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What is Beamish Associates International?
BAI is a network of experienced professional consultants who have worked with the problem of optimizing human performance in a wide variety of industrial, commercial and public service organisations in many different countries. How can BAI help? BAI is dedicated to helping organisations find their own solutions to their unique problems. BAI approaches every problem from the special viewpoint of each organisation, combining their experience and expertise with your knowledge of your organisation to arrive at solutions you can comfortably operate. BAI provide a range of consultancy services from problem analysis and design of solutions to implementation and training. What kind of organisation do we help? BAI works with organisations where people make the difference between success and failure. Most organisations agree that whilst people are an organisation’s greatest resource they can also be the greatest cause of problems. People can be complex, difficult and frustrating but they can also be inspired, loyal and productive given the right circumstances. BAI’s goal is to help organisations unlock the potential of their people to produce outstanding performance through creating the systems and environment to allow this to happen and training the people to make it happen. Our Philosophy BAI believe that people are the best paying investment an organisation can make, but only if they are carefully selected, trained properly, and given the environment and opportunities for real development. We believe that this simple formula has been lost in many organisations through years of over complication, neglect, or the search for the magic technique that will provide an instant panacea.
Isn’t it time you rediscovered how simple it can be?
Our MissionTo create situations where people can unlock their potential and achieve their personal and organisational goals.
Company ProfileGerry Beamish founded Beamish Associates International in 1985. Beamish Associates International acts as management consultants on a wide range of human resource problems. The main concentration of work has been in management performance and organisational development. The team includes associate consultants based in Northern Ireland, and the United States. Consultancy Most of our consultancy work has been in organisational development with a concentration in the public and financial sectors. Our primary strength is in the communications and management development areas. This area also includes training needs analysis, training evaluation, design of recruitment, selection and assessment procedures, training design and the certification of trainers. We were involved in some of the first public service assessment centres used in Ireland and in the design of centres for selection and promotion. All our management development programmes involve extensive self-assessment on the physical, psychological and skill areas. Training Our principals have a long history of developing new training initiatives. Starting in the seventies our Associates have been involved in the early development of outdoor management training and team building, a holistic approach to stress management, dealing with change, experientially based management development programmes, and a unique method of developing confidence and competence in presentation skills. Our training philosophy is outlined below. How we work Our network of experienced professional consultants is dedicated to helping organisations develop unique answers to their special performance problems. We are not wedded to a particular brand of training. We bring our knowledge and philosophy to bear on your problems to jointly produce solutions that solve those special problems. Our work therefore, tends to be collaborative rather than prescriptive. TRAINING PHILOSOPHY Why people are important. Most organisations claim that people are their greatest resource, yet in many organisations the utilisation of that resource falls well below the level of other resources. Research indicates that many people consistently perform well below their capacity. BAI believes that the core of the problem is how they are managed. Many managers agree that whilst people are the greatest resource they are also the source of many of the problems they have to manage. People can be complex, difficult, fickle and frustrating. They can also be inspired, loyal, creative and highly productive, given half a chance.
Our approach is about giving them that chance. It is about allowing people to unlock their potential to produce outstanding performance. Everybody is capable of outstanding performance at some time, or in some aspect of life. The question is why we do not help them produce that performance most of the time, and at work.
We believe that people are the greatest resource, but only if they are carefully selected, properly trained and given the environment and opportunities for real development. We also believe that many organisations have lost sight of this simple but delicate formula. Over complication, neglect, lack of investment and the search for magic techniques that will provide a panacea, are some of the reasons why the basics have been lost.
It is time to stop paying lip service to the idea that people are the greatest resource and to start to put it into practice through investment and example.
What do we mean by development? The dictionary tends to define development in terms of getting bigger or reaching full growth, but we believe that this is not sufficient for defining management or organisational development. Development may have to do with growth in the sense of knowledge or skill, but it is more than just growth. You can say that a graveyard or a waste dump grows but is that development? Development, in our definition, is the ability to perform at an optimum level and in particular to solve complex problems for ourselves and the people within our system. For some people and organisations, development occurs as they learn new things. For others, development takes place when they discard some of the things they have already learned. For many people, development is concerned with rearranging what they already know to learn lessons for a new situation. Influences on our approach Beamish Associates International’s approach has been influenced by three main sources. Systems thinking, situational solutions and learning through actions are three thought processes at the core of our approach to problems of development. The ideas of open systems where parts are interdependent and outcomes cannot be predicted by simple cause and effect is central to our thinking. This leads to the need to supplement traditional analytical thinking with alternative, creative methods The idea that there is not one single answer to all situations, and that an understanding of process is more important than any one technique, is our main tool. This is linked to the idea that an eclectic approach is better than promoting one single idea. We believe that continuous learning is the key to problem solving and that learning is best through actions or experience. In the academic influences in each of these fields certain individuals are prominent. Russell Ackoff for the application of systems thinking to problem solving, Hersey and Blanchard for their initial work on Situational Management and Reg Revans for his seminal work on Action Learning.
The Uncertainty Model Based on the influences above we have developed our model for development. An outline of that model is available on request. This model is our main tool in all areas of work and it incorporates all the elements of our philosophy. Master Class Senior Executives who wish to develop particular skills or increase their performance often find it difficult to fit in with traditional training programmes. Traditional programmes run on a fixed calendar, they progress at the pace of the slowest learner, and individual practice time has to be shared with all participants. It may also be difficult to free a number of consecutive days from a busy diary. These problems are accentuated where a particular skill is being learned. For example, in a presentation skills course much of the time is taken up acting as an audience for other people. Executives may also feel some unease in learning in front of other people. Master Class tries to overcome these disadvantages and provide a quicker, more efficient and flexible method of learning particular skills. Through saving time it is also a more cost-effective method. For example, a two-day traditional programme may be reduced to less than a day. Master Class is an individual coaching session with one Consultant and one Executive. It is organised at a time and venue to suit the executive’s work schedule and can be taken in modules. The result is a faster more effective learning process. No time is wasted by different speeds of learning, watching others practise or having to travel to the course venue. Master Class can often be brought to the Executive’s office or Boardroom. Master Class is best suited to easily identifiable skills like presentations, interviewing, selling, and handling the media Beamish Associates International introduced this approach twenty years ago and has wide experience with Chief Executives, Managing Directors and Senior Managers. Mentoring and Coaching
Beamish Associates International offer mentoring and coaching services for Senior Managers and Business Owners The services are based on our ideas about development, plus the idea that the most important stage in developing is knowing yourself. Mentoring therefore revolves around helping people understand themselves better so that they can commit to goals and behaviours that will produce long-term success. Coaching concentrates on developing specific skills and is closer to the Master Class concept although usually longer in duration.
Contact InformationTo talk with us about any aspect of performance improvement or the web site call;
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gerry@beamishassociates.com with
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