Growth

Focus bands.

Focus bands provide an overarching framework to help guide you through your career at Artefact. Along with level-specific content, they help bring focus to your day to day activities, help you understand what you are accountable for, illuminate opportunities for your growth, provide clarity about the requirements for advancement and offer a starting point for you to reference when seeking feedback and having conversations with your coach.

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Craft

Doing world class work

Doing great work

coming soon...

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Craft

Doing world class work

Delivering great results

Delivering great results is a team effort and you are at the center of delivering great results by providing direction, guidance, and support to helps your team do great work. As a leader your role is to provide the necessary direction, guidance and support that helps your team to do great work, gain trust with the client (and the internal team), and help identify, support. secure and grow new strategic relationships. As a new team lead you may start by leading smaller projects. Over time your ability to provide guidance and impact quality across increasingly broad disciplines and phases and with more complex problems will grow.

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To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Connect your own discipline's strategies to a client's business, by communicating impact and value

Deeply connect cross-discipline solutions to clients' business goals

Develop a point of view and vision, centered around your discipline's landscape, trends, verticals

Guide your team in developing a cross-disciplinary project point of view and vision and provide creative direction

Identify business goals and desired outcomes, and develop solutions that address them

Propose methods and approaches, addressing business goals, outcomes, and client culture

Responsible for quality of relationship within a handful of programs

Responsible for quality of relationship across multiple strategic accounts

Seek 360 degree feedback about the work and your leadership

Help ensure everyone is seeking and getting feedback about work and their contribution

Understand your clients business conditions

Leverage your understanding of business conditions to make new connections and build new relationships

Craft

Doing world class work

Raising the bar

Quality is at the core of everything that we do at Artefact. As an executive director you are responsible for ensuring your teams' work meets and exceeds the bar across all aspects of craft, process, delivery and service. You do this by maintaining connection to projects, clients, teams and individuals; strategically intervening to inspire, set expectations, provide feedback and/or do whatever is necessary given the unique situation and people to ensure the work is the best it can be.

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For example

Strategize around Artefact's mission & capabilities across disciplines

Provide strategic guidance as needed

Ensure the team is focused on the right priorities

Understand all activities and work at an appropriate level of depth

Advocate for client needs ensuring Artefact meets or exceeds delivering on commitments

Provide constructive and actionable feedback

Inspire and challenge teams to elevate the quality of thinking and execution

Recognize when a major shift is necessary and provide strategic leadership to see it through

Craft

Doing world class work

Delivering on the vision

Your role is to champion the vision, devise strategies, and activities to help us achieve it, and take appropriate actions within the business in light of the priorities that the vision demands.

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For example

Listen to signals that influence or challenge Artefact's vision, help to hone the vision, and communicate it consistently, both internally and externally.

Establish practices/policies that align us to our vision and strategy, and that ensure quality

Consistently communicate to the studio about our priorities

Lead development of new offerings and methods

Provide feedback and guidance to individuals and teams to inspire quality

Participate in business development, and inform proposals to ensure positive outcomes and alignment with Artefact's vision

Lead high-priority organizational initiatives (rocks)

Promote new ideas in the world, through speaking engagements or writing

Process

Getting things done effectively (and with health in mind)

Getting things done

You play a critical role in helping deliver. This starts with a team and feedback-oriented mindset that helps you make and deliver on commitments. You will do this by managing your time and priorities effectively, proactively seeking feedback, being dependable and reliable, raising issues and sharing ideas about how you might best help the team. Over time you will become central to the creation of sound plans, you will anticipate and mitigate risks both for yourself and the team at large that will help your team operate with maximum efficiency.

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Process

Getting things done effectively (and with health in mind)

Leading healthy teams

Healthy teams are ones with a balanced focus on quality, productivity, morale, and growth. As a team leader your role is to determine and lead the day-to-day activities to ensure this balance is consistently met. At first, you will lead teams with people most near to your core discipline and/or may need support from others; you may not have all of the answers, however you can still succeed by monitoring your teams' health and seeking help when needed. Over time, you will gain confidence and independence in maintaining project (both internal and external) health despite the challenges that increased scope and complexity bring, always with an eye on elevating Artefact's reputation and scope.

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To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Foster interdisciplinary collaboration

Proactively bring in other disciplines to strategically drive quality

Mentor colleagues from the same discipline on project work

Mentor colleagues across disciplines on project work

Help team to set clear expectations, creates an organized and efficient division of work with clear roles & responsibilities

Accurately estimate a project's size and help to develop multidisciplinary project plans

Understand, monitor, and communicate project profitability internally with the ECD

Adjust the project plan to better align to project objectives

Facilitate critique within the team

Proactively communicate trade-offs to your clients, and recommend preferable solutions

Partner with the ECD to lead programs

Facilitate senior-level client communications, represent Artefact in capabilities and presentation meetings

Seek out ways to raise the bar of quality around strategy and business alignment

Drive interdisciplinary programs to raise the bar of quality around strategy and business alignment

Process

Getting things done effectively (and with health in mind)

Creating the conditions for success

Achieving goals requires teams to be set up for success. As an executive director, you are responsible for ensuring that teams are set up for success to achieve goals around quality, profitability, and team health. You do this by 'leading from behind' - having maximum impact with the lightest touch: Like a shepherd, you are not always hands-on and predominant, but you are always there. You do not constantly lead the way, but you have intent and ideas and are making both known. If there is a threat or an urgent situation, you are ready and equipped to help deal with the situation.

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For example

Help to establish best practices

Ensure that project plans set Artefact up for success

Determine the high level process and work with the lead to adjust as necessary

Drive process innovation by bringing new methods and concepts to different practices

Advocate for resourcing that is optimized for individuals, teams, and Artefact as a whole, connecting the needs of the business to the skills and passions of individuals and teams

Secure the right team and prepare them for a successful project start

Understand how each lead and team is different and adapt your contribution and leadership style accordingly

Ensure clarity regarding roles and responsibilities between project lead, ECD, and AD

Set ambitious but achievable goals for your teams

Provide oversight, support, and mentorship for the project lead

Monitor activity to understand risks that might affect quality/profitability/team health and Intervene to help correct imbalances if and when necessary

Ensure the people are doing the right things on the project and in presentations

Facilitate learning from past Artefact projects and/or other outside sources

Align skills to tasks considering both quality risk factors and individual growth

Process

Getting things done effectively (and with health in mind)

Ensuring business health

Your role is to monitor the health of the business, participate in high level decision-making, and take appropriate actions to help Artefact achieve our business goals.

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For example

Participate in weekly Leadership Team meetings

Make key decisions about how we utilize resources, respond to opportunities, etc.

Help to identify new opportunity areas, in the form of potential business verticals, topic areas, client prospects, etc.

Participate in leadership discussions and decision-making related to business health

Maintain an awareness of business health, and make adjustments as necessary

See opportunities for improvement, and take action to improve performance

Service

Being a great partner

To make great work come to life we must be great partners. While others more senior on the team may take the lead in managing stakeholders and driving high level strategy, as a member of the team, everything you do has the ability to build understanding, add or detract from the experience, and ultimately influence success. Beyond demonstrating professionalism, that starts with developing empathy, active listening, engaging to understand needs and perspectives and eventually leads to your ability to inspire and elevate perspectives. Over time your expertise will be relied on as a key to project success.

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Service

Being a great partner

Guiding partners to success

As consultants our primary ability to create impact is through our clients and/or stakeholders, therefore your ability to effectively guide people towards success is essential. As a representative of Artefact, everything you do has the ability to add or detract from the relationship. Beyond demonstrating professionalism, your role is to engage appropriately to grow a client's confidence in Artefact and the work we do. As you grow, you develop ways to become a trusted advisor to our clients, by effectively building a deep understanding of client needs and potentially unarticulated concerns they may have. You utilize strong storytelling methods in your presentations to strengthen the credibility of the work relative to our clients' near and long term needs.

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To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Build trust with clients

Clients fully trust and look to you for advice regarding current and future projects, neighboring topics and other aspects of their work.

Lead effective client meetings

Effectively influence to achieve desired outcomes

Identify & raise potential changes to the project's scope

Prepare and lead milestone client meetings (e.g. kickoff, final presentation)

Support business development activities

Lead scope change negotiations with clients

Participate in capabilities presentations

Lead significant parts of business development activities

Provide feedback on proposals

Lead proposal writing & delivery

Listen and hear client feedback

Interpret what is said to understand what is meant and/or needed

Set appropriate context and present work with clarity and confidence

Employ strong storytelling skills to deeply connect the work to clients' near and long term needs

Service

Being a great partner

Being a trusted advisor

The more clients trust you, the more they will seek your advice, be inclined to accept and act on your recommendations, bring you in on more advanced, complex, strategic issues, and share information that helps you (and Artefact) to help them, and improves the quality of services. As a trusted advisors to your clients, you place a higher value on maintaining and preserving the relationship itself than on the outcomes of the current transaction, financial or otherwise.

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For example

Become a trusted advisor to your clients by establishing credibility and reliability, by focusing on personal relationships, and by being client-oriented.

Credibility: You excel at two things in building credibility: you anticipate needs, and speak about needs that aren't being articulated. You tell as much truth as possible, without harming others. You don't tell lies or exaggerate. Ever. If you don't know something, you say so.

Reliability: You give your clients the repeated experience of links between promises and action, or the repeated experience of expectations fulfilled.

Personal relationships: You deliver messages to your clients without coddling/polishing them. You disagree without being disagreeable. You find the fun and fascination in each of your advisor/client relationships. In building a close relationship with your client, one of you has to make the first move, and it's you!

Client-Orientation: You have a predilection to focus on the client, rather than on yourself, you have enough self confidence to listen without prejudging, enough curiosity to inquire without supposing an answer, and the willingness to see the client as co-equal in a joint journey and as an individual, not as a person filling a role.

Understand your clients' business, including industry, brand, organizational and group objectives and strategy, as well as company values and culture

Through this understanding, you can represent your client's POV to drive thinking & rationale and to provide strategic thought leadership

Develop new and maintains existing business relationships on behalf of Artefact

Foresee potential risks in the client relationship and provide help to ensure it remains strong

Step in to guide conversations as needed to ensure there is confidence in the team and work

Proactively identify opportunities for extending the work that are strategically aligned to the client's needs

Effectively represent Artefact to increasingly sophisticated audiences

Effectively lead business development activities; evaluate opportunities, understand needs, define approaches, author & deliver proposals

Effectively redirect client when they are off track

Service

Being a great partner

Establishing strategic relationships

Your role is to model best practices for how we establish and maintain strategic relationships, to ensure that our behavior as a firm is grounded in empathy for client needs and focused on their success.

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Community

Making the whole better

Engaging in the Artefact community

We all have a role in making Artefact the best it can be, and it starts with getting involved. At first you will engage simply by participating; making new connections and getting exposure to new perspectives. You may see opportunities for improvement along the way which you are encouraged to share with an optimistic/problem solving mindset. Over time you will take a more active role in driving the Artefact community by facilitating inclusion and taking a more active role in initiatives that help make us better.

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Community

Making the whole better

Contributing to the Artefact community

A healthy and engaged community is essential to ensuring Artefact is a best place to work. As a leader involved with many individuals and groups, you are naturally positioned to make a significant impact. In addition to coaching, you will do this via your contributions to recruiting top talent, by initiating and leading initiatives and pursuing thought leadership that enhances our process and culture and by serving as a positive cultural force helping to align leadership with individuals.

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To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Leads small scale initiatives that impact profitability and/or make Artefact a best place to work

Leads medium scale initiatives that impact profitability and/or make Artefact a best place to work

Sought after for subject matter expertise, both internally and with clients

Participates in speaking engagements

Contributes to discipline growth goals

Identifies opportunities to define discipline growth goals

Helps with initial vetting of candidates

Coaches both within and outside disciplines

Participates in 2:1 candidate interviews

Leads 1:1 candidate interviews

Leverages new tools, techniques, and technologies for Artefact

Contributes to the professional discourse through thought leadership (articles, conference talks) or concepts

Actively and constructively provides feedback and insights about overall Artefact community health to leadership.

Relates information about strategic initiatives from leadership to the wider organization.

Community

Making the whole better

Creating Artefact communities

Artefact can only be a world-class firm, if team members of all ranks have the same understanding of vision, objectives, and of the immediate tasks at hand, and if they all collaborate as one to achieving the company's goals, big and small. You serve as the connective tissue between Artefact's core leadership and the wider organization.You effectively work with the core leadership team to improve Artefact, you lead sizable internal initiatives, groups, and teams, and you provide leadership within your discipline.

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For example

Maintain a pulse on the organization and relay key insights to the leadership team

Help connect company initiatives to the wider organization by communicating and adding context to what leadership is thinking/working

Identify and proactively help to fill organizational gaps

Responsible for discipline leadership & health; you define growth goals for your discipline and provide resources and support to help the group thrive

Help connect your discipline to others at Artefact to improve efficiency, collaboration, mutual understanding, and the overall experience for all

Lead medium-to-large scale initiatives that impact profitability, make Artefact the best place to work, and increase Artefact's visibility in the industry

Community

Making the whole better

Sustaining our culture

Your role is to model Artefact's culture, based on the values that guide our behavior, and to take action if you notice behaviors that are misaligned to our values.

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Growth

Growing self & others

Mastering knowledge & skills

Opportunities for growing knowledge and skills are plentiful as you work on mastery of your craft and becoming a great consultant. Everyone's growth path is unique, however the common denominator to a successful journey is a learning mindset fueled by feedback, self reflection and the willingness to ask for help. In addition to the tools Artefact provides, you should proactively seek feedback from others at all levels and with a variety of perspectives and frequently releflect to consider how you might continue to grow using your coach to guide you in understanding context and help you set and achieve your goals.

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Growth

Growing self & others

Helping others grow

Growth via a focus on career development is essential to employee engagement. Beyond retention, it enabling us to deliver on our professional and personal goals. As a leader there are many opportunities to help others grow. In addition to growing practitioners mastery of craft and process within the context of the work, you help individuals grow, by connecting their skills and interests to the needs of the business, and regularly providing them with actionable feedback.

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To start (Junior)

Over time (Senior )

Frequently self-reflects on their own skills and performance

Seeks understanding about blind spots

Proactively and regularly seeks feedback about what is working and opportunities for improvement

Keep seeking feedback. In addition, know how to leverage strengths & work around known weaknesses

Coach others that are more junior, either within your discipline or within analogous disciplines

Proactively manage long-term goals and growth areas

Seek out new tools, techniques & methods to improve your work

Seeks out new tools, techniques & methods to improve your teams' work

Starts to identify skill gaps with others and appropriately helps create awareness for them

Outline career paths and growth for individuals within their discipline relative to their passions, skills, and the needs of Artefact

Maintain awareness of individual team member's career and growth aspirations and provide relevant feedback and guidance

Growth

Growing self & others

Helping grow the next generation of leaders

While individual growth might seem most important for Artefact colleagues that are earlier in their careers, helping more experienced colleagues to grow in their careers, is not only critical for Artefact's continued success, it is also a task that requires experience to accomplish. And that's where you come in! You help other leaders in the company to better do their jobs, to expand their horizons, and to keep them motivated through a steady and continuous growth at Artefact.

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Growth

Growing self & others

Sustaining employee growth

Your role is to support the creation of a learning organization at Artefact, and to develop current and future leaders.

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Focus bands.

Select a focus to get started...

Individual focus

You might be a...

Team focus

You might be a...

Portfolio focus

You might be a...

Organization focus

You might be a...

Organization

Portfolio

Team

Individual

Doing great work

To start (Placeholder)

Over time (Placeholder)

Delivering great results

To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Raising the bar

For example

Delivering on the vision

For example

Getting things done

To start (Placeholder)

Over time (Placeholder)

Leading healthy teams

To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Creating the conditions for success

For example

Ensuring business health

For example

Being a great partner

To start (Placeholder)

Over time (Placeholder)

Guiding partners to success

To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)

Being a trusted advisor

For example

Establishing strategic relationships

For example

Engaging in the Artefact community

To start (Placeholder)

Over time (Placeholder)

Contributing to the Artefact community

To start (Associate Director)

Over time (Senior Director)