Those of you who follow Strategic Steps in the social media realm may already know that we have been involved in a collaborative venture that has come to be known as the Lodgepole Consulting Collective. It’s a group of about 10 individual consultants and consulting companies who share a similar set of principles and values, but who operate with different specialties and in somewhat different market segments.
As a group, our vision is to provide a ‘value-based, unique, innovative approach that changes how people think about collective well-being’.
In a practical sense, this means that the Collective provides clients with a wide range of experts from within the group, providing assurance that our clients get the best possible service. For us, it means that we can rely on each other because we have worked together, trust each other, and know each other’s specialty.
Rather than creating one large company with its attendant overhead, we remain agile and we pass the resulting cost savings and adaptability on to our clients. Lodgepole contains people with a wide variety of backgrounds, expertise, and longevity in the consulting realm. We mentor each other and enjoy some of that ‘accidental innovation’ that comes from casual conversations around the metaphorical water cooler.
The Collective began as a loose affiliation of people who understood that are small fish when compared to big consulting companies, but we also knew that a school of small fish working together in alignment can act as the biggest of fish and provide value to clients that is unmatched.
Specialties in Lodgepole include:
communication,
engagement,
evaluation,
facilitation,
governance reviews,
legislative reviews,
meeting management;
operational analysis,
organizational design,
personal asset management,
strategy development,
training,
well-being analysis, and
writing.
We currently work in the private sector, local and provincial governments, professional associations, and the voluntary sector. The cross-pollination of skills, markets, and industries allows Lodgepole’s members to modify practices to suit any of our clients. Cookie-cutter approaches aren’t acceptable for our clients, so they are not acceptable for us.
Interestingly there are three members of Lodgepole who are published authors, me included. This shows that we have all invested time and energy into our craft, constantly learning, and sharing what we know. My own book, Who’s Driving the Grader? And other governance questions is available through Municipal World.
Other Lodgepole authors’ books include Mark Anielski’s An Economy of Well-Being and The Economics of Happiness. Carissa Halton has released Little Yellow House and she has two other books in the works.
The idea behind Lodgepole is energizing to me and to the other members. That translates into excellent work that meets the specific and individual requirements of our clients.
Here is a link to all the members of Lodgepole: https://www.lodgepoleconsulting.ca/our-team
And if you’re interested in knowing the members of our Strategic Steps team, here’s a link to the team page on our own website https://www.strategicsteps.ca/team .
As always, I’m interested in your thoughts about this topic. Our agile teams like this the new way of doing business in your world as it pertains to providing good governance? You can find me at ian@strategicsteps.ca. The company’s Twitter profile is @strategic_steps.