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Impact Collaborative works with organizations that are currently in transition or about to undergo a major change in executive leadership. Since the most successful transitions are those in which the board takes an active role in planning and managing the transition process, we offer boards a proven step-by-step approach to the change process.
Transition periods offer great opportunities for reflection, the rethinking of mission, and the reordering of priorities. But they also may be times of great anxiety. Our goal is to help organizations focus less on their anxieties and more on the creative possibilities offered by change.
Using a methodology developed and honed by CompassPoint, a San Francisco-based management support organization, we set in place a three-stage transition process that helps an organization effectively utilize the time in which it looks for its next executive.
Phase One focuses on organizational assessment and analysis. This phase, which involves research with internal and external stakeholders, culminates in the development of a transition plan and the creation of a search strategy. We raise the question of whether to hire an interim executive director to serve during the transition process. The preparation phase may also involve doing some strategic work to clarify the organization's future direction and the kind of executive it will need to accomplish its goals.
Phase Two focuses on the search itself. In organizations that decide to do the search on their own, we provide guidance about the basics of a successful search. For organizations that want to bring in an outside search consultant, we can help find such a consultant or work with a previously-retained search firm. During this phase we also work with the organization and/or the interim executive director to help orchestrate internal infrastructure changes that will strengthen the organization's operations and internal functioning and allow the new executive to focus on big picture concerns rather than on infrastructure development.
Phase Three involves working with the organization after it hires its new executive. We assist the board to support this person by developing leadership goals and an entry plan. We also help facilitate the contracting process between the board and executive by developing consensus about priorities and specifying roles and expectations for both board members and the new director. Finally, we develop a monitoring and evaluation process for both the executive and the board.