BACKGROUND

Jim Jones is founder and president of First Wellesley Consulting Group. The company was founded in 1991 and is a national management consulting firm based in Wellesley, MA. First Wellesley specializes in the financial services and real estate finance industries. It is a small, respected organization that partners with PriSim Business War Games in Libertyville, Illinois.

The organization is a national professional services firm that focuses on consulting, speaking and education. On the consulting side, they work nationally with companies ranging from Fortune 100 corporations to local banks and credit unions. They focus on strategy, technology and business process re-engineering. Jim is a nationally recognized speaker, invited to present at a variety of engagements within the financial and real estate industries.

THE CHALLENGE

Jim Jones and his team are hired for consulting, speaking and educational purposes. In a speaking environment, the challenge they face is how to produce a session of value for attendees and how to distinguish themselves so that they are asked back. On the consulting side, the collection and analysis of data is the heart of their business. First Wellesley needs to be swift at gathering data in an open, non-threatening forum as well as share and analyze the results in a concise and effective manner.

THE SOLUTION

Because of his work with PriSim, Jim had knowledge of audience response systems and liked the interaction and value it could add to his practice. When it came time to purchase one for First Wellesley, Jim and his team performed an online search and found Turning Technologies. Jim states that there were three main reasons for his purchase of TurningPoint. When they noticed that it seamlessly integrated with Microsoft^® products, they were compelled enough to further their investigation. The PowerPoint^® integration feature was an important aspect of the technology that they knew would be critical to success.

The second reason was TurningPoint’s wide feature functionality related to their consulting business. He saw a variety of applicable uses in organizations, educational venues and even in his office. The final selling point was the software’s detailed quality of reporting. According to Jim, “It permits you to be able to take a deep dive and see what the data tells you. Particularly when you’re looking at the responses after an event or after a consulting session, it’s incredibly valuable to roll up your sleeves and get into the data to see where it leads you.” They ultimately decided TurningPoint was the best product on the market for their needs.

CONSULTING

When consulting in the financial services industry or the mortgage finance industry, they collect a wide variety of data about the state of the industry and its short and long term future. They analyze customer preferences, technology trends, interest rate movement and many other topics. TurningPoint has been an ideal tool to gather this data from the groups he has engaged.

In a consulting engagement, Jim uses TurningPoint to gather preference data to move a client to consensus around certain decision points. By effectively identifying positions and preferences, First Wellesley can move groups to agreement. Because most of their work is cross-functional, there are many people at the table representing the interest of the organization. TurningPoint allows a voice for every person.

Another popular consulting engagement is to assist lenders in selecting new technology. Jim utilizes TurningPoint when evaluating new vendor systems, so the group we can determine and rank the quality of one vendor solution to another. He enjoys using TurningPoint’s ranking tools to visually display the process of vendor solution ranking, leading the client to important decisions.

In organizations, it is common that many people will be affected by technology purchase decisions. During these cross-functional meetings where people across an organization are in one room, it is important to instill a feeling of fairness from top to bottom and across departments. Jim’s solution: with TurningPoint, they all get a vote.

This decision-making style is important to Jim because he strongly believes that the most successful results come from a cross-functional approach where representatives from across the organization come in and have the opportunity to voice their opinion. “If you do that, you ensure that all the features and functions of the system have been examined by who will ultimately use the system, and you improve the chance that the system will be embraced and championed.” He states that if you give employees the right to vote and choose, you empower them. Ultimately, they take pride in the decisions that were made and opposition is minimized.

In addition, since participation in TurningPoint’s interactive presentations is anonymous, response bias is eliminated. “If you ask people to raise their hands, it will be their second act. Their first act will be to look around and see what other people are voting for, and they can be influenced.” Using TurningPoint as the polling tool, removes the tendency for people to feel uncomfortable voicing their opinions verbally. “When they have an instrument in their hands, then they are in control and vote each and every time anonymously. So you can literally get 100% participation and eliminate influence,” said Jim.

So what are the participants saying? Jim asserts there are two common statements, whether selecting technology or changing an aspect of the organization, he will hear two things: 1) Employees tell him that they really appreciated being included; 2) Managers note that they’ve never seen such open conversation and have had a totally different experience when trying to implement change in other ways.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Jim’s first step in a speaking engagement: create a dialog. It’s his goal to openly share and obtain information, followed by a guided discussion. “TurningPoint is the most effective tool that I’ve seen to be able to immediately obtain and display information of all attendees. Attendees absolutely love it.”

In a variety of speaking venues, Jim likes to identify where people are in their organization, where they believe the industry is going, and share best practices. He finds that people are extraordinarily impressed with the ability to immediately weigh in on an issue and see the opinion of their peers. Jim then leads a guided discussion based on the data displayed via the PowerPoint slides.

One other thing Jim is able to do through TurningPoint, which thrills attendees, is an applicable take-away. Jim often posts survey results on his website, which permits attendees to print the results and use them to substantiate their position with management. “It actually gives them an opportunity to present marketplace research within their organization. It helps sell their position within their organization to obtain their objectives,” says Jim.

CONCLUSION

TurningPoint ties directly with Jim’s philosophy of how to work with organizational change. The client always owns the problem and the solution, which leaves consultants to assist finding solutions and help with implementation.

Jim and his team currently incorporate TurningPoint in every speaking engagement, educational program, and consulting engagement. They own the RF System and the 2006 TurningPoint software, and continuously unlock new features of the software. “Our plan is to continue to incorporate TurningPoint more and more into everything that we do,” Jim concludes.

For more information about purchasing or renting a Turning Technologies’ audience response system for your organization, contact us at 866-746-3015.