Al Holmes is one of the four founding directors of SEQUUS. You can reach Al on the net at his e-mail address al_holmes@mts.net You can phone him at (204) 389-4149 . You can contact him by mail at Box 545 Winnipeg Beach, Manitoba, Canada R0C 3GO.
MEETING FACILITATION AND STRATEGIC PLANNING Al Holmes spends up to 50% of his time organizing, facilitating and reporting on strategic meetings of client groups in a wide range of sectors. Some even take place at his lakeside home in Ponemah Manitoba. (Al is the bald guy in the picture below. ) Many of these meetings are with Boards of Directors and Senior Executives who are struggling with the long term direction or re-direction of their organizations. Others are with teams and intact work groups who are need help with operational issues.
Al has developed an approach and methodology along with supporting worksheets, instruments, and reporting formats that have proven to be very popular. He has led strategic planning sessions with organizations as diverse as the huge Great West Life to the tiny Dugald Costume Museum; Manitoba Agriculture to the Manitoba Theatre Centre. In the field of education he has planned for the South Winnipeg Technical Centre and the Universities of Manitoba, Winnipeg and Brandon. In health care he counts Riverview Health Centre, the Deer Lodge Foundation, Saint Boniface Clinic, Brandon General Hospital, and the Interlake and South Westman Regional Health Authorities among his many planning clients. In the business sector he has worked with organizations as varied as Wawanesa, Keystone Ford, CNR, SAAN Stores, Infocorp, GBR Architects, CSP Foods, MTS, Westman Cable Television, Videon, Xcan Grain, the Women's Television Network, the Aboriginal People's Television Network, ACSION, OMT Technologies, Scurfield-Tapper-Cuddy, Rice Financial and Apotex.
He has helped dozens of non-profits plan including SEED Winnipeg, SEDCO of Zimbabwe, New Directions, the Manitoba Child Care Association, the Winnipeg Jazz Festival, Hope Centre, Marymound and the Ontario Metis and Aboriginal Association.
In the cooperative sector his experience ranges from individual credit unions such as Assiniboine, Kilarney, Teacher's, Hyline, Minnedosa, Tiger Hills, Melville, Vanguard, Battlefords Credit Union and Westoba Credit Unions right up to the Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan Credit Union Centrals.
He works with communities such as the Lake of the Woods Community Economic Development Association, the City of Winnipeg Safety Committee, the Winnipeg International Airpot, Tourism Winnipeg, Team Winnipeg and the former Winnipeg Economic Development Board.
He works with provincial and national associations such as the Appraisal Institute of Canada, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Pulse Canada and the Pulse Growers Association in various provinces, the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Community Futures Partners of Manitoba, the Manitoba Society of Training and Development, Manitoba Forestry Association, the Canadian Paraplegic Association, the Health Care Products Manufacturers Association, the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions, the Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters and the Manitoba Dental Association.
Al led the Manitoba government's first project in "client-focused" strategic planning in the department of Highways and Transportation; led the planning session that helped re-vitalize the Winnipeg Stock Exchange; facilitated the mid-term review of the Canada Games in Brandon and the Pan Am games in Winnipeg; led merger talks between three competing financial organizations and facilitated a conference to set research priorities for agri-business, led the last three planning sessions for the Red River Exhibition and a highlight has been a team-building session with an adolescent group of synchronized skaters.
Al was recently involved in assisting the secretariat of Caricom (the Community of Caribbean nations) with strategic planning and in training community development workers in facilitating strategic planning at the local community level in Canada
IN-HOUSE TRAINING PROGRAMS
Al has been instrumental in developing SEQUUS' capacity to meet the internal management training needs of larger employers. He has developed a series of training modules covering the full range of supervisory, management and executive training needs. These modules have formed part of the ongoing internal training programs of several major corporations including Great West Life, James Richardson, and Investor's; public service organizations such as MTS, MPIC, Manitoba Agriculture and the Bermuda Government and several non-profits. He is currently heavily involved in delivering a twelve module series for the Health Care Products Association of Manitoba. This series now has the support of CME's Manitoba Division. This series has also served as a model for QNET's new series on management in which Al leads the first three modules. Al is also a regular trainer at the Winnipeg Police Academy. Among the subject areas for which Al has fully developed, tested, and proven workshops and seminars are Performance Management, Leadership, Team Development, Creative Problem Solving, Leadership and Management, Project Management, Facilitation Skills, Consulting Skills, Managing Change, Strategic Planning, Basic Supervision, People Management Skills for Small Businesses, Managing the Non-Profit Organization, Customer Service, Diversity, Managing in the Public Sector, and "FLECstyle" the leadership model for the 21st century".
DIAGNOSTIC SURVEYS: Al took the lead in the mid 70's to develop a popular, computerized TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT NEEDS SURVEY which has been used across Canada to survey the needs of thousands of managers in dozens of organizations. And it has been translated into French and even Swahili in order to survey about 4,000 managers in the Tanzanian public service. Al has recently totally revised the questionnaire and produced several new versions including an Executive version, a Frontline Supervisor version, a Public Sector version and Non-Profit sector version. Al developed the ORGANIZATION DIAGNOSTIC SURVEY which has recently been used to gather employee input to change to two large organizations; THE BOARD DEVELOPMENT SURVEY which is used to assess board performance and establish board development plans; THE CORE COMPETENCIES SURVEY which serves as a training and development needs assessment tool for non-managerial staff; and THE MEMBER/CLIENT SERVICES SURVEY which gives clients and other key stakeholders input into strategic planning. At the individual level, the LMAQ©: Self and Other are used to assess an individual leader's strengths in leading and managing. And the FLECstyle©: Self and Other are used to diagnose leadership style preferences.
MANAGING THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION
The five day workshop "MANAGING THE NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION" has been the centrepiece of his business with non-profit organizations in Canada and around the world. The program has been institutionalized in several regions of the world, translated into several languages and has put SEQUUS into the forefront of managing training in this sector. Al developed the first workshop and has been involved in every major new development. He took the lead in writing the first manual to accompany the workshop and has written the various revisions to it. He personally was involved in bringing the program to Quebec, Africa, Indonesia, and the Caribbean. Currently he partners with Erhard Associates to deliver the program in Manitoba in June of each year.
The CONSULTING SKILLS workshop has served as a critical component of the growth of his services in several areas, most importantly, Small Business Development. Al took the lead in developing the first workshop and writing the first manual. He has delivered the workshop in several provinces of Canada for small business counselors, in South-East Asia for enterprise development specialists, in Zimbabwe for small Business counselors, in the Caribbean for development bank staff, and has adapted the program for groups as diverse as Agriculture specialists, Credit Union System Consultants, Human Resource specialists and Child Guidance professionals, and Internal Auditors. This workshop has recently been completely revised and updated. The latest client for this service is a group of internal consultants at Caricom's Secretariat in Guyana.
INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES
Al conceived, developed, piloted and institutionalized the highly successful INTERNATIONAL MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES PROGRAM that has linked senior public servants in Manitoba and the Eastern Caribbean for more than a decade. This partnership program, in which individuals with similar work responsibilities are linked around a development project has served as a model for other programs in other parts of the world. He has used the same concept to link entrepreneurs, small enterprise specialists, airport managers, and others.
PUBLICATIONS
Al enjoys writing training materials in the management field and has produced a wide variety of popular management training readings, books, instruments and manuals. His major, book-length publications includes 'CONSULTING SKILLS'; 'MANAGING AND LEADING IN THE NON-PROFIT SECTOR'; 'THE LEADERSHIP COLLECTION'; 'PROBLEM-SOLVING AND DECISION-MAKING' and 'TOWARDS EXCELLENCE IN........' which has several versions depending upon the client. Shorter publications include the Leadership/Management inventory and the Flecstyle readings as well as the Performance Management Worksheet, The Empowerment Worksheet, the Performance Problem Worksheet, Who will we Hire?,. The Project Management Game; Ideate! Create! Innovate! and Twenty Steps to a Succesful Project supplement problem-solving workshops. Numerous TEAM DEVELOPMENT INSTRUMENTS include Team Perfomance Assessment, Team Member Assessment and Feedback, The Work Re-design Worksheet, The Meeting Faciltator's Guide, and The Road to Self-Directed Workteams. STRATEGIC PLANNING tools and readings include The Strategic Planning Process, The Strategic Planning Worksheet; The New Vision Worksheet; The Life Cycle of Organizations; The Stakeholder Input Worksheet; Action Planning For a Focus Area, Planning at the Work Group Level, and Making Strategic Choices. Look for many of these products on our Shopping Page.
CURRENT PROJECTS: In the past few years, Al has been as busy as ever working on projects such as ...
Facilitating strategic planning for a number of organizations including Riverview Health Centre, the Interlake Regional Health Authority, the South West Regional Health Authority, Westoba Credit Union, the Royal Winter Fair in Brandon, the PanAm Games, the Canada Games, the Appraisal Institute of Canada, New Directions, Keystone Agricultural Producers, Manitoba Pulse Growers, Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, Alberta Pulse growers, and Pulse Canada., The Canadian Canola Growers Association, Workforce 2000, MSTD, Videon, Infocorp, Wawanesa, the Women's Television Network, the Aboriginal People' Television Network, Hyline Credit Union, Acsion, OMT Technologies, Marymound, the Red River Exhibition, the Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions, St. Boniface Clinic, HCPAM, CME, Rice Financial and Swan Valley Cabinets. ..
Designing, developing, testing and implementing an 12-module Management Development Program for the Health Care Products Manufacturing Association (HCPAM). This program is now heading into its eight year.
Instructing in the Management Development Institute's highly successful Leadership development program for manufacturers in the wood products sector pioneered by Palliser Furniture.
Teaching in the 5-day Managing the Non-Profit Organization workshops held in Winnipeg and Eastern Canada every year.
Leading a series of workshops for the Winnipeg Police Service.
Leading a series of leadership and client service workshops for Manitoba Agriculture staff .
Helping to create Prairie International, a consortium of prairie-based consultants involved in international development.·
Surveying the 6000 members of the Appraisal Institute to update their member profile and determine their response to several key strategic issues.
Surveying the staff, clients, board and management of Hope Centre Inc. to gather their input into strategic directions for the next five years.
Surveying the board members of the Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women as part of a board development process.
Surveying the 150 members of the Manitoba Society for Training and Development to assess existing and proposed services and gather input to strategic directions.
Facilitating the annual PRESIDENT'S FORUM, a meeting of all of the president's of Manitoba's Credit Unions.
Faciltating a meeting of Agri-Food industry representatives to establish research priorities to help sustain and build Manitoba's agricultural sector..
Leading workshops for younger, unemployed women and professionals as part of programs to help build their employability profiles.
Leading an annual workshop for Manitoba Hydro managers on "Leadership and Management" and "Organizational Lifecycles".
Studying the Business Development Bank of Canada's training program for new exporters (NEXPRO).
Evaluating the work of the Alzheimer Society of Manitoba.
Studying the audio recording industry in Manitoba.
Examining high-demand occupations for CME.
Teaching Consulting Skills to Internal Auditors in Manitoba and Ottawa.
Helping Ducks Unlimited develop a leadership talent development strategy.
Helping to build Consulting Skills and Strategic Planning skills at Caricom's Secretariat in Guyana.
Developing the diagnostic tools for the EMPLOYER OF CHOICE initiative of the Manitoba Government.
