The Center for Organizational Reform (COR) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit educational entity that supports those who lead and serve others. COR’s primary function is to help organizations and/or individuals facing change, crisis, overload, complex problems, and other difficulties.
COR’s services are based on values of systems health, justice, respect, compassion, and collaboration in human endeavors. These services include teaching, consulting, leadership development and support, and organizational assessments.
COR is also engaged in research endeavors that enable its associates to better serve clients, and keeps COR at the cutting edge of organizational reform practices.
Educational Events – COR offers a variety of educational events that cover a broad range of topics that help individuals and groups strengthen their skills to effectively deal with challenges and change.
These events include workshops, an annual research symposium, and informal community gatherings. Another key event is the popular Summer Seminar Series that offers several of “the best of the best” one-day workshops over a period of two weeks on current topics involving change, leadership, and organizational health.
Consultation & Facilitating – COR provides guidance to individuals and groups who seek input, direction, and/or mediation from trained professionals. COR associates also facilitate in a wide range of settings, such as task forces, board retreats, staff meetings, conflict resolution, crisis management, and more.
Leadership Support & Development – The most requested service … COR provides behind-the-scenes coaching and mentoring to leaders from a variety of organizations: business, church, education, non-profit, and more.
COR associates help leaders see and understand the human dynamics in their organizations, and teach them how to deal with people effectively. COR also provides ongoing strategic support, as well as professional development for leaders.
In 2012, COR launched its research-based training program on team coaching in the areas touched by leaders of adaptive work. As an alternative to individual coaching, our team coaching model trains members of intact teams in the skills of coaching and group support, as well as in the knowledge base of adaptive leadership.
Organizational Assessment - Whether an organization is going through a planned or unexpected change, COR helps leaders do a check-up on the state of their organization’s health and internal culture. Getting this picture of “what is” is a vital step in determining the best approach toward a healthy and effective transition (“what is wanted”).
Certification Program – COR provides training in 8 professional helping areas to anyone who wishes to be certified in the basic knowledge, skills, and dispositions which underlie its work in helping others.
Additional information is forthcoming. Please check back for details, or contact us at (509) 879-9235.
Research & Scholarship – COR conducts applied research, prepares literature reviews, makes professional presentations at numerous scholarly events, and conducts program evaluations. These efforts all share the purpose of assisting others to create organizations that are healthy and more effective in their practices.
Recent areas of scholarly work include:
Review of best practices in online adult education
Building interpersonal and workplace trust
Effective organizational cultures and their indicators
Indirect aggression in female-dominated groups and organizations
The emotion work of leaders in organizational crises
Personal coping mechanisms of leaders during organizational crises
Academic coaching for at-risk students in higher education settings
Indicators of tracking success in non-profit organizations
Leadership development and succession
COR serves organizations and individuals from all segments of society, but focuses most of its efforts on other non-profit entities.
The majority of our clients come from a variety of helping professions: education, healthcare, non-profit, government agencies, community groups, religious congregations, and organizations of all faiths.
Most of our clients are located in Spokane and the Pacific Northwest
We are serving an increasing number of clients both nationally and internationally.
What Makes People Seek Help?
The world appears increasingly out of control, making it difficult for people and organizations to effectively cope with change. In these situations, people tend to feel confused, stuck, hurting, and/or exhausted. As a result, clients seek professional help to learn better coping and leadership skills for difficult situations and complex problems.
Why Do People Choose COR?
First, COR is a non-profit educational organization unaffiliated with any theological or political ideologies. Secondly, our trained professionals come from a variety of backgrounds that enable us to meet the unique needs of each client. Finally, because COR was founded in a university setting, we are accustomed to staying updated on many of the research findings and best practices in the world of organizations, change, and leadership.
Everyone who approaches COR for help has a unique story, and our first response is to listen and understand the story which others bring to share with us; this step is critical to tailoring our subsequent assistance specifically for this client, with this story. But almost everyone – particularly as they share stories of their workplaces or schools or religious congregations – describe organizational dynamics that include many similarities:
People feel overloaded and completely “full.” They cannot imagine packing one more thing or one more problem into their lives.
They face increasing “time poverty” and a sense of psychological “press” in their personal, as well as in their organizational, lives. In addition, in economically challenging times, most of us aren’t as able to “buy” temporary solutions to these problems (e.g., baby-sitters, take-out food, house-cleaners) or even to “step off the treadmill” for a short time (e.g., getting a periodic massage, taking a vacation).
They have trouble understanding why their workplace/group/ congregation functions [or, more often, doesn’t function] as it does. Things have stopped making sense.
Within the organization, key groups have tended to become more polarized in the midst of growing distress. This distress and polarization are usually either palpable or undiscussable or both, and has created a deteriorating interpersonal climate.
People feel that they have exhausted their own problem-solving abilities in helping to resolve any of these situations or to make things better for themselves and for their own clients.
To resolve the specifics of individual situations, and to respond to one or more of the more common dynamics listed above, COR brings expertise and experience in the specific skills of:
Helping people tell the truth to each other about what is happening in their own situations.
Creating environments in which others listen to diverse truths in ways that bring the best parts of themselves to this effort, rather than using what is heard as a means to further manipulate their own ends.
Often, helping others find the words to describe situations that have driven their voices underground.
Teaching people about the nature of change – both human and collective – in ways that promote resilience, rather than seeking “quick-and-dirty” techniques for controlling change and other people.
Having extremely difficult conversations with others whose behaviors are perceived as harmful to the group and its efforts.
“Holding” those [individuals and groups] who are in extreme pain, whether chronic or acute, as a first step toward healing the injuries they have sustained.
Increasing trust, compassion, and personal responsibility in groups, even – or especially – in the most difficult of times.
Supporting clients to learn how to strengthen the internal health of their organization while simultaneously strengthening its productivity and the quality of its services or products.
We have taken the time to describe our approach in writing for those who are interested in the theoretical and philosophical foundations of COR’s work.
As a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization, your donations to COR are tax deductible. We rely on donations to help us provide a sliding fee scale for COR’s services to groups and organizations, as well as scholarships to educational events for individuals who otherwise might not be able to participate.
Your check or online contribution will be warmly welcomed and carefully used in support of COR’s mission.
