From Idea to Execution, We're There.
JamesGoode Associates offers small to mid-sized organizations access to big-company sophistication and rigor. Our expert approach to human capital and organization effectiveness brings solutions that fit our clients. JamesGoode meets organizations where they are and helps propel them to where they want to be. We are driven by the belief that just because you’re small doesn’t mean you can’t think big.
We work in concert with C-suite executives, internal HR teams and additional partners who may be supporting our clients. We seek partnerships with like-minded organizations, that will engage us as force multipliers. Here is a sampling our services and expertise.
Strategy Development & Execution
A national anti-hunger organization was at the beginning of developing a 5-year strategic plan. As a result of its prior activities, the organization had established itself as a national voice in addressing hunger in the US and globally. The new strategic plan was critical in defining this next phase of the organization’s evolution and served as a guide to operational decision-making and impact assessment.
Working with the Board of Directors and the executive and senior leadership teams, JamesGoode Associates implemented a strategy development process that expanded the vision of its founder and positioned the organization to enhance its systemic impact in the anti-hunger landscape. With a revitalized strategic plan, and accompanying timelines and objectives, the organization faces its next 3-5 years aligned and ready to execute.
A disconnect between strategy and execution can prevent organizations from fulfilling their missions and realizing their goals. JamesGoode collaborates with C-suite and senior executives on aligning their organization’s aspirations with the operating processes to execute the strategic plan.
Organizational issues often present themselves unclearly, manifesting as interpersonal conflict, sub-optimized projects or service gaps. JamesGoode’s data driven organization assessment process combines quantitative and qualitative interviews, customized surveys, peer group benchmarking and analysis of performance indicators to deliver a comprehensive view of the current state, gaps, and opportunities.
Organization Assessment
and Alignment
A non-profit housing organization found itself at an inflection point. Its goal, to dramatically scale its impact, was hampered by staff turnover, low morale, a well-intentioned but misguided DEI effort and lack of definition of how it would execute to achieve its plan to transform the sector.
JamesGoode Associates conducted an organization assessment that uncovered the root causes of its struggle to deliver on its vision and mission: lack of alignment around a shared definition on outcomes and the absence of clear roles, goals and standard processes that would enable success. Characterized by an inclusive data gathering process that invited the input of the entire team, JamesGoode helped the organization demonstrate the DEI values it was founded on and to achieve alignment of goals, roles and processes that would enable it to deliver the value to the broader sector it envisioned.
Business Process and Workflow Design
A healthcare organization found itself in financial and operational trouble. The effects of the COVID pandemic as well as the changes in the US healthcare landscape resulted in declining revenues, staffing shortages and an increasingly poor patient care experience.
JamesGoode Associates, in collaboration with the CEO and executive team, developed a 180-day operational improvement plan that set deadlines and objectives in 30 day increments to address and resolve the immediate operating issues. Additionally, JamesGoode partnered with the organization on a workflow assessment and process redesign approach to eliminate unnecessary and duplicative work and relieve the operating and financial burdens on an overworked team.
Over time, organizations can layer processes on top of processes, losing sight of cost, client needs and operating best practices. JamesGoode is certified in Lean and Agile tools and uses the Rapid Process Improvement Workshop (RPIW) method to engage the employees actually doing the work in eliminating waste, duplication and inefficiency.
The demands of leadership can call for individual advising and support as executives navigate ambiguous environments and competing priorities. JamesGoode supports executives and emerging leaders in finding a fresh perspective and building an expanded tool-kit to address the challenges of their ever-evolving work. Our firm is certified by New York University’s executive coaching program and is qualified to administer and interpret the Hogan Assessment Suite, the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory (MBTI), the DISC profile and the Thomas- Kilman Conflict Inventory.
Executive Coaching & Leadership Development
A financial services executive found themselves at a personal and professional decision point: what’s next. With a desire to build on prior experience and make a meaningful contribution to advance the sector they had worked in, the executive turned to JamesGoode Associates for individual coaching and professional planning.
Using the Hogan suite as well as additional coaching and assessment tools, JamesGoode Associates created an individualized coaching and development plan to enable this executive to move to the next step in their career. Serving as a sounding Board, advisor and deliverer of supportive and actionable feedback, JamesGoode was able to support this executive in formulating the next steps. This allowed the executive to apply their prior experience and learnings to a new career phase that would be professionally and emotionally fulfilling.
HR Outsourcing
A $1B Foundation needed expert HR support in developing a compensation plan that was consistent with the market and would enable it to retain and recruit the talent they needed. The prior system had proved inadequate to address the needs of current employees and was cumbersome to administer.
JamesGoode Associates conducted a comprehensive compensation design process that included job assessment, market studies and the creation of a job framework that included salary ranges, job families and a broad banding approach to salary levels that would be simple to maintain and upgrade.
The days of the Personnel and HR bureaucracy are over. JamesGoode Associates partners with start-ups and small to mid-sized organizations to be a force-multiplier. We assess and benchmark your compensation structures, benefits programs and role descriptions and deliver clear, integrated and streamlined products. We also work with you to create and install the risk management and talent management tools that allow teams to focus on what matters: creating an environment that fosters growth, offers equitable rewards and frees up time to create value for clients.
Diversity Equity and Inclusion is a critical element of business strategy, organization alignment and executing your mission and vision with internal talent, external markets and client value. The first step in any DEI effort is defining the “why” – the connection between what the firm offers and how diversity equity and inclusion enhances value and builds trust with stakeholders. JamesGoode Associates partners with organizations to identify their specific “why” and to build the internal and external systems that bring diversity equity and inclusion to life.
DEI (Diversity Equity & Inclusion)
A housing organization believed that a diversity equity and inclusion strategy was key to its growth. Having completed most of the tasks in its previous diversity, equity and inclusion plan it was unsure of to how to proceed. Employees felt frustrated by a perceived lack of forward motion and the leadership team felt ill-equipped to provide knowledgeable guidance. JamesGoode Associates led the organization through an inclusive assessment process gathering data from the front line to the Board of Directors and structured a data driven leadership dialogue about whether and how DEI was important to their employees, clients and stakeholders. Once the organization was able to articulate its unique why, it was able to move forward creating the internal and external operating systems that infused their mission and vision with a constant diversity equity and inclusion lens.