Enspark Blog
Innovation, Strategy, Results
Virtual Meetings: Why Meet?
By Laura Gramling, President EnSpark Consulting In the early days of the 2020 global coronavirus pandemic, organizations and communities have had to swiftly pivot from convening in-person meetings to virtual meetings. Thousands of team meetings to town halls to...
Virtual Meetings: The Right Technology Fit for Your Meetings
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting Google “virtual meeting technology” and you will get over 500,000,000 hits. That’s a lot of technology! And more technology is being created and built as more and more organizations are moving traditional in-person...
3 Quick Tips to Great Online Team Meetings
By Laura Gramling, President EnSpark Consulting 1) Connections are essential! Start with check-ins, end with key take-aways Everyone on camera 2) Straightforward and simple Focus on a few topics Keep it short, 90 minutes or less Send agendas in advance; send meeting...
Virtual Meetings: Designing the Agenda
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting All effective meetings regardless of location (in-person or virtual) require thoughtful consideration when it comes to designing the agenda. There are, however, key differences in the timing, sequencing and...
Building Rapport in Virtual Meetings
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting Over the last couple of weeks, I've been doing between 3-7 hours of virtual facilitation per day. Here's what I've found: The biggest challenge is creating rapport. As social beings, we have an innate desire to connect....
Checklist for Creating Virtual Meetings that Work!
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark ConsultingCreating great virtual meetings requires much of the same thoughtful prework you need for a great in-person meeting with some additional details. The following checklist is focused on virtual meetings of any size or...
Strategic Importance of Pivotal Meetings
Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting There are ordinary meetings and there are pivotal meetings. A pivotal meeting brings leaders together with the explicit goal of shifting the direction of your organization. It could be about taking advantage of...
Strategy Execution, Real Change that Works
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting What is needed for organizational change to stick? New conversations that inspire and inform everyone in the organization about what matters now. When there is a shift in the organization’s strategy and aspirations, we...
OD Network Interview, June 2017
I recently spoke with Jean Hartmann, Board Trustee of the OD Network about the heart of my work - supporting my clients with developing new conversations that create new actions and new results. An Interview with Laura Gramling, President of EnSpark Consulting I met...
#RealChange: Leadership Focus
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting We live into the future that we imagine, and the task is to keep focused on that vision and let that be the context for all our actions. Peter Block Leadership is about focusing on what matters. Great leaders...
Strategic Planning Reloaded
By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting Sound strategy starts with having the right goal. Michael Porter Organizations today can ill afford time, money and attention spent on lofty 5 or 10-year strategic plans. What’s needed now is focus, innovation,...
Access to Innovation
Innovation. Welcome to the new way of working. Some obvious and some not so obvious elements for extraordinary success. By Laura Gramling, President, EnSpark Consulting You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?...
