Change Assess Learn
Building Learning for Change
CAL Consulting works with organizations on change that lasts. The work starts from a simple observation: organizations gather a great deal of information about themselves and act on very little of it. We help close that gap by treating change as a learning process, one in which the questions come first and the methods follow.
Our philosophy. Change is not an event. It is a sequence: understand the situation, try something, see what happens, adjust. Organizations that learn this way keep improving after the consultants leave. Our role is to build that capacity, not to substitute for it.
How we work. We begin with the problem as the organization experiences it, in its own context, and with the people who live with it. We identify the tensions in the system that keep the same problems recurring. We design inquiry that fits the purpose, whether that purpose is to understand a situation, test a solution, or put one into practice. And we judge the work by what it changes, not by whether it followed a template.
Who we are. CAL Consulting is led by Dr. Kathleen M. Crowley, a methodologist with three decades in research, evaluation, and organizational learning, formerly on the faculty of The George Washington University's Organizational Leadership and Learning program. Her book, Learnment: Connecting Learning to Inquiry, is forthcoming.
Contact. Dr. Kathleen M. Crowley, kathleen@learnfromchange.com
Areas of Practice
Building Systems of Learning
Most organizations already learn. They run programs, gather data, review results, and adjust. What they lack is a system that connects those pieces, so that what is learned in one place is carried forward and built on rather than lost. We help organizations build that system.
Our approach. We start with what the organization is trying to accomplish and what it needs to understand to get there. From that, we design the sequence: how questions get asked, how answers get tested, how results reach the people who act on them, and how the next round of questions is set. The system fits the organization's work rather than sitting beside it.
What changes. Decisions rest on what the organization has learned rather than on what it assumed. Problems that used to recur get understood and resolved. And the capacity to learn stays with the organization after the engagement ends.
Strategic Planning
A strategic plan is a set of decisions about where the organization is going and what it will do to get there. Most plans fail not in the writing but in the assumptions: about the environment, about capacity, about what the organization's own information already shows. We help organizations plan on what they know.
Our approach. We begin with the organization's purpose and the questions it must answer to act on it. We work with the people who will carry the plan out, not only those who approve it. We test the plan's assumptions against the organization's own evidence before they become commitments. And we build in the means to revisit the plan as conditions change, so that it stays a working document rather than a record of what was once intended.
What changes. Priorities are clear and shared. Resources follow the priorities. The plan is used, because the people who use it helped make it and understand why it says what it says.
Stakeholder Engagement and Facilitation
The people affected by a decision hold most of the knowledge needed to make it well. They know the context, the history, and what has been tried. Engagement is how that knowledge enters the process; facilitation is how it gets used.
Our approach. We identify who holds a stake in the question, including those who are usually consulted last. We design sessions with a clear purpose, so that participants know what the conversation is for and what will be done with it. We facilitate so that the discussion produces understanding and decisions rather than a record of positions. And we close the loop, so that participants see what came of what they contributed.
What changes. Decisions are better informed, because they draw on what people closest to the work actually know. They hold, because the people who must carry them out took part in making them.
Other Offerings
Inquiry. Finding out what the organization needs to know, in the way that fits the question: understanding a situation before trying to measure it, and measuring in ways that inform the next decision.
Organizational culture. Culture is what an organization has learned about how to behave. We help organizations see what they have learned, decide what to keep, and change what no longer serves the purpose.
Leadership development. Leaders set the questions an organization asks. We work with leaders on asking better ones, on judging evidence, and on building teams that learn.
Collaborative solution design. Structured sessions in which the people who hold the problem work it through together, from understanding it to designing and testing a response.
“The world keeps changing. It is one of the paradoxes of success that things and the ways which got you where you are are seldom those that keep you there.”
– Charles Handy