve seen this in action at SVI and I know it makes a huge difference for me. Then keep it up. If you plant a garden and water it for a while, you might get one nice round of nourishment. If you tend it all season, even through the hot days of summer, you will have an abundance of food. The small investment you make in your team will pay dividends back to your business as you watch them flourish in their jobs and grow beyond their job descriptions.

Monday, March 01 at 06:17 PM	|	Posted by: Catherine Wright-Dilbert
People Are a Terrible Thing to Waste

The unprecedented challenges that businesses have faced across every industry over the last couple of years has had business analysts, CEOs and corporate management scrambling to find new and improved ways to cut costs, create that ever elusive competitive edge, meet the demands of their shareholders and, at the very least, hold on to their customers while hopefully attracting new ones. Unfortunately, employees are one of the biggest costs and, understandably, at the top of the list when executives have to do the hard work of cutting expenses while increasing shareholder wealth.

Cutting salaries seems to stop the bleeding. The P&L statement shows immediate relief and there is at least a short term gain. The downside is the long term impact of running a business with people who are stretched beyond their capacity, with low motivation and high insecurity. The result is it becomes difficult to meet customer demands resulting in damaging attrition.

It seems like business executives are caught in a catch 22. Or are they? Maybe what is needed is a new perspective.

I think there is a great deal we can learn from devastating events like 9-11. At the time, I was living about 40 miles east of Manhattan. The morning of September 11, I was in my office in Melville where my co-workers and I caught glimpses of what was happening on small television sets in different parts of the office. I had friends and family who were working in New York City who had to run for safety, not knowing what was happening, and then spent many hours just trying to get home.

I visited Ground Zero and saw the first display of the towers of lights on March 11, 2002 from less than 20 miles away. And every time I went into Manhattan or drove by the Manhattan skyline, I couldn’t help but notice the gaping hole in the downtown area.

When the Twin Towers were demolished and all desks, computers and other office equipment were completely lost, it was the people who survived who rebuilt everything - from the businesses to the surrounding area. It was their determination, courage and commitment to this country, their families and their businesses that got us all through a situation that was designed to bring everything to a screeching halt.

It was not the "bottom line" that did the rebuilding.

The challenges we face today are calling corporate leaders to shift the way they look at their organization to create success. The place to start is with your people – to shift our perspective from looking at people as an expense that can be cut to looking at your people as the most valuable source of creativity and innovative ideas you have for not just getting through the difficult times, but for staying on top of your market.

Now is the time to find ways to spark the passion that lies within every individual. Now is the time to develop your people - to help them reconnect with the joy that is possible from their work, connection with other members of the team and the unique contribution they all have to make through their ideas and creativity. To get through and rise above these challenging times for long term growth and success, the one sure answer is to find ways to motivate and bring out the passion in your people.

Tuesday, February 09 at 09:48 AM	|	Posted by: Murray Williams
So What is Organizational Development?

This is a question that I have to field at least once a week. I guess that goes with the territory if you work at an organizational development company. If you already know what OD is then no doubt you understand how hard it is to actually explain it.

I have worked at SVI for two and a half years. In that time I have put extensive thought into trying to explain our industry to people who have never heard of OD. So when they ask, this is what I tell them.

We have all heard of leadership development. Leadership development usually consists of a one on one relationship where one person trains and coaches another in order to develop them as a leader. Most of us have experienced this at one point or another in our life.

Now imagine that you own a company and you need to develop a whole class of people in your company. Maybe it is your top 5%, high potential leaders. May be it’s your sales department. Or maybe you are looking at the bigger picture and want to create a development strategy for all employees within the company. That is organizational development.

Consider that many people feel like they are treading water at work while being pelted by a storm of to-do lists and over-ambitious deadlines. It is rare that they even get a chance to think about the things that bring them joy, excitement, or that aspect of their industry that drew them to their job initially. If they remain in this place, they will either at best become a lifeless zombie employee, or they will be gone at the next possibility of change.

Other times, companies face enormous change like restructuring or a merger. These events can shake or even destroy the culture of a company.

Maybe the problem is a more common one. Have you noticed that every time an employee is promoted, his productivity drops until he finally begins to figure out what it is that he is actually supposed to do?

An organizational development strategy can be created to address each of these problems or challenges. SVI works with companies to develop their people to be more effective at their jobs and more engaged in their roles.

Has your company grown to the size where you no longer know the names of all the people you see in your halls? Are you beginning to feel trapped by the prevailing thought of "well, that is how we have always done it" in your company? Are you being strategic enough with the development of your most critical resource - the people in your company? It might be time to do some investigation about what organizational development can mean to the future of your company.

Tuesday, August 18 at 05:15 PM	|	Posted by: Autumn Manning
ECChO 360 Gears for Validation

It seems like once you finish one big, exciting project, another one is waiting in the wings. With the launch of the Organizational Champions book came the launch of an entire brand and product line. With this, the research team is busy designing new products and tools that will support this brand, this philosophy of development that we so strongly believe in. Last year, the research team focused heavily on validating the OC concept. We spent countless hours interviewing people, talking to CEO’s, surveying executives, all to make sure the OC philosophy and framework was correct and heading down the right path.

The start to this year was filled with the development and validation of the ECChO self-assessment, a dynamic tool that allows someone to measure themselves against the four characteristics that define the OC model: Enlightened, Connected, Change Maker, and Opportunity Minded.



Now that we have completed (well, the process is never really complete) the ECChO self assessment, we have moved on to creating the Champions 360 degree team assessment. This tool will support individuals and teams to get feedback around the OC model from peers, direct reports, managers and customers. The report is awesome: engaging, full of analysis AND prescription for the individual to make immediate progress.






While the design is being finalized, we are also validating our 360 questions through several partnerships: One through the University of Phoenix and the other through our existing and potential clients. The University of Phoenix is partnering with SVI to provide some detailed feedback on our actual 360 question set along the lines of face and content validity as well as how we are choosing to categorize our questions. Long story short: they will help make our questions much better! The value University of Phoenix brings is that they are a global organization that offers many diverse perspectives in a short amount of time.

With our existing and potential clients, we are offering a significantly lower cost 360 degree assessment for participating in the validation study. We will be checking construct validity, test-retest reliability, and some other measures as we continue to put out a product line that fully supports the OC process. We love that our clients are always so willing to partner with us to improve our thoughts, tools, and our direction. If you want to partner with SVI in this validation process and get an awesome 360 degree assessment for your team out of it, contact us!

Tuesday, July 28 at 02:45 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Opinion Piece on SandHill.com

I recently had the opportunity to write a featured opinion piece for SandHill.com. SandHill.com is an online resource developed exclusively for enterprise software executives. The site and its newsletters are read by thousands of top software industry executives every week. The opinion piece includes excerpts from The Organizational Champion and is featured as "Required Reading" for SandHill.com visitors. I also participated in a live chat session with various participants visiting the site. Most of the discussion of interest related to those leaders who are most capable of driving successful change throughout their organizations.

You can read the full feature here:
How to be an Extraordinary Leader

Monday, July 27 at 11:40 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Building Learning Brands

Here’s an understatement – these are competitive times. Here’s another one – it’s important to recognize and establish your competitive advantage in these times.

Like many organizations, in order to compete aggressively, SVI is constantly evaluating its value to its clients. We participate in a great deal of interaction with our clients in order to understand their greatest needs and how we can help.

We want to be careful not to sell them a product off of the shelf that might be limited in value. Therefore, we must listen closely.

We also don’t want to destroy trust with them by trying to meet needs that we are incapable of meeting. Therefore, we honestly assess our capabilities to best understand our brand – what differentiates us.

Our clients have been quick to share what they view as the greatest value to them from SVI – our competitive advantages and points of difference. And it’s all about our ability to build learning brands behind learning processes which are supported by compelling communications.

SVI’s competitive advantages:

• Thought Leadership – SVI is capable of capturing and creating relevant and timely content that is applicable for today.
• Design – SVI works in partnership with our clients in order to engineer learning and development processes that meet the precise needs of our clients.
• Products – SVI knows how to build learning brands that help employees engage and connect with learning programs and products. These brands build enthusiasm, understanding and loyalty behind these programs and products.

Organizational development is the industry SVI competes in. But this industry isn’t known for its ability to build brands. There’s really never been much of a need for it. After all, our industry has competed on relationships. But as our clients demand more, as needs become more complex, and as the noise from the droves of independents offering solutions becomes much greater, the ability to build brands that truly differentiate will become much more important.

SVI is well positioned to deliver learning brands that help build enthusiasm, understanding and loyalty from employees, in order to create sustainable personal and professional growth. From design and process, to tools and communications, SVI’s structure and experience has built many of the most compelling brands behind long-term learning products. And because these brands connected, our clients have seen significant savings from not having to re-invent new learning programs year after year after year.

Tuesday, June 30 at 03:15 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
SVI’s Flagship Brand – The Organizational Champion – Goes to India

SVI was just informed by McGraw-Hill that it has signed a licensing agreement to print Mike Thompson's new book, The Organizational Champion, in India. The India market is such a compelling market for the book because the country has entrenched itself as a powerful influencer of the global marketplace. We’re excited to see the champions message continue to grow around the world.

Monday, June 15 at 02:38 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Mike Speaks to PepsiCo’s Ethnic Advisory Board

I recently had the opportunity to be the featured speaker at PepsiCo’s Ethnic Advisory Board meeting in Purchase, New York. My talk supported PepsiCo’s new charge of "Performance with Purpose". I talked about organizational champions and their impact on a purpose driven organization. During my visit, I was able to meet one of my heroes, Indra Nooyi – CEO of PepsiCo. PepsiCo is truly an incredibe forward-thinking organization. I’m inspired by the passion of these leaders and their commitment to the human endeavor. PepsiCo is a true championship organization.

Tuesday, June 02 at 04:15 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
From Diagnosis to Prescription – The Champion's ECChO Report

Over the past year, SVI’s research team and technology team have worked together to create an assessment and report behind The Organizational Champions brand that is unique to all other assessments out there. This was quite a challenge since there are so many that measure anything from one’s personality traits to strengths & weaknesses to performance.

In the development of the Champions ECChO assessment and report, we operated behind five core principles:

1. Champions ECChO should be valuable and informative: The information needs to be relevant to the challenges that businesses and its leaders face today. The information also needs to be presented in a way that acknowledges the uniqueness of every individual. Therefore, we customized the information from the assessment according to each individual’s unique findings. Broad categories are broken down to anchors and anchors are further broken down to specific tips and recommendations.

2. Champions ECChO should be cost effective: After a significant amount of research and number crunching, we were able to establish the Champions ECChO as the low cost leader of validated leadership behavioral assessments. For under $20, anyone can purchase the Deluxe report that provides coaching tips, recommended action items, and trending data.

3. Champions ECChO should be valid and accurate: Credit Autumn Manning, SVI’s director of research. She is relentless in making sure we have thoroughly tested and validated our findings. The validation process came from thousands of surveys, hundreds of interviews, and hundreds of hours in analysis.

4. Champions ECChO should be clear: There should be no confusion of what is being assessed and why. ECChO is an acronym for Enlightened, Connected, Change-makers, who are Opportunity-minded, which represent the core principles behind organizational champions. Each core principle is supported by anchors that confirm the attributes of the most successful leaders, champions, in today’s economic, social, and political environment.

5. Champions ECChO should be applicable: So many assessments and their reports deliver a diagnosis – an analysis or opinion of what’s wrong. Few give a prescription – recommendations that can be taken to improve the diagnosis. The ECChO, not only provides the analysis, but it also gives the recommendations to improve based on your unique findings.

I’m extremely excited about the ECChO tool and the value it can bring to the Organizational Champions community because of its ability to meet these five objectives.

I invite you to take the Champions ECChO assessment at www.championseccho.com. I’m confident you’ll find it enormously valuable to you and your development.

Onward!

Friday, April 17 at 03:52 PM	|	Posted by: Murray Williams
SVI Goes Live and Nationwide

On April 7th, SVI delivered its ADVANCE experience to the up and coming leadership at MARS Advertising. The ADVANCE experience is designed to re-connect participants with what drives them, what keeps them awake at night, what gets them out of bed in the morning, and how that intersects with their role at work.

Participants during the ADVANCE were asked to answer three key questions: What are you good at? What makes you come alive? And, how do you uniquely meet the needs of your organization? These are three powerful questions that start the conversation around how to be truly extraordinary.

SVI has delivered the ADVANCE many times, but April 7th was different. At MARS, the ADVANCE was simulcast internationally to nearly every satellite MARS office. There were participants at the MARS home office in Southfield MI as well as participants in Chicago, Oakland, Toronto, Bentonville Arkansas, Minneapolis, Atlanta and New York.

The information specialists at MARS burned the midnight oil to put together the infrastructure for the meeting to happen. Each location had a camera and a microphone to allow people to participate as though they were all in the same room. The ability to see all the participants opened a level of communication that a simple conference call could never match.

Murray Williams, Director of Media and Communications for SVI said, "It is easy to take this kind of thing for granted, but today we were able to connect people separated by thousands of miles so they could take part in this experience. When I stop to think about it, it is really quite amazing."

The ADVANCE was a day-long experience which kicked off a nine-month process for the participants at MARS. Over the next nine months, the participants will continue to meet in smaller groups to ensure the progress will continue long after the ADVANCE experience has past.

Mike Thompson, CEO of SVI, and facilitator of the ADVANCE said, "We aren’t interested in mountain top experiences that are easily forgotten. In order for leadership in an organization to become truly extraordinary the momentum started at the ADVANCE has to be continued. Participants must keep the conversation going. There must be accountability between participants for lasting change to occur."

SVI has other ADVANCE’s scheduled, but due to the scope of the MARS ADVANCE, it won’t soon be forgotten.

Special thanks goes to Bill Davidson of MARS for providing technology expertise and support.

Friday, March 13 at 10:20 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Partnership With i-Global Network

Today, SVI launched a valuable partnership with i-Global Network, a training & education company focused on helping organizations maneuver through our world of differences. i-Global Network has a valuable niche serving several governmental clients around the world.

SVI will be working with i-Global Network to deliver social network analysis and cultural development curriculum to the Natural Guard. We are excited about our new relationship and appreciate the team at i-Global Network.

Learn more about their company by visiting www.thei-globalnetwork.com.

Friday, January 30 at 11:50 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
SVI Launches Champ'Em

Champ'Em is an exciting new website that allows you to recognize those people whom you feel are champions for you, your community, your business or for society in general. The site was developed to enable open conversations around these champions and their accomplishments.

Champ'Em was created based on the philosophies presented in my upcoming book, The Organizational Champion. The organizational champion concept wasn’t created to put another book on the shelf, but rather, to create a movement—a movement that inspires people to move beyond traditional leadership principles toward being a champion. These complex times call for extraordinary people, for champions—enlightened change makers who are personally committed to mutual values and igniters of new possibilities.

Celebrate these Champions by signing up and sharing yours. Present and discuss your champions and honor their impact, however big or small, by visiting the Champ'Em site today. We look forward to celebrating and discussing their impact with you.

www.champem.com

Tuesday, January 27 at 11:19 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Wal-Mart Opportunity

Walton Institute is Wal-Mart’s flagship leadership training program for Wal-Mart managers around the world. It was founded in 1985 by Sam Walton to help grow the capability of Wal-Mart Associates to lead Wal-Mart through the complex global economy.

SVI was honored to be selected by Wal-Mart as the exclusive designer and developer for Walton Institute in November of 2008. This was a big opportunity and challenge for our organization. We were responsible for conducting global needs assessments, designing the process, and creating the content for this program that will be conducted at locations all around the world.

SVI recently completed its initial design work for Walton Institute and received exceptional feedback. We are thankful for our relationship with Wal-Mart and fortunate to work on one of the most significant people development programs in the world.

Monday, January 19 at 11:19 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Power Through Love, Not In Spite of It

One’s pursuit of power undermines the ability to love. But conversely, the willingness to love manifests power. For the champion, power is achieved through love. For the old-style leader, power is often sought politically in spite of love.

Martin Luther King, Jr. taught me this principle through his words, his character, and his actions. King had the pressures that you and I will never face. He stood squarely in the middle of a war zone everywhere he went. He had every reason to hate, and yet he never did.

Never have I observed a more compassionate, humble and courageous man. He was a consummate champion—a faithful man at his core and a protector of all human rights. King was no egoist. He sacrificed daily and carried the dream for a better tomorrow.

King wasn’t defined by his circumstances. He rose above them. His ability to love, in spite of the hatred that surrounded him, manifested his power. And because of it, his legacy will always be honored.

Monday, December 22 at 11:49 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
SVI Annual Meeting

Every year in mid-December, the entire SVI office shuts down and heads to Mount Magazine in the Arkansas Ozarks for our annual meeting. I always look forward to these times because we get to celebrate a great year, plan for an even greater year, and connect with each other. Murray, our marketing and communications director always creates a crazy video that recaps the year, Autumn, our research director, conducts her interpretive dance, Jason, our technology director, cooks some mean steaks on the grill—and everyone has a blast.

We always spend two days at Mount Magazine. The first day is dedicated to full-on playtime and the second day is dedicated to the business. This year, we enjoyed a beautiful ice storm that made this place look heavenly. Check out some of the pictures.

The SVI team left the annual meeting excited for 2009. Below are a few of the strategies that we’ll be pursuing over the next 12 months.

Client Value
• Enhance and commoditize our training & development systems
• Collaborate strategically and operationally with our client (go deep with them)
• Move from diagnosis to prescription in our research and analysis

Growth
• Grow through the Organizational Champions brand, acquisitions, and partnerships
• Build infrastructure and capacity
• Integrate and innovate our products and services

Profit
• Expand the value proposition
• Build efficiency through volume and continuous improvement

Onward!

Thursday, October 30 at 01:26 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
SVI Trains Tyson’s International Team

Yesterday was a fulfilling day for me many of the SVI team members. A day that presents an opportunity to teach AND grow; to do what we do best AND learn new things, is a day our team embraces. That was yesterday. The SVI team facilitated a half-day training program on Vision & Purpose for Tyson International Leaders from 16 different countries. This training included:

• How to develop a vision
• How to communicate a vision
• How to empower a vision

It was a pleasure working with so many leaders from so many countries. The diversity and cultural dynamics at work created energy that only a multi-cultural event can create. The discussions were flavorful, the passion was obvious, and each representative was eager to grow – and together, we all did.

Testimonial and photos from this project.

Thursday, October 23 at 10:46 AM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
Technological Savvy

One of the key differentiators of SVI is our technological savvy. Very few organizational development companies have such extraordinary programmers, developers and designers. The SVI technology team has truly established a competitive advantage by creating low cost development tools, customized client development systems, and integrated technology processes.

Their most recent work is this website you’re viewing. I’m excited about their work on this site as I feel it clearly presents the message for what we do and our value. I also like the shop-ability of the site. I hope you like it too. Let us know your thoughts and ideas. We always appreciate your feedback.

Wednesday, October 22 at 03:38 PM	|	Posted by: Mike Thompson
SVI Takes Off with P&G

This week, SVI kicked off the personal brand building process for P&G sales leaders. We found it to be a most amazing experience for both of our organizations.

P&G’s success is partly because they are smart and innovative. But another reason is because they have a very empowering and enabling culture that ignites productivity at all levels. P&G has always been amazing brand builders. Their products are often the category leaders – Tide, Pampers, Crest, and Charmin. What’s not often known is that P&G invests in helping its leaders develop their personal leadership brands. Perhaps this is what truly separates them from others.