RJCG with MSIN

Rick Johnson Consulting Group (RJCG) facilitated a two-day off-site retreat in Denver on April 17-18, 2024 for the Multiple Scerlosis Implementation Network (MSIN), which consists of the Multiple Scerlosis Association of America, University of Texas Houston, University of Texas Austin, and Novartis. RJCG consultants, Rick and Polly, provided team cohesion-building with PRINT®, a Team Commitments Workshop, and a Values-Driven Culture Workshop. The off-site supported teamwork, communication, valuing of diverse motivational strengths, strengthening team commitment, and defining core values.

MSIN is a patient-driven collaborative improvement, implementation, and innovation practice-based research network that connects participating MS care centers across the country. In sharing data and experiences, participating centers can learn from each other with the goals of outcome and care improvement for people living with multiple sclerosis.

We am grateful to have supported this amazing Team in making the team/organizational culture healthy and productive! What a talented and dedicated group with a inspirational mission!

Please visit us at RJCG.org if you would like support for your team with cohesion-building, leadership enhancement, conflict resolution, or values-based strategic planning.

#organizationaldevelopment #cohesionbuilding #PRINT #teambuilding #organizationalconsultation #businesscoaching

RJCG and the Hollywood Theatre

We are so proud to be supporting the Hollywood Theatre/Movie Madness as a Business Benefactor! I have been providing leadership coaching and organizational consultation support to the amazing Team at the Hollywood Theatre for several years. Recently, RJCG became a Business Benefactor member to further support their campaign funding and development efforts. If you are a regular at the Theatre, you know how great the venue and movies are. If you haven't been in a while, please visit and consider becoming a member or making a gift to show support for their renovation efforts.

As a Business Benefactor, I was able to have a RJCG slide shown on the big screen before the movies begin. So exciting! Here is our slide, which was created by our digital marketing guru, Madelyn! See if you can identify the movies/shows on the slide. #leadershipdevelopment #teambuilding #hollywoodtheatre

RJCG Welcomes New Organizational Clients

RJCG has started to work with three new organizational development clients: The Tillerman Inn, Events Unlimited, and Westwood Farms! We are thrilled to be supporting these organizations and their Leadership Teams. We love it when organizations understand the importance of follow-through and on-going organizational development support. Sustainable change is much likely to occur when there is commitment and accountability to the process. Bravo to our new and on-going clients!

RJCG with Mondelēz International

Rick Johnson Consulting Group (RJCG) facilitated a full-day off-site at Skamania Lodge on February 21, 2024 for the Mondelēz International Portland Plant Leadership Team. Rick provided team cohesion-building with PRINT® in the morning and a Team Commitments Workshop in the afternoon. The off-site supported teamwork, communication, valuing of diverse motivational strengths, and strengthening team commitment. I am grateful to have supported this amazing Team in making the team/organizational culture healthy and productive! What a talented and dedicated group!

Visit us at RJCG.org if you would like support for your team with cohesion-building, leadership enhancement, conflict resolution, or values-based strategic planning.

#organizationaldevelopment #cohesionbuilding #PRINT

#teambuilding #organizationalconsultation #businesscoaching

RJCG at JRA Green Building

It's always so invigorating to work with wonderful people at an amazing company to increase their cohesion and team culture. The folks at JRA Green Building provide high-quality custom builds that include design and sustainability mentorship, making projects healthier for customers and our NW forests and streams. RJCG provided a PRINT communication workshop on Oct 2nd for the entire team. It is truly an honor to have supported them!

#teamcohesion

#teamcommunication

#teamculturebuilding

RJCG at Craft3

Wow! What an amazing experience for Kalpana and I to spend two days with the dedicated and passionate Craft3 organization at their All-Staff meeting in Spokane, WA. Craft3 has an inspirational mission that they live! "Craft3 is a nonprofit community development organization that uses capital, relationships, and voice to build a thriving, just and empowered Pacific Northwest." I am honored to have supported their values-based culture building. Thanks to the entire Craft3 Team for including RJCG in the process!

#culturebuilding #cohesionbuilding #organizationaldevelopment #businessdevelopment #leadership

Scaling Success

How do you measure success in business? Profits (after tax). That’s usually the answer that springs to mind for many. But should it? Well, of course. People gotta eat. Well, fair enough. But for a long-lasting business that drives continued profit, it shouldn't, and really can’t, be the only measure of success. One of the most important measures, and predictors, of business success is the quality of the leadership.

The Four Scales At RJCG we utilize four scales to assess leadership styles and skills, and therefore assess organizational health. We use these throughout the various services we offer, such as individual executive coaching, 360 reviews, and workshops.

PRINT® Developed by Paul Hertz, PRINT®, produces a 12-page report that helps leaders identify the Unconscious Motivators® that drive their behavior, identify their Best Self characteristics and behaviors, and notice and manage their Triggers and Shadow (reactive, defensive) behaviors. Not unlike a personality quiz, PRINT® helps identify people’s strengths and weaknesses but goes a step farther by diving into the why behind these behaviors and offering solutions, ultimately helping employees and employers understand each other and themselves better, leading to better company communication and cohesion.

Differentiated Leadership Scale© Developed by our company founder, Rick Johnson, the Differentiated Leadership Scale© is the culmination of over 25 years of research into the field of differentiation and variables associated with personal and professional competence, effective leadership, and interpersonal relationships in the workplace. The Differentiated Leadership Scale© helps leaders (a) increase their personal power through highlighting humble confidence, (b) decrease their emotional reactivity by finding balance between thinking, feeling, and action, (c) increase personal integrity through promoting clear values and adhering to them, and (d) improve interpersonal boundaries by being attuned with with others while not losing connection with their Wise Self.

Interpersonal Coping Style Scale for Leaders© Fight! Flight! Freeze! Appease! No, it isn’t a new children’s game to teach students about pre-WWII European foreign policy. It’s the Interpersonal Coping Style Scale for Leaders©! Also developed by Rick Johnson, this scale helps leaders decrease their unproductive reactions to stress and conflict, such as the fight, flight, freeze, and appease responses.

Essential Managerial Skills Scale© And finally, because there’s nothing worse than a meeting that could have been an email, our Essential Managerial Skills Scale© developed by Rick Johnson, specifically targets managerial training skills, including motivating and inspiring direct reports and teams, delegating effectively, and leading productive meetings. The completion of the three Leadership Scales (Differentiated Leadership, Interpersonal Coping Style, and Essential Managerial Skills) will provide leaders with a comprehensive 8-page report that highlights personal strengths and challenges leaders face and provides positive and effective solutions and recommendations. Our Leadership Essentials© and Managerial Essentials© Workshops are the best places to improve leadership skills, surrounded by 2-15 other business leaders, from novices to experienced leaders, hoping to develop their skills.

The Leadership Scales in combination with PRINT® will help improve company culture overall by supporting leaders as well as individual contributors, ultimately providing an accurate temperature of a business' success and providing insights and results.

A Different Kind of Leader: What is Differentiated Leadership?

Organizations with strong, powerful, and productive output are frequently described as “well-oiled machines.” But how is this positive? Employees aren’t cogs in a machine, monotonously clocking in and out with a thousand-yard-stare. And on top of that, leaders aren’t simply pulling the levers, cackling, hunched over their desks, blinded by greed, like a suited supervillain. While there are certainly seeds of truth in these stereotypes (e.g., look at the response of the entertainment industry studio heads like David Zaslav and Bob Iger in the recent industry strikes), for any business that actually wants to be both respected and successful, this isn’t a helpful comparison. This is where the differentiated leader comes in.

Our company founder, Dr. Rick Johnson, conducted research as a university Professor on differentiation and the variables associated with personal and professional competence and effective leadership. In short, it’s what I like to call the anti-Zaslav, (note to editor: the differentiated leader would support the employees' wishes to express herself through respectfully clowning on David Zaslav).

Rick’s research has indicated that there are four factors that make differentiated leaders:

Differentiated Leadership Characteristics

Personal Power: humble confidence

Personal Integrity: values-based discernment and clarity

Low Levels of Emotional Reactivity: balance of thinking & feeling

Healthy Interpersonal Boundaries: being attuned with others without losing connection to their Wise Self.

RJCG Consultants can help leaders of all levels to increase their embodiment of these characteristics, internally and relationally, leading to much better outcomes in their professional lives. We promise our training will decrease your likelihood of being booed while giving a commencement speech! In particular, well-differentiated leaders are much less likely to engage in problematic reactive behavior in response to interpersonal stress and conflict. You know, like threatening to halt negotiations until entertainment workers start losing their homes! I’m just spit-balling here! We can help create leaders who are much more likely to trust their abilities, discern the best course of action with integrity, be emotionally steady, and have healthy boundaries. Give us a call, David!

RJCG at Oregon Episcopal School

What a great team at Oregon Episcopal School! RJCG Consultant, Rick Johnson, facilitated a "Team Commitment and Cohesion-Building Through Change" workshop with the Advancement Team on July 17. We focused on IFS, differentiated leadership, and values-based team culture. I am honored to support their mission of stewardship!

#team #building #teambuilding #organizationaldevelopment #leadership #cohesion #cohesionbuilding

RJCG PRINT Workshop at Craft3

What an amazing team at Craft3! RJCG Consultant, Kalpana Krishnamurthy, facilitated a PRINT team-building workshop with the Senior Leadership Team on July 13. We are honored to support their mission to improve lives across the Pacific Northwest by providing responsible capital for businesses, homeowners, nonprofits, and communities.

#team #building #teambuilding #organizationaldevelopment #leadership #cohesion #cohesionbuilding

Craft3 logo

Fantastic Businesses and How to Spot Them

Identifying Organizational Health

What makes an organization a “fantastic” place to work? When trying to decide what businesses to support, buy from, or even apply to, how do you gauge as an outsider whether an organization is worth your time? While a prestigious brand name and acclaimed product certainly help, often the most important thing that differentiates really successful businesses has less to do with classical measures of achievement and more to do with one thing: organizational health.

A business grounded in unhealthy organizational structures and processes will eventually implode on itself. Unhealthy organizations are ill equipped to handle internal struggles and, thus, do not sustainably handle external issues with tact or care, ultimately affecting the customer experience and bottom line productivity.

So, how do you ensure your business isn't, for example, riddled with more nepotism than a Waystar Royco board meeting or plagued with more inter-coworker competition than the halls of Runway Magazine? The most important thing a business can do is establish strong organizational health, and that’s what Rick Johnson Consulting Group (RJCG) specializes in. Matter of fact, the motto of RJCG is “Supporting Organizational Health.”

So, what does organizational health look like? If you were to take a peek into the internal workings of any organization there are a few key things to look for:

● High morale and low turnover indicate a culture not of toxicity and competition, but one of support and personal growth.

● Positive teamwork indicates an organization is clear and cohesive about their goals, values, priorities, and roles.

● Employees that feel valued and developed in their positions and careers indicate a culture of mentorship.

● Humble confidence, strong personal integrity, healthy boundaries, and low levels of emotional reactivity demonstrate effective leadership within a company.

Furthermore, according to Rick Johnson, Ph.D., Founder of RJCG, the most imperative factors to a business’ success are:

● The caliber of the organizational and team leaders

● Coworker-to-coworker (team) cohesion

● The quality of manager-to-employee relationships.

Overall, if employees respect and value their manager, other co-workers, and their teams, they will generally be happier at work and be more productive, what Rick refers to as, “Productive Harmony.”

In summarizing the research on effective team leadership, Rick indicated that, “Effective managers have a positive relationship with their direct reports, notice and value their contributions to the team, and reinforce these contributions with praise and further creative inspiration.”

Team leaders can accomplish this cohesion by being intentional and basing their leadership on well-articulated, shared values and priorities. When an organization has clear goals, employees can more easily identify their own roles and responsibilities related to the organization's overall success.

Our Core Purpose at RJCG

The driving motivation at RJCG is to help organizations become more inspiring, energizing, healthier places to work. RJCG Consultants have specialized training and experience in our unique, integrative coaching model, and a passion for helping individuals and organizations across multiple industries reach their creative, interpersonal, and financial goals. RJCG Consultants increase team cohesion, support leadership skills, and effectively identify and resolve conflict and communication challenges among employees, restoring trust and teamwork. We also help organizations and teams rally around core values and strategic plans.

For more information on how Rick Johnson Consulting Group can help your company or organization, visit www.rjcg.org, connect with us on Instagram (@rjcg_org), or call 503-313-5186.

RJCG at University of New Mexico Foundation

I had the pleasure of facilitating a day-long PRINT team-building workshop and then a Leadership Essentials Workshop with the dedicated and talented team at UNM Foundation on June 23. It was a bit of a homecoming for me as I spent 3 years in Las Cruces, NM for my doctoral studies in the early 90s. The Lobos welcomed this Aggie as we are all a part of the New Mexico family. I was so impressed with the intelligence and dedication of the UNM Foundation team. They are doing amazing work from a place of stewardship! I'm honored to support them!

#team #building #teambuilding #organizationaldevelopment #leadership #cohesion

RJCG at Ponzi Vineyards!

Wow! What an amazing team at Ponzi Vineyards! RJCG Consultant, Polly Gravely, facilitated a PRINT team-building workshop with the dedicated and talented team at Ponzi on April 27. Fantastic wine made by wonderful people! We are honored to support them!

#team #building #teambuilding #organizationaldevelopment #leadership #cohesion #cohesionbuilding

New Consultation Clients

RJCG is excited to announce that we are partnering with three new amazing organizations that are building on their organizational health and improving their leadership. They are: (1) Craft3, a local nonprofit with an inspirational mission to support community development, (2) Prime Forest, a lumber company providng high-end, custom wood products, and (3) Knudsen Vineyards, a Willamette Valley winery with delicious wine varieties.

PRINT cohesion-building workshops are an excellent way to build team culture and improve communication! Our workshops provide a scaffolding system that will be used long after the workshop is completed!

Leadership Essentials Workshop

I'm happy to announce the launching of RJCG's Leadership Essentials Workshop. I've been providing leadership coaching for individuals and small groups for years. Recently, I packaged the content from the individual coaching into a PowerPoint and interactive Workshop for up to 15 leaders/managers in a group, which can be done as either a 4-hour stand-alone or in a two-segment series. The Workshop includes three assessments that I created based on my research as a professor: (a) Differentiated Leadership Scale, (b) Interpersonal Coping Style Scale, and (c) Essential Management Skills Scale. Completion of the scales results in a 8-page report on the participant's leadership strengths and challenges. The Workshop leads to greater self-confidence and competence for all levels of leaders, from new to experienced.

If you know of anyone that could use support to develop or refine their leadership/managerial skills, please connect with me at RJCG.org. Of course, RJCG also specializes in team cohesion-building workshops!

RJCG marketing

RJCG Team-Building Workshop at BBCP

RJCG is thrilled to have provided a half-day Team-Building PRINT Workshop at Budget Blinds of Central Portland (BBCP) on January 5. This is the 2nd PRINT Workshop we facilitated at BBCP. The first was with their Leadership Team while this was was for the entire organization. Michelle, the owner of BBCP, is truly committed to supporting organizational health. BBCP is filled with talented individuals with high levels of EQ! They are a great team! It is an honor to be supporting them as they prepare to open their new building, with an amazing showroom. Be on the look out or info about their upcoming Grand Opening!

If you know of any organizations that want to improve their organizational culture (or just optimize morale and team communication), please send them to rjcg.org. We love to help organizations build cohesive teams, improve leadership, resolve conflict, and engage in values-based strategic planning.

#team #leadership #communication

#teambuilding #cohesionbuilding #organizationaldevelopment

Rick and Michelle
Rick doing a PRINT workshop