After a year of incredible unpredictability and change due to the pandemic, leaders and staff within a behavioral health organization were burned out.  They had shifted from the initial “fight, flight, freeze” response into a kind-of lethargy where everything felt hard, staffing challenges were real, and energy levels were low.

When we received the call from a senior leader, the message was … “please help.”

The organization decided to offer a series of Wellbeing for Staff webinars on a rotating basis, to accommodate a variety of schedules.  The webinars allowed the opportunity for connection among employees outside of their normal day-to-day responsibilities.  They also provided specific approaches and ideas for prioritizing self and self-care.

Feedback from employees was incredibly positive.  In part, this was because of the connections that individuals were able to make with each other during the sessions.  It was also based on their appreciation that leadership recognized their need for support.

The executive leadership team of a large nonprofit organization was stuck.  There had been so much focus on the ‘here and now’ challenges related to funding, the pandemic, and staffing – little time or attention had been placed on how the team was planning for the future or supporting their own leaders along the way.

TLS was asked to join the team for a series of focused sessions, starting with the Team Results Roadmap experience.  This experience allowed the team to create an aligned vision of how they wanted to work as a team.  From there, they were able to identify two to three key priorities on which to focus.  They were able to create specific action plans and began to feel as if they were making real progress on the most important priorities for the organization – as a team.

An organization serving adults with developmental disabilities found itself at a crossroad with two brand new Board members and two current members who had been on the Board for many years.  The new members had some innovative ideas and brought fresh (although somewhat unfocused) energy.  The legacy members were less enthusiastic about making significant changes, stating, “If it’s not broken, why fix it?”

TLS began work with the Board by actively engaging each member in co-creating a vision for themselves as a Board.  Differences were aired and common ground was established.  The more the members were able to see the common commitment to the mission of the organization, the more it became possible to navigate the challenging topics and become excited about the vision for the future.

A relatively new CEO found herself challenged by the constantly changing priorities, trying to meet the expectations of what felt like competing interests, and the ability to find some kind of balance between work and home.  She joined the CEO forum thinking, “What can it hurt?  At least these folks will have a sense of the realities of my life!”

After joining the group, she quickly realized this group served a much greater purpose than just providing input and insight – although that was really, really helpful.  She realized the group made her feel much less alone and much more connected – which was just what she needed.