Do you have continuous improvement or continuous commotion?
APHSA’s Organizational and Professional Development Department can help.Today and tomorrow, the world of public human services continues to change as it has not changed in more than six decades. State and local agencies are assuming new authority, accepting new responsibilities, and facing new realities.
For the past several years, APHSA has helped public agencies meet that challenge. We've worked with state and local human service agencies helping build organizational capacity needed to tackle major reform in human service programs. The expertise of APHSA’s Organizational and Professional Development (OPD) department is now available to you through a range of management consulting and training services.
OPD solves performance problems, helping states and locals wherever they are “stuck.” Unlike many consulting firms that have a single solution regardless of the problem, OPD uses the association’s years of experience and its relationships and familiarity with agencies to examine the way you do business. In addition, we trust we have some qualities other consulting firms don’t.
- We’re around for the long haul.
- We talk like real people.
- We’ve been in your shoes.
- We have a long-term perspective.
- We can still laugh.
- We have the answers
If your answer answer to any of the questions below troubles you, OPD will be able to apply its high-performance model to your agency.
- Are you pushing the envelope or pushing a boulder?
- Do your managers know the difference between interfering and running interference?
- Is there a large sucking sound in one of your divisions?
- Are you getting more “help” than you want from your auditors, legislators, and CBOs?
- Are you tackling the same problems for the third time?
- Are you seriously considering quitting while you’re ahead?
- Do you have key staff “retired” on the job?
- Are you slipping from creative tension to catatonia?
- Are you buried in data and have no information?
- Are you working by design or by luck?
- Do you have continuous improvement or continuous commotion?
- Do you have a program that is always the topic of conversation—with your neighbors, the press, the governor?
- Will your managers know what to do if they stop doing the work of two levels below?
- Is anyone laughing?
Management Consulting Services
All OPD consulting and training services are designed to help build high-performance organizations—ones that are able to respond to the rapidly changing needs of your customers and constituencies. We have helped agencies break the “we-always-did-it-this-way” mold and shift their focus from the needs of the system to the needs of their customers.
We introduce agencies that work across the hall from each other but never work together, helping them collaborate on behalf of shared customers. We help agencies figure out what success looks like and what to do to close the gaps when current performance is not high-performance.
We work with all levels in an organization and strive always to leave your staff able to be their own best consultants. When we train, we are training your trainers. When we assess your programs and your policies, we are teaching your staff to use our high-performance “lens.” When we work with middle managers, we are modeling coaching so they, in turn, can coach.
And when we see your organizations doing outstanding work, which we see all the time, we share the stories and lessons of those innovative programs and practices with others.
Management Seminars
OPD also offers a number of management seminars each year for state and local human service professionals. These seminars focus on timely topics and enable states and localities to learn from the experience of their peers, as well as from experts.