What We Do

Parr James & Associates is a South African Organisation Development consultancy that enables organisations to take the economic and social challenges of the 21st century in their stride.

We add the most value when the leaders' bold vision requires people to think differently and connect with others more powerfully to surpass existing standards of performance. If your strategy demands novel solutions to more complex problems and more intelligent decision-making across the board, our leadership development, change management and cultural transformation initiatives can make this happen faster and less painfully.

Since Parr James & Associates (previously Parr Lamond & Associates) was established in 1987, we have worked with over 50 organisations, from financial services to manufacturing concerns, legal firms to NGOs. We have helped start-up businesses and multinational corporations, single-site enterprises and international conglomerates.

We draw on research and models from the constantly-evolving field of Organisation Development and combine it with our wealth of experience.

Our end result is a process that:

  • Is linked to your strategy
  • Is designed to your needs as well as to your budget and
  • Has a sustainable impact on your business.

We help you to create a performance culture, by developing inspirational leaders, synergistic teams and resourceful people. Long term, your competencies and your culture are sustained by aligning your HR systems and processes.

A Performance Culture

Your enterprise needs people who think of themselves as owners. Owners keep one eye on the market, and the other on delivery. They are technically talented and psychologically robust - adaptable, realistic and energetic. Ownership is developed by engaging everyone in the drive for achievement because they find it personally rewarding to do so.

Inspirational Leaders

You need leaders to be on top of their game, alert to complexity and capable of guiding the growth and sustainability of your business. They must be the coaches who support their people and simultaneously challenge them to strive and learn. This extraordinary task takes imagination, human insight, a firm grasp on reality and, above all, courage. We guide and coach your leaders so that they can guide and coach your people.

Creative Teams

Your enterprise needs break-through ideas and people who are determined to strive together to create something that’s new and ingenious. Balancing individual effort with team achievement produces astonishing results. We help teams to understand and manage their dynamics and align their unique skills.

Resourceful People

Your organisation's potential for greatness depends on the mental and emotional resourcefulness of all its people. We equip them to bring new thinking to emerging problems and deepen their emotional intelligence and maturity.

Change Resilience

Competitive demands make change obligatory for business survival. But people protect themselves from change because it leaves them feeling incompetent or worse, powerless.

Our change management processes resolve these apparently irreconcilable drives. We make the economic drivers of change clear and the strategic benefits obvious, while encouraging people to learn the necessary new skills and build the relationships that build resilience and flexibility.

Aligned Systems and Processes

Effective performance comes not only from a change in mindsets and heartsets, but also through policies, systems and processes that support the new ideals. We objectively analyse your people management procedures to ensure that they are aligned and supportive of your drive for exceptional performance.

We have yet to encounter two companies that require exactly the same services. As a result, we always deliver solutions that are customised to your needs. These needs fall into five logical categories:

Human Capital Strategy

Our visioning and values process helps your Executive Team to create an enlivening image of the future as well as the guidelines for thinking and behaviour. We follow up with a planning intervention that defines how your business will close the gap between the present and a magnificent future.

  • Future First: With this intervention, we assist leaders to clarify what kind of organisation they need to create to achieve their strategic intent. We help them to develop a compelling purpose that every member of staff can identify with and to articulate the values, attitudes and behaviour that will characterise the company

In addition, we offer the following workshops to enable people throughout the organisation understand and personally engage with the vision and shift their thinking about successful enterprises.

  • Mind the Gap: A short workshop for people throughout the organisation to understand the vision and the strategies to achieve it. This provides opportunities for conversation and leaves people excited by the image of the future.
  • Global Mindshift: A two-day introduction to the economic and social realities of doing business in the 21st century. The workshop helps people understand the increasing complexity of business and offers them a powerful model, Systems Thinking, for thinking constructively about it.

LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

We offer a variety of interventions to suit managers at different stages in their career. These processes always begin with preparatory interviews to ensure that the content is relevant and appropriately pitched. Each intervention is completed by a one-day, follow-up workshop three months later.

  • Signature Leadership: This process is designed for executive and senior leaders. It consists of four, off-site workshops and four individual coaching sessions to shape leadership thinking and develops both consciousness and skill
  • The Power to Lead: This process consists of two, two-day workshops and an intervening coaching interview . It helps women in management get to grips with the particular challenges in taking on roles previously held mainly by men.
  • The Leadership Incubator: This process consists of three, two-day workshops and three coaching sessions, during which high-potential mangers develop the fundamental competence to lead others.

CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT

Our qualitative culture assessment reveals people's perceptions of the context in which they work and explores the major factors that influence the way work gets done together. To help you develop a culture that encourages accountability and creativity we provide the following interventions:

  • Recovery2Reinvention: This comprehensive process enables leaders, invigorates teams and develops emotional maturity in individuals
  • The Vitality Process: An intervention for all employees that encourages them to see themselves as stakeholders in the success of the business and develops their personal capacity to contribute

Individual and Team Development

We offer coaching to enable leaders and to enrich intact teams. Our focus is the development of group emotional intelligence.

  • Coaching leaders: We combine assessments and 360° feedback with regular one-one-one sessions with our clients.
  • Transformational Teams: In two, two-day workshops, teams clarify purpose, develop insight into their dynamics and build enriching interpersonal relationships. They also deal with team-specific issues and develop the maturity to rise to future challenges.

CONTINUOUS LEARNING PROCESSES

We provide customised processes that help create a learning culture.