Empowering Change: A Strategic Transformation at The Guild
We’ve been working with Grow Dialogue over the past year to strengthen our effectiveness as a company and a team and to revitalize our approach to internal and external challenges. We consider this part of the learning and growing process of building a company and transitioning it into a worker-owned cooperative.
Sundiata Soon-Jahta & Shani Goodson — Grow Dialogue
Dr. Sundiata Soon-Jahta (he/him) is a specialist in Anti-Oppression, Conflict Resolution, Systems Thinking, D.E.I.B, Coaching & Collaborative Culture Facilitation. With a doctorate degree in organizational leadership and over 20 years of experience, his consultation and facilitation work are informed by both theory and practice.
Shani Goodson (she/her) is an educator and relationship scientist. She has over 16 years of experience in education, including 6 years of teaching internationally in Abu Dhabi and Wuxi, China. Shani is also the creator of Sustainable Relationships, a blog that focuses on cultivating and strengthening healthy relationships in order to create a more sustainable world.
CHALLENGES
We grappled with some key challenges:
● Collective accountability was diluted, leading to misalignments and unmet objectives.
● Existing protocols for addressing internal issues were ineffective.
● Our strategic planning processes were disconnected from our culture and values,
impacting decision-making and execution
SOLUTIONS
With Sundiata and Shani, we worked as a team to
● Solidify our internal values and co-create processes that reflected them, including a compassionate transition protocol
● Establish internal agreements and guidelines for how we operate as a team
● Our strategic planning processes were disconnected from our culture and values,
impacting decision-making and execution
BENEFITS
Since implementing these shifts, we’ve noted
● Improved team communication, cohesion and support
● More streamlined strategic alignment and ability to make decisions effectively as a team, based on shared alignments and agreements
● Greater community impact and operational excellence
This interview with Sundiata and Nikishka details more about the impact of our work with GrowDialogue