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ZevGroup is able
to customize our approach to the needs of each client
because we base our approach on the fundamentals of
social psychology and organizational behavior.
Project
Portfolio
ZevGroup has provided:
- Strategic Planning for a not-for-profit organization.
- Marketing recommendations for a human services
organization and a mobile wireless games company;
- Business development, conflict management
services, and vision consulting for high-technology
firms.
- Mission statement development for not-for-profits
and for-profit companies
- Individualized coaching for managers learning
the ropes and dealing with challenging employees.
- Negotiation coaching for a high-tech firm
executive involved in complex technical negotiations.
Please contact ZevGroup at 607-273-1710 for additional
details.
Culture
Assessment
ZevGroup visits your site to examine
the culture, environment, and interactions that characterize
your company and work groups. Experienced interviewers
meet with your managers and knowledge workers to learn
the history of your company's structure and about
how work is accomplished and perceived. We focus on
important issues in such interactions as: those among
team members, between teams; between teams and administration;
and within top management teams. We consider the physical
layout, reward structures, information exchange processes,
potential sources of conflict, and of course the people
themselves.
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ZevGroup
was founded by Jennifer J. Halpern, Ph.D. A social
psychologist with a Ph.D. in organizational
behavior from the Haas School at University
of California, Berkeley, Halpern brings more
than a decade of consulting, research, and
teaching experience in the areas of business
relationships,
strategic planning and development, marketing,
conflict
management, and communication to bear on the
challenges of
companies struggling to stay ahead in today’s
economy. |
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You will receive a report of our observations
and recommendations.

Team Tuning
Our Team Tuning Workshop is a two-day workshop
taught on your site to knowledge worker team members. Entire
teams (maximum of 10 individuals) participate in the workshop
together. Team Tuning teaches specific skills and behaviors
that improve team performance and increase the satisfaction
and loyalty of team members.
The workshop covers:
- Listening actively. The active listener
participates in the communication, hearing both what is
meant and what is not said. ZevGroup uses proven interpersonal
exercises to train knowledge workers in active listening
skills.
- Presenting ideas, suggestions, and criticism
clearly so that they can be heard. Our approach recognizes
that team success requires ongoing negotiations over competing
ideas and approaches. ZevGroup teaches communication skills
with exercises developed to teach negotiators and actors.
Many knowledge workers find that these skills help them
in their everyday lives beyond the team.
- Speaking and hearing the truth about
the team's project. Especially when a project is turning
sour, team members bear a special responsibility to the
team and to the company to make the problem known. ZevGroup
teaches ways to communicate messages that are hard to
hear without insulting the listener or demeaning others.
- Using email, voicemail, and other communication
technologies effectively.
- Working as a team. ZG draws on case
studies, case simulations, and group discussions. Concepts
drawn from social psychology research and quality management
form the core of this unit.
Ideas can be applied immediately, and concise
take-aways offer opportunities for review of the major concepts
we cover.

Specifically
FOR MANAGERS:
Just in Team Management
A one-day workshop for managers of knowledge workers.
If a knowledge worker team isn't working
beyond the manager's expertise, the manager is probably
over-managing. Managers need special skills to manage knowledge
worker teams. Some of these skills resemble the communications
and negotiation skills ZevGroup teaches to team members.
But managers must see a more distant horizon. A manager
must know how to get milestone information from a team's
progress and must know when to abort a project.
We also work with top management facilitating
idea generation, team development, and conflict resolution.
Other Products
- ZevGroup offers companies its proprietary
Team Thermometer. The Team Thermometer polls team members
periodically by e-mail with a brief set of questions designed
to probe for early signs of individual dissatisfaction,
team disharmony, and project dysfunction.
- ZevGroup can propose early interventions
that often can save the project and the team, and that
can forestall defections.
- ZevGroup can provide in-house work-issue-oriented
therapy.

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