We are Ready to Work with You!
Tenacious Change has worked with groups and organizations of all sizes. We specialize in working with nonprofit organizations, public agencies, and small businesses.
Here's how we approach our work...
We are a small business that does a lot of different things. We focus on creating more resilient nonprofit organizations and small businesses, through tailored services which support The Resilience Practice Mix. How we work with organizations, groups, and communities is informed by the mindsets, principles, and tasks of the Tenacious Change Approach, developed by our founder, Tom Klaus, to animate ownership-based organization, community, and system change through collective change leadership.
Most of our clients work in complex contexts in which it is impossible to control and guarantee an outcome. We understand this and for this reason you will receive:
Tailored Consultation: You do not have to convince us that your situation is unique. We got it. No two leaders or organizations face the same circumstances because each exists in a unique context. For this reason, we tailor our services for your organization and the context in which it is working at the current moment.
Relational Trust: Trust is about far more than simply honesty or telling the truth. It is about congruence, consistency, reliability, and follow through. Mutual trust is first established through an individual connection, but it is maintained by doing what we say we will do with care and quality.
Individual Connection: You can expect a personal connection with your consultant, whether it is our founder or one of our team members or associates. You do not have to worry about your project being handed off to another consultant and, if it does need to be passed to someone else, you will be consulted in advance.
Best Effort: You will always get our absolute best effort. If we say we can do it, it is because we also believe we can do it with high quality. We will not fake it. If we do not have the skills and competencies needed for your task or project, we will help you find someone who does.
Exemplary Professionals: The people who provide services through Tenacious Change are exemplary professionals who are uniquely qualified by both their experience and training. Our team and associates have been highly trained in their field, carry certifications for certain specialties, and many have graduate degrees. Each is seasoned by deep experience in their fields and has earned a reputation for quality work and respect among their colleagues in the field.
Our Work is Best Described as...
- Appreciative: Whenever possible, we prefer to promote change and growth by working to amplify the assets and strengths of leaders, programs, and organizations. Indeed, there are always problems and challenges. However, it is easy to miss the opportunities to leverage assets and strengths for growth when too much time, energy, and focus is spent on fixing problems. We do not ignore the problems and challenges. We just choose to address them differently, from an evidence-based appreciative approach.
- Collaborative: Collaboration is both a science and an art. It requires each party to know and have confidence in what it brings to the relationship; to prioritize and honor mutual trust and respect; and, to continuously seek ways to create value in the relationship and work for both parties. We work closely with clients to identify their goals, select their strategies, and manage their change process. In this way we move them toward achieving their goals while building their confidence and capacity.
- Consultative: We strive to use a humble consultative approach to offer expertise without coming across as know-it-all “experts.” This involves listening carefully to get the full story first; asking questions to seek clarity and understanding; conducting the necessary research to more fully understand the situation and its context; offering a menu of recommendations, when appropriate, from which clients choose their next steps; supporting them as needed and requested in the implementation of the approach (solution) they choose; and then helping them openly and honestly assess the results or outcome.
- Attentive to Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: We strive to be both aware and attentive to the diversity of organizations, communities, and systems. We recognize there are many ways in which people are different – some are more obvious than others. Moreover, our intent is to be inclusive of everyone and especially those most impacted by the issues being considered or changes being sought. It is never enough to simply have diversity represented in the room where decisions are being made. Everyone in that room needs to have meaningful participation in the decision-making. Meaningful participation means everyone has the opportunity to be in the room, everyone in the room has a voice, and equitable processes are used to ensure everyone’s voice is heard.
We Expect to Work Together
Tenacious Change works in partnership with people to build greater organizations, agencies, and businesses for good. We work with clients in a collaborative way that is mindful of the complex social context in which leaders and organizations do their work for the greater good and social change. Successfully addressing complex contexts requires a diversity of perspectives and views, or what we call “putting more eyes on the issue.” For this reason, we encourage leaders to engage managers, front line workers, clients, and people in the community with direct, lived experience of the issue. In our experience, the benefits of having “more eyes” outweigh the challenges.
We Expect Open, Clear, Continuous, Two-Way Communication
Our experience has taught us to expect that the working relationship between Tenacious Change and the client will be enhanced when each party participates in regular, timely, and transparent communication with the other to facilitate collaboration on the project and remain current on its status. In addition, we have found that our collaborative relationship is made stronger when there is a clear understanding of the specific responsibilities of each, including our responsibilities to clients to deliver as promised and on time and when clients understand their responsibilities about our billing and payment policies and communication expectations. Through an effective, collaborative working relationship a client can expect to receive the benefit of goal achievement with high satisfaction.
We Expect Ourselves and Our Clients to Be Responsible
Tenacious Change carries business consulting insurance to protect us and our clients. We expect our clients to similarly carry insurance that is appropriate to their type of business or organization.
When organizations undertake complex projects in complex contexts, there is high unpredictability. We expect to work with clients in a collaborative way that is mindful of this complexity. As a consultancy, Tenacious Change works in the world of ideas. In our consulting role we provide ideas, suggestions, recommendations – and sometimes warnings – for consideration and action by the client. We understand clients have the role, right and responsibility to make their final choices regarding these.
We accept our responsibility to offer only the highest quality ideas, suggestions, and recommendations based upon the best available information. We similarly expect clients to accept responsibility for their own decisions, choices, and actions. To this end, it is expected that both Tenacious Change and our clients will make good faith, high quality efforts to work together to achieve the client’s goals and objectives and that neither will be obligated to indemnify the other in any manner whatsoever.
