Positive Impact, LLC

The Power to Thrive™

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Examples of Our Work

Examples of Our Leadership Development Work

  • Co-designed and delivered flagship program for development of nominated high potential leaders for six years as part of succession process that focused on building cross-functional capabilities for Fortune 100 Entertainment Company. 98% of all participants said they would recommend the program to others
  • Co-designed and delivered an intensive program for the top 100 leaders for three years to develop coaching capability and create a cultural shift to drive greater ownership and accountability into the organization. As a result, 36% of Vice Presidents in the corporation were promoted from other roles within the company within twelve months of program completion
  • Co-designed and facilitated a six month intensive development program for global cross-functional leaders of a technology organization undergoing rapid change.
  • Co-designed and facilitated a six month intensive development program for two years for a large semi-conductor company in conjunction with a mentoring program.
  • Designed and delivered over 100 coaching/leadership development programs to sales/customer service leadership teams of a national office products company and facilitated team development sessions with these leaders and their teams. Received a 95% facilitator effectiveness rating resulting in a 20% reduction in turnover

Accelerating Team Development

Our approach to team development builds high performance teams and accelerates development by providing members with practical opportunities to learn and apply critical capacities for team success. In addition to cognitive agility, developing emotional and relational intelligence is vital for effective team functioning, so that is a core focus of our work. Our programs are highly experiential, and our action learning approach helps teams achieve their objectives more effectively, while direct application to work makes the learning more sustainable after the program ends. Our approach to team development achieves the following objectives:

Accelerates Performance in New Teams or in Cross-Team Integrations

  • Quicker, more effective decision making
  • Clearer, more direct communication
  • Stronger collaboration
  • Greater agility

Builds Trust

  • Deepens capacity to engage in courageous conversations
  • Enhances willingness for self-disclosure
  • Provides honest, helpful feedback in the moment
  • Develops active listening skills

Sharpens the Ability of Individual Leaders to be More Effective

  • Self-insight is enhanced
  • Participants make more effective choices in relationship with others
  • Self-correcting behavior is reinforced

Creates Greater Team Impact

  • More authentic presence
  • Positive perception by others within and outside the team
  • Greater influence and personal/team accountability

Our typical work with teams combines group work, as well as a combination of peer-to-peer and/or team, and individual coaching over a specified period, from several sessions to several months. Working with the team over time helps to apply their learning and to build on what they learn. All of the group work is participative and conducted in a relaxed, confidential setting. The flow of each session is flexible based on business need/development objectives. Work outside the group sessions consists of applied exercises, reading and coaching for individual development.

Examples of Team Development Work We’ve Facilitated

  • Designed and facilitated team development process to enhance collaboration and trust between two critical teams of a leading technology company.
  • Developed a team assessment, interviewed team members, created an assessment report and facilitated a two day off-site in which a set clear set of operating agreements, collaborative expectations and communication plans were created, enabling greater efficiency, cooperation and engagement between the teams.
  • Developed Leadership Readiness Survey, designed an off-site and served as lead facilitator of a two-day Leadership Summit of twenty-five international chapter presidents of Fortune 50 IT user group with a 92% facilitator effectiveness rating.
  • Because our Integral Intelligence® leadership development work occurs in cohort learning teams, please see these results

Comments about our Team Development Work

The teachings you provided the Amylin leadership team were instrumental in making yesterday possible.—Dan Bradbury, CEO, Amylin Pharmaceuticals (Upon FDA approval of a first-in-class pharmaceutical following a one-year delay.)

When this program started, I was very skeptical. I thought, “It’s just another management training program.” The biggest value of the program was to target the areas that were my blind spots. From my past experience, I’d always been rewarded for multi-tasking, but some of the things I was doing interfered. It’s hard to get feedback about those things except in this kind of program. What’s made it so valuable is the immediacy of feedback from my peers who are also in the program. There is no fear factor or hesitancy to provide that feedback. The program has created a tool box and a network for me and the peer group experience has been extremely valuable because it’s a group that gives feedback instantaneously in a business setting.—Vice President, Life Sciences

I work well one-on-one, but this program gave me the tools to be more aware of how I show up in a group, to center myself before I go in, to notice the effect I’m having on others, to come in more relaxed and receptive and to become a better listener in team and group situations. I came into this with a lot of technical knowledge, but now I’m mentoring my direct reports to solve the problems themselves, which is helping them become more competent. The mentoring/coaching we learned in the program was very powerful. Now my time is freed up because I’m spending less time problem-solving and fire-fighting and more time strategizing.—Senior Director

I wanted to let you know how pleased I’ve been with the consulting and facilitation you have provided Customer Support Services during the past year. Your coaching, leadership development and team development efforts have enabled our managers and team leaders a critical awareness of how their management and leadership styles influence their ability to work effectively with their people. As a result, they are developing productive and effective teams more quickly. Not only have your services saved time and money, they have helped us develop a more open, supportive work environment.—Selma Vandagrift, former Vice President Customer Support Services, IKON Office Solutions

Your innovative team-building techniques have given the company and its employees great momentum and now we are growing faster than ever. Productivity has increased, employee turnover has been reduced to near zero, and a genuine team sprit now prevails. As we continue our expansion, we look forward to continued work with you to keep the team sharp and to keep management informed.—Krista Conley Lincoln, former Managing Director, Cambridge Translation Resources

Creating Cultures of Positive Change through Appreciative Inquiry Consulting

In business, often we focus on the “gaps,” on the things that are broken and need fixing, rather than on what’s working well and building from strengths. Focusing on deficits negatively impacts morale and leads to disengagement. Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an effective antidote to the negativity that impedes success in teams and organizations. AI is a powerful change management process based on the premise that people and organizations move in the direction of what they focus on. In other words, what we are curious about is fateful; whether it’s an organizational survey, a question posed by a manager or an analysis to redesign a work process.

The question we ask have consequences and asking generative questions creates potent outcomes. But in many organizations, a problem-solving mentality is the norm. Sometimes that’s appropriate, but it’s a skill that’s over-used when there’s a powerful alternative that can move us farther and faster toward the future we seek to create. What accelerates positive change is studying, adapting and replicating what already works. And that’s what we help our clients do; increase their repertoire of solutions and accelerate positive change by learning to see the world through a different lens.

Using an Appreciative Lens to Accelerate Positive Change

Problem Solving Approach             Appreciative Approach

We organize around what's broken     We organize around what's working

Strategy is to identify, analyze     Strategy is to marry the best of the
and solve problems                   past, with what’s working now with
                                     hopes for the future, and then design
                                     ways to create that reality together 

Focuses on limitations               Focuses on possibilities

Deficit based-often creates an       Generative-accelerates energy
energy drain

Using an appreciative approach in working with teams, communities and organizations offers many benefits. First, it dismantles organizational deficits such as distrust, blame, helplessness, lack of accountability, isolation and fragmentation and replaces them with hope, cooperation, mutual understanding, and a willingness to work across silos with a can-do attitude. Second, the AI process provides the tools that help people work with challenging issues and quickly resolve them. Third, this process facilitates a high degree of participation from a variety of stakeholders, so those most affected by the change are included in the process, enabling them to embrace, rather than resist it.

AI can be applied to virtually any industry, topic or situation a team or organization is grappling with including: vision, strategy, leadership, organization design, change management, decision-making, building trust, allocating resources, building teams, managing talent or improving processes.

Using an AI approach to create cultures of positive change benefits the teams and organizations we serve in the following ways by:

  • Supporting the emergence of leaders at every level
  • Saving time and money to leverage and align people throughout the organization to achieve objectives without the need for extensive external support
  • Creating opportunities for stakeholders to be involved to generate outcomes that satisfy their needs and generate loyalty
  • Improving morale, employee engagement and ownership of actions and behaviors critical to success
  • Teaching people how to discover and implement their own solutions versus handing them the answers
  • Building supportive and generative partnerships and relationships between people in organizations and the communities they serve
  • Giving people opportunities to participate in action teams that peak interest, providing a higher incidence of successful and timely completion
  • Utilizing process improvement tools in ways that are more positive, efficient and effective
  • Creating sustainable change in people, their relationships and the organizations they serve

The following are examples of some of the appreciative inquiries we’ve designed and facilitated:

In Corporations

  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Deepening Coaching Capacity: A Workshop for Global HR Leaders,” for an industry-leading Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Creating a Compelling Vision to Optimize Team Success” with the sales and marketing leadership team of a Fortune 100 “Best Places to Work” award winning life sciences organization
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “If We Build It, They Will Come: Creating and Executing a Plan for Success” for the Board of Directors of the San Francisco Hotel Council
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Crossing the Threshold to Greatness: Optimizing Cross-Team Relationships to Build a Championship Organization” for a ”Top Work Places in the Bay Area” award winning technology organization
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Talent Development: The Holy Grail of Human Resource Management” for HR West, the HR Leadership Team that includes seven west coast Johnson & Johnson companies
  • Co-designed and co-facilitated an inquiry, “The Road to World Cup: How Exceptional Teams Achieve Radical Success” for the World Cup Soccer Marketing Team at MasterCard International
  • Co-designed and co-facilitated an inquiry, “Building the Bridge as We Walk On It: A Comprehensive Approach to Leading Successful Change” for the leadership team of Prescription Solutions, a division of PacifiCare
  • Co-designed and co-facilitated an inquiry, “Being Synergy Wizards: Leveraging the Prowess of the America’s Marketing Team” for eighty members of the marketing team from the United States, Latin America and Canada at MasterCard International
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry on “Creating Exceptional Partnerships” for Regional HR Team at Wells Fargo Bank

In Health Care

  • Co-designed and co-facilitated an inquiry, “Leading Change: Creating Dynamic Organizations Through Collaborative Leadership” for 300 Presidents, Presidents-Elect and Executive Directors from medical associations from around the U.S. at the annual American Medical Association’s (AMA) President’s Forum.
  • Co-designed and co-facilitated and inquiry on “Integral Perspectives in Leadership and Medicine” for 150 young physician award winners for the AMA Foundation.
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry on “Using Appreciative Inquiry to Lead Positive Change” for the American Medical Association Board of Trustees.
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry on “Practicing Presence” for 60 health care leaders from across the US representing twenty different health care institutions at the Sage Summit
  • Designed and co-facilitated “Developing the Heart of a Leader,” appreciative leadership summits and follow-up coaching process for health care executives from around the US including over 40 Directors, V.P.’s and CEO’s from: Sharp HealthCare, North Kansas City Hospital, St. Anthony’s Hospital, Banner Health, Catholic Hospitals and Corondolet Health.
  • Co-designed and co-facilitated an inquiry on “Seeds of Change: Generating Service Excellence” for 80 members of Sharp HealthCare’s marketing team

In Government and Education

  • Designed and facilitated an Appreciative Leadership Summit with 40 community and university leaders from the City of Berkeley and UC Berkeley focusing on developing appreciative leaders for powerful public partnerships.
  • Designed and facilitated a year-long Appreciative Inquiry process involving 180 community and university leaders from the City of Berkeley and UC Berkeley focusing on creating synergistic partnerships and community engagement between the two institutions.
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry on “Creating Exceptional Companies Through Effective Organization Design” for HROD Master’s Students at University of San Francisco
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Promoting Excellence Through Community Pride and Involvement” at Willow Glen Middle School with 90 students, parents, teachers and community stakeholders from the San Jose U.S.D.
  • Designed and facilitated inquiry process for planning team of Los Rios Community College providing innovative methodology for strategic planning
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry process, “Celebrating Campbell Middle School: Leveraging Strengths to Lift Our Community Higher” for fifty staff members at Campbell Middle School
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “From No Child Left Behind to All Kids Move Ahead= YOU! Furthering Student Achievement Through Community Engagement for the teaching staff of Campbell Middle School
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry process, “Creating our Leadership Legacy: Leveraging Strengths to Elevate the Vision of CUSD” for thirty Principals, Vice Principals and Administrative Leaders of Campbell Union School District
  • Designed and facilitated an inquiry, “Winning the Academy Award for Excellence in Education! Discovering what’s Possible at Trace” for 80 parents, teachers and community stakeholders from Trace Elementary School in the San Jose U.S.D.

Client Comments about Our Appreciative Inquiry Work

You facilitated a great off-site! I was really pleased with how the day turned out. I received many compliments from the board after you left and am sure that several of the General Managers will be calling upon you to work with their teams!—Lisa Kershner, former Interim Executive Director, San Francisco Hotel Council

Donna, there has been a lot of feedback from the Board of Trustees on the interactions we had using the AI process. All have been very positive and want more!—Dr. John Nelson, President, American Medical Association

Today at the joint city/UC/neighbors and students’ roundtable we described the story of how we were able to move away from the crisis reaction model to one that was more proactive, positivistic and partnership oriented one. We unanimously agreed that the turning point that made this possible was our experience in the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) work with Donna Stoneham. Until we did that, we were all locking horns even on stuff that had nothing to do with the mega issues. AI allowed us to develop a way to work on the day-to-day operational problem solving work without those issues getting in the way. AI showed us the way to mutual self-interest and an understanding that a lot of the quality of life issues couldn’t be solved by one entity or another…it could only be done together. Sometimes you don’t realize the return on your investment until many years later, as in this case.—Participant from the UC Berkeley/UC Berkeley AI Project

I would like to express our appreciation of your expert guidance at the recent Change Management workshop introducing our team to “Appreciative Inquiry” as a method to generate positive change. We are embarking on a major expansion project that will have significant effects on our employees and management team. Ten weeks after the session, I am pleased to report that the team continues to manage the challenges well with the help of the training received. The workshop is well worth the effort for any organization looking toward positive change in their organization.—RJ Correia, Pharm.D, Vice President, Mail Service Operations, Prescription Solutions

I feel I now have the ability to go into more challenging situations and come out with a positive outcome. I’ve learned to empower my managers to go back to our clients in an appreciative way and then bring up the issues and provide solutions without being confrontational. Now the work gets done better, faster, and cheaper and we can ensure that we’re hitting the bull’s eye the first time.—Todd Miller, Vice President of Marketing, Sharp HealthCare

We worked with Donna Stoneham on an innovative partnership project that the City established with the University of California at Berkeley, a pilot on improving relationship between their senior staff and ours. We developed and led three workshop retreats for over 100 people over the course of the project, no small task given the busy schedules of all involved. This successful effort in introducing the staff groups to the fundamentals of the Appreciative Inquiry approach has led to improved negotiations on a number of ancillary projects in the last few years.—Arrietta Chakos, Assistant City Manager, City of Berkeley

Thank you for today’s wonderful retreat! Your expertise in facilitating and allowing the day to unfold is such a gift. It was one of the first times I’ve seen our staff so enthusiastic and committed to positive change in my eleven years. We’ve been through so many changes in the past ten years that celebrating staff at Gunderson was awesome. Thank you again for a day well spent.—Trish Lynch, Teacher, Gunderson High School

Donna thanks so much for facilitating the Planning Committee meeting. I was very pleased with the impact. Even with such a short exposure, people seemed to feel the energy and potential. I heard words such as “powerful,” jazzed,” and “this is the tool we have been missing.” — Nelle Moffett, Dean, Planning & Institutional Effectiveness, Sacramento City College