Inter-Agency Partnering - The Management Edge : The Management Edge | Dramatically Increasing Performance and Productivity

Inter-Agency Partnering in the environmental clean-up field is building Partnering teams composed of members from DOD or DOE and EPA and the state environmental agency—in other words, developing teams with members who regulate other team members. In addition, the various contractors who perform the studies of the contamination and the actual clean-up of the contamination are also members of the team. Obviously, there are issues of trust, baggage from previous interactions, differing agendas and differing goals and many opportunities to misunderstand each other. We surface these issues and enable the team to deal with them effectively.

These teams last for many years as they are mandated by Congress to clean up the environmental hazards on the Federal facilities. We provide training in the Partnering processes and principles, meeting management, communication, personality work styles (MBTI®), problem solving, decision making, conflict management and resolution, and Emotional Intelligence to all staff and managers who are members of these teams.

The Management Edge® approach to Partnering team building has been adopted as the standard approach toward Partnering in most of the Environmental Restoration field. It has been highly efficient and highly successful in moving teams through the progressive stages of team development to the “performing” and “high performing” levels, and in maintaining their performance at these high levels. The results, costs saved, costs avoided, time to completion shortened, and problems resolved informally, have been consistently documented by the teams, their management and at the Pentagon level, by all branches of DoD.

For example, our work for the Department of Energy (DOE) Hanford Reservation in the state of Washington, directly resulted in more than $240 million in documented savings in just four months, and indirectly led to ongoing savings through a complete change in the remediation standards and assumptions applied throughout the site.

Our experience in building successful high performing Partnering teams is second to none. Since 1993, the beginning of Environmental Partnering, we have built over 100 teams, consistently facilitating some teams for many years, with the same facilitator.

TME has built a strong reputation on its ability to productively build and facilitate difficult groups and issues. TME uses skilled facilitators, plus training in group dynamics, personality preference, active listening, and effective meeting management to reduce interpersonal conflict and enhance collaborative decision-making.

Partnering is a recognized form of ADR, as is mediation. TME has several consultants who are certified mediators; all have had extensive training in conflict resolution and partnering.

We provide highly skilled, professional neutral facilitators to guide these teams through their technical work and enable them to achieve their technical goals.