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 recent 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.

Frequently Requested Application Workshops. OKA has developed a core list of frequently requested training workshops, based on the needs our clients bring us. Each pairs a common workplace need - such as communication and conflict management - with a proven psychological instrument, combining personal insight with concrete tips, tools and action plans. Workshops include:

• Delivering Effective Feedback with the Portraits of Strengths and Overdone Strengths
• Conflict Management with the Strength Deployment Inventory (SDI)
• Type and Project Management (Using MBTI)
• Influencing and Negotiating Skills with Reversal Theory
• Strategic Planning with the Leadership Spectrum Profile (LSP)

Recent Customized Workshops and Projects

Using Type for Better Teamwork. A geographically dispersed federal agency wished to provide its large team of acquisition and contracting personnel with a professional development opportunity that stressed teamwork through the lens of type/MBTI. Given a large audience and unavoidable scheduling pressures, OKA responded with a series of MBTI workshops, offered both by webcast and in face-to-face workshops across the country - all within three weeks of contract award. This project leveraged OKA's ability to respond nimbly to a client's scheduling challenges, while still maintaining the highest quality standards for MBTI delivery.

Strategic Planning and Teambuilding. OKA was asked to design and facilitate a joint strategic planning and teambuilding session with the administrative branch of a small government agency. After a scoping interview with the group's senior team, OKA designed a two-day workshop that integrated planning sessions, team development activities, and personal insight using the Leadership Spectrum Profile (LSP). 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.

Delivering Effective Feedback: Tips and Tools for Managers. Providing constructive feedback that balances both strengths and development needs is one of the most important tasks that managers perform in today’s workspace. This increasingly popular workshop (delivered most recently for an insurance company, an international telecom firm, and a large health care organization) provides attendees with concrete strategies and tools for more effectively engaging in feedback discussions, both in formal performance reviews, and in daily informal interactions. Using the "Portraits of Personal Strengths and Overdone Strengths," this session includes a self-awareness component and a practical and systematic feedback model, to help participants comfortably engage in a two-way feedback process, both to maximize strengths and to help bring employee performance in line with team and organizational goals. (This workshop is available in both face-to-face and webcast formats for distributed teams.)

Teambuilding and Customer Service Workshop. The Accounts Payable Department of an investment firm wished to enhance their interpersonal dynamics, and develop strategies for coordinating work among team members more effectively. They were also interested in developing stronger influencing skills and internal customer service approaches. 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.

Leadership Training Workshops. 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.

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.

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 ongoing advanced 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.

Top of Page

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.

Training Capability Development. For a large federated family-of-systems project, OKA provides targeted expertise related to outreach and 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; structures and produces webcasts; and creates training guides and tutorials for the federated community.

Organization Development Initiative. 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. Follow-up work in Spring 2008 included a two-day "trust initiative workshop" with the senior team to explore team dynamics and to charter critical internal organization development projects.

Strategic Planning. Since Fall 2007, OKA has supported the USDA - Agricultural Marketing Service's ongoing strategic planning efforts. This has included facilitating strategic planning workshops for three programs within AMS; contributing to the drafting of program level strategic plans; providing editorial support for the agency-wise plan; and working with agency leaders to plan out how strategic plans will be implemented and how progress against them will be assessed. These projects illustrate both OKA's group facilitation and writing expertise.

Leadership Training Program. OKA continues to support a specialty insurance company in delivering leadership training across the organization. To date, this has 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; facilitating inter-departmental communication workshops; 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.

Top of Page